Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

ACC review seen as first step

Updated at 2:44 pm on 14 May 2011

Orthopaedic surgeons hope the outcome of a review will lead to more patients obtaining operations by elective surgery, without having to fight the Accident Compensation Corporation.

ACC has looked at the impact of changes made in 2008, which led to a drop in the number of cases accepted.

The review found it took too long to decline cases and improvements are needed to ACC's communication with clients.

Orthopaedic Association president Gary Hooper believes there will still be cases where ACC claims that age is the reason for a person's condition, even when there has been an obvious injury.

Associate Professor Hooper says more patients have been challenging ACC decisions, and winning, indicating that many of those decisions were wrong.

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