A depressed woman has lost her benefits because her insurance agent found Facebook photos where she appears to be having fun.
CBC reports:
A Quebec woman on long-term sick leave is fighting to have her benefits reinstated after her employer’s insurance company cut them, she says, because of photos posted on Facebook…She said her insurance agent described several pictures Blanchard posted on the popular social networking site, including ones showing her having a good time at a Chippendales bar show, at her birthday party and on a sun holiday – evidence that she is no longer depressed, Manulife said.
While Canada has a magical health care system where a unicorn wearing a blue pocketed shirt shows up at your door and your benefits stream out its mouth in a Care Bear rainbow, the fairy dust apparently does not extend to their private insurance market.
In any event, depression is an illness diagnosed by doctors, not by desk jerks conducting amateur “photographic analysis.”
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I bet losing her benefits put her into a deep depression.
. . . and somewhere there are photographs of the insurance agent being a jackass.
I’m wondering were these benefits being paid by Manu were workmens comp or social security type disability benefits . I don’t think these were actual medical treatment benefits . That would explain how someone under Canadien Health Care could loose their benefits .
This is one reason I refuse to buy those ‘ if you are unable to work insurance ‘ that many credit cards offer . I knew someone who was elidgable to collect and the amount of paper and letters he had to produce was insane .
And you guys want the government overseeing healthcare?
Well if she wasn’t depressed maybe she is stupid. A little common sense should have “lit” up in her brain to tell her that just maybe her pictures would give her away? Gee,,,maybe? I mean, when you rob a bank, you don’t go around giving out dollar bills and posting your picture in the news. As a lawyer told me before I began law school for lesson #1: “everybody lies, especially your client”. This woman lied and got caught.
If she is too depressed to work and is collecting benefits, then why is she well enough for all that other stuff? I agree that a person who can get out and about and have all that fun shouldn’t be collevting disability b/c they can’t work.
I don’t know… Manulife is the most easy going insurer in Canada. To get denied, you need more than few pictures on Facebook.
Even in the article, Manulife says that these pictures were an additional factor to other information they’ve had.
So I’m siding with the insurance company here…
One of the things I noticed is that not too many are complaining that the insurance company went into a private facebook account for the pictures .
I am also wondering if her employer (IBM) asked the insurance company to investigate her claim . Apparently she has been out a while .
One last thing she said she notified the insurance company BEFORE she went on a trip ? Is this disability claim that conditional ?
I sight this as: reasons why you don’t make your profile public. Seriously, lock down your page to keep perspective employers and anyone else who does not belong from viewing your myspace/facebook pages.
CompyPaq is correct. And Ben Popken is either ignorant, not funny, or both.
Some day individuals will learn not to post information to Facebook, etc that they don’t want the world to see. If you are sick or claiming to be sick, don’t do anything that can be used against you. By all means stay from social networks.
@ubermex: Maybe her photos showed up as advertisements for anti-depressent medicines.
@ubermex: Perhaps someone with an unlocked profile posted a picture that she was tagged in? I’m not sure if the security settings block those as well, but that might have been one way someone could have seen it.
@Chumas: I’m betting it was either that or one of her friends or her apps sold her information.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Yeah, I was curious about that, too. But if she was depressed enough that she was getting long-term disability, maybe there is some (vague) claim to validity to this?
@l951b951: amen to your amen
@delphi_ote: That’s not really the same thing. Many, many people are able to function perfectly fine with depression if it is above a reasonable level. Is she doing well enough to work?
@delphi_ote: Well, since they ARE still covering her medication, i don’t think it’s anything like either of those things.
It is much MORE like the case where a person sues for being unable to walk, and then out comes video of them dancing at their cousin’s wedding.
@delphi_ote: I have to agree. The ability to look happy for a picture on a vacation or be good for one night out does not mean you are cured of depression.
I have a friends that has a series of bad medical conditions that I took on a once in a lifetime vacation. Did all of the prep-work, wheelchairs, medicines checked through customs, accessible hotels, frequent rests, etc to make sure that it could be a good time for them. It was and is a huge battle with social security that she MUST be okay to work if they could go away for 5 days.
People are only allowed to be sick as long as they are always miserable. I hate this attitude towards the ill.
@delphi_ote:
As others have mentioned, it is her Long Term Sick leave (disability) that was rebuked, not her treatment of depression. If you can point out where it says she is no longer receiving medication, I will bow out, but I didn’t see it anywhere. (Did only skim though) Don’t know about Canada, but in the US, you typically need to prove that you are unable to perform the base functions of your job to qualify for the benefit. So if she is too sick to work, should not she also be too sick to go clubbing? To reiterate, her treatment seems to be ongoing, she just needs to find a job.
@melking: Triple amen to that
@Kishi: That’s why I’d like to know what the criteria are. If you have to be literally too sick to participate in normal life to get long-term disability for depression, then the photos present a real problem. (Although how the company got the photos is also a problem.) If it’s a determination made by a doctor based on his expertise that she should not return to work, that’s a different question again.
