Unpublished MSc thesis, Unitec Institute of Technology, 2019/01, 56, type of study: ,ret,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Free full text   (https://www.researchbank.ac.nz/handle/10652/4913)

Keywords:

accident compensation [2]
medical students [694]
osteopathic medicine [2109]
retrospective study [339]

Abstract:

In New Zealand, osteopaths can lodge Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) claims, on behalf of patients, for accidental injury. ACC provides treatment and rehabilitation services for patients following injury. Postgraduate osteopathy students practice and develop their skills under supervision at teaching clinics. Anecdotal evidence suggested that a number of potentially eligible ACC claims were not being lodged. This study involved a clinical audit exploring this issue, and possible reasons for misinterpretation of ACC injury claims. AIM: To investigate the extent to which new patient files in the osteopathy teaching clinic satisfy ACC’s criteria for an injury claim. METHODS: A clinical audit was performed on 290 newpatient records randomly sampled from clinical records between 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2016 and 1st January 2017 to 31st December 2017. Each record was systematically processed and categorised into contingency tables to address each of the objectives. FINDINGS: 29.7% of possible claims were not made when they appeared to meet ACC criteria for an injury claim. The overall accuracy was 70.3% (95%CI 64.7-75.5%). Between years 2016 and 2017, the results supported instances of underclaiming for ACC injury. When following the same cohort of students from Year 1 to Year 2 there was no difference in the level of observed accuracy (95%CI for Accuracy in Year 1 = 57.4-81.5% and 64.5-86.9% in the same cohort in their second year). No significant difference in accuracy was identified over time (R2 = 0.03). CONCLUSION: A significant proportion (~30%) of the sample meet ACC criteria for an injury claim when no claim was submitted. There were no instances of submitting a claim when the clinical history appeared not to meet ACC criteria.