An attending physician statement (APS) is a report by a

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

, hospital or

medical facility A health facility is, in general, any location where healthcare is provided. Health facilities range from small clinics and doctor's offices to urgent care centers and large hospitals with elaborate emergency rooms and trauma centers. The num ...

who has treated, or who is currently

treating :''This is an article about treating in the sense of provision of food, drink, and refreshments for a person or group of people. For treating in the context of social dating, see treating (dating).'' Treating is the act of serving food, drink, and ...

, a person seeking

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

. In traditional

underwriting Underwriting (UW) services are provided by some large financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and investment houses, whereby they guarantee payment in case of damage or financial loss and accept the financial risk for liabili ...

, an APS is one of the most frequently ordered additional sources of medical background information. The APS is one of the more expensive underwriting requirements, as well as the most time consuming. It is usually completed only when a doctor has free time, as their primary focus is caring for patients. The underwriting cycle time is often severely hampered by the APS as it could take weeks or even months to obtain. Once obtained, it can be laborious to review and summarize as APS reports can be large documents containing an in-depth

medical history The medical history, case history, or anamnesis (from Greek: ἀνά, ''aná'', "open", and μνήσις, ''mnesis'', "memory") of a patient is information gained by a physician by asking specific questions, either to the patient or to other pe ...

information which may or may not be relevant.

Overview

In structured underwriting the data capture process with the proposed insured is asked very detailed questions to attempt to reduce the number of

attending physician In the United States and Canada, an attending physician (also known as a staff physician or supervising physician) is a physician (usually an M.D. or D.O.) who has completed residency and practices medicine in a clinic or hospital, in the s ...

's statements necessary. However, many

medical condition A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function (biology), function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medica ...

s require supporting evidence from the physician. This is where an APS Summary can assist the underwriter in evaluating the proposed insured's medical risk(s). The APS summaries however, are only as good as the underwriter's experience which varies widely from person to person. Additionally, APS summaries when processed without a “template structure” guiding the information gathered from the APS often yield inconsistent or miss critical underwriting information. Either inconsistent or missing underwriting information will compromise the risk analysis process. By leveraging a seasoned underwriter's knowledge and experiences, scripts can be built that ensure the appropriate medical information is captured and recorded from the APS document. This is done by creating scripts that prompt the person summarizing the APS to enter all pertinent specific medical condition uncovered.

References

{{Reflist Statements