And if this long-term disability benefit is a private insurance benefit, would the long-term disability have to have been a result of the job, like worker’s comp? Does the specific job make her depressed? (And if that’s the case, has she tried to find different work? If it’s all work, should one employer be on the hook?)
I guess I just am curious about a lot more of the specifics behind the system and how one qualifies for it, and who’s making that decision, and so on. (And some of my interest is purely academic, since I’ve recently become more professionally involved in worker’s comp-type issues, so I’m interested in learning about it generally.)
Which does remain an entirely separate question from getting into someone’s private, protected photos online, which is skeezy regardless.
@h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes: If you have your photos set to private, ANY photo that you are tagged in will be private, no matter where it is posted on the site.
@marsneedsrabbits: +1
@squinko: Good to know. I’m always paranoid about those little loopholes, although so far nothing incriminating has surfaced.
@ubermex: I wonder if one of her ‘friends’ thought she was taking advantage or just wanted to get back at her for something unrelated and provided the pictures to the insurer.
@Lez Lemon: HA! Is that still around???
@JiminyChristmas: You are correct.
It’s Friday and I’m just thankful my brain is working at all. :-/
But, the younger you are, the better the chances for affording long term care insurance.
Man! I hate it when I use the wrong word.
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): The insurance company could have hired a private investigator to track information on her. It happens all the time in the warehousing industry. Someone claims to have been injured at work and goes on Workman’s Compensation (or FLMA, whichever method they so choose). After a period of time, suspicions are aroused that the worker isn’t being entirely truthful regarding their claim (either a co-worker or a disgruntled friend is usually responsible for raising the suspicions). The company will then contact the insurance carrier (or if its an FLMA-claim, they will act on their own behalf) and, in turn, a private investigator will contracted to investigate the person. Within days they usually turn up something that is suspect and that’s all there is to it. I’ve seen it happen 5 times in my adulthood and each time I had to shake my head in disbelief that these people were that careless and blatant in their dishonesty…one guy was actually caught building a deck when he was supposed to be out due to complications from a shoulder injury…really, a deck?
@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): I’m no expert so I’m sure someone will correct me somewhere, but this is what I know.
The criteria is that your ailment renders you unable to fulfill your work duties. If you are somewhat still able, (for instance, a broken leg to someone on their feet all day) your employer can reassign you to light duty behind a desk while you recover. With depression, it’s more than “I’m sad.” While symptoms and their effects are diverse, it would have to be crippling to the point where getting up each day is too much, or you’re generally unable to control your emotions, or your work reliability and performance suffers/is non-existent.
Your doctor is provided a list of your duties and provides enough information why you’re unable to do them. Your benefits last not until you have fully recovered, but until you are well enough to return to those duties. Again, for depression, if the treatment makes them capable of being productive on a regular basis, they may be returned to work. In some cases, a limited, part-time return to work could be beneficial to restoring self-esteem to a depression patient, so they can feel productive and useful again.
The Canadian system has private coverage, typically through your employer, as well as each province’s own healthcare program. (Coverage varies in each province, but I believe all have their own disability programs.) If you don’t have private insurance or it doesn’t cover something, and the provincial one does, you can go that route. In either situation, the decision for benefits comes from your doctor convincing whichever insurance claims rep that you’re unable to work.
@katstermonster: I have a few friends with pictures that number in the hundreds, but if you actually click on the link to look at their pics, the number drops significantly. What’s the point of the option to keep photos tagged of you private if they actually don’t?
@Techguy1138: This. You summed up what I was about to say very nicely. [Good thing I read ALL the comments before posting =P]
@Rachacha: Right, because people who with chronic depression never have good days, just as people WITHOUT chronic depression never have bad days.
I’m not saying you’re right, but really…your comment is just one big logical fallacy.
@Rachacha: Well, uh… maybe. I’d just like the throw it out there that the best cure for depression is still to sit at home, alone with a bottle of jack and your favorite side arm listening to trucker country. Preferably with the lights off. A day at the beach isn’t going to help anyone.
@Rachacha: How do you know she hadn’t saved that money up before going on sick leave, and decided “Hey now that I’m freer to confront my own problems, I can finally take a vacation and enjoy it.” Also most physicians who know something about depression would encourage behavior like going on vacation, outdoors no less with sun exposure, as that’s just good for your brain.
@Rachacha: As someone who has chronic depression, this is what people with chronic depression are encouraged to do. Do you really think staying at home crying is how you get out of a depression?
@subtlefrog: If you are well enough to go on a vacation you are well enough to not be given government money so you don’t have to do any work. They arent saying “oh shes not sick”, theyre saying “she is functional, she could be working.”
@squinko: That’s not what I’m talking about. Say your friend has a party and takes pictures of you. They post an album, say “Pictures from my Party,” in which you are tagged. If someone goes to your friend’s pictures page and clicks on the album itself (aka not the tagged photos of your friend), they can still see THE ENTIRE ALBUM, even if they are not friends with you. They can see that you are tagged, although your name is (I think) not clickable. Or even if they can’t see you are tagged, they can clearly figure out it’s you if they know you.
