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‘Jaw-dropping’ profit from disability tests for Maximus
Times article (so you need to register for 2 free articles a week unless you subscribe already) which says:
An American contractor has been accused of making “jaw-dropping” profits from controversial tests that assess whether people should receive disability benefits. Earnings at the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments, a subsidiary of Virginia-based Maximus, doubled to £26m in the year to September 2017.
The profit margin for the centre, based in East Sussex, surged from 8.4% to 16.1%, a rise that Maximus put down to hitting “volume” performance targets.
However, the House of Commons work and pensions committee said it had received nearly 4,000 reports of “shocking, moving, credible and consistent” failures in the testing system.
Frank Field, the veteran MP and committee chairman, said his inquiry had heard “appalling evidence about the shoddy work carried out by contractors, including Maximus, that caused real suffering to some of the most vulnerable people”. He added: “With contractors raking in jaw-dropping profits for sub-standard work, the government will surely want to look at whether assessments would be better delivered in-house.”
“We found that huge sums of public money were being paid out, even while quality targets were being missed.”
Read the whole thing here ‘Jaw-dropping’ profit from disability tests for Maximus
This is shocking to say the least.
“hitting “volume” performance targets.” roughly translates as
- losing a percentage of referrals when they come across from DWP.
- converting a percentage of face to face referrals to paper only.
- abandoning an increasing number of face to face assessments part way through because the assessor was “unwell” and finishing off by phone, often when hideously inappropriate e.g. when the claim pack details that the client has significant issues with the phone.
- upping the FTA numbers through a variety of inventive means e.g. failing to text accurate details; moving the venue but failing to mention it; HCPs (with no irony whatsoever) failing to attend and… well I could write all day.