The phenomenon you’re talking about happens when someone locks an album so that only their friends can see it. For example, my ex’s sister did this. She tagged me in photos that were included in the count on my main page, but when you clicked on my pictures, they weren’t included in the count and you couldn’t see them unless you were her friend as well.
@Cyberxion101: that question may never be answered by her though.
I’m not going with either side here since I’ve seen terrible things from both the insurer and the insured in these situations, but if you are on disability/claiming injury….don’t take photos of you doing stuff that people would wonder about and then put them online. I’m not saying she’s fine to work if she can go to strip club (vacationing on the beach is a bit questionable) but I am saying that she should think before advertising it.
We also don’t know if they maybe found anything else out about her.
@pdj79: We know nothing about her career. I’m a Financial Planner, I went on Short Term Disability with my depression twice because I had issues with depression. I could not see myself 2 days in the future, how could I help someone 10, 20, 30 years or more.
Not saying the insurance company doesn’t have the right to investigate I just disagree that depression can’t be a long term disability.
There are many careers out there that depression could have a major impact. But I’m glad your condition is manageable.
@The Porkchop Express: Anachronism might have needed a friend to take them to the doctor and even go in with them. I can’t imagine it’s a good idea to drive while in that kind of pain.
@Dyscord: I don’t think that the issue is saying that she is not depressed, they are saying that someone who was apparently so depressed that she needed to take an extended leave of absence (and receive payment for a year and a half) to deal with her depression is not well enough to work, but is well enough to party.
Kind of like when you were a kid, and you told your mom you were “sick” (because you did not want to go to school). I don’t know about your mom, but when I stayed home “sick” I was on teh couch doing nothing but resting and sleeping. If I got up and was playing with my toys, I would be in the car and on my way to school because I was not really “sick” (or at least not sick enough to stay home).
The circumstances suggest that if she is well enough to go on vacation, and to a strip club etc. she is well enough to go back to work.
@Rectilinear Propagation:
I have friends at my appointments because I’m spending much of my life living with sudden onsets of blurred vision, extreme dizziness, altered consciousness, etc. The medications also have made me do things like forget where I am and where I am going, so its not a good idea for me to drive, or to not have somebody with me when getting medical advice- I don’t remember anything.
Then again, I’ll have a few hours in a day where things will lighten up a bit and I may be able to go out and do things, which my doctor wants me to do. Heaven forbid somebody sees me do this and assumes this is my level of functionality, not unlike the person this article is about.
Of course, this is assuming that the person in the article IS still incapacitated, and not just milking disability.
@Jon Mason: Do you want a depressed doctor or dentist working on you? Depression is just not sadness. Vacation does not equal normalcy. She may be trying to lift herself out of the mood she is in based on doctor’s orders.
@Jon Mason: Here, here.
@JGKojak: That’s the wonderful thing about insurance companies: they don’t prove jack to justify their decisions.
@liquidnumb: I respect what you did there.
@Tiaris: I’ve been a long term caregiver for a chronically ill person. There is a lot both you learn as you go on. I can’t imagine why when someone is diagnosed with something chronic they aren’t immediately given a prescription for psychiatric help
@Rectilinear Propagation: And watching a loop of Bambi’s mama being shot.
@ctnchrisw:
I agree.
I have suffered from severe depression and also have a severe generalized anxiety disorder. They should be encouraging her to go out and try to enjoy herself. Doing so can help her.
Having chronic depression does not mean that you can’t smile or laugh. You would think intelligent people would know this.
@venomroses: That’s the thing with this . It’s not about treament it’s about working or not/a disability claim .
Now this was private insurance but in Canada is there anything like government subsidized social security ?
I’ve had jobs where the stressed out or depressed got transferred to more regular office work . But the key word was tranferred ; they got away from what might have been part of their problem .
The thing I’m puzzle with here is that they apparently had to hack into her facebook account ? Or someone esle turned her in ? She ticked someone off .
@JiminyChristmas: @foofur: I’ve been through this rigamarole myself, quite recently, with a condition every bit as difficult to assess by photo as hers. I’m still in the lurch-stage where I am at least 90% of what I historically have been, but still under/unemployed, and receiving disability benefits. Progress on a lot of conditions isn’t linear or very clear-cut. Maybe doing her job as a form of therapy doesn’t let her function in her job as she needs to.
@Brontide: From the linked article, it sounds like the photos aren’t the only grounds for yanking the benefits:
Manulife wouldn’t comment on Blanchard’s case, but in a written statement sent to CBC News, the insurer said: “We would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook.”
It sounds like they had other evidence that led to the cancellation, but everyone’s focusing on the Facebook photos because that adds more drama and sensationalism to the story.
@nstonep:
You stay classy, nstonep.
@AK47:
DING DING DING.
What, a Consumerist headline focusing on drama ans sensationalism? NEVER.