Insurance companies gather data on insurance applicants in order to assess risk. Data include such things as ECGs, medical records, and laboratory testing.
Laboratory tests are ordered for:
Screening
Prognosis
Reassurance
Monitoring
Baseline Data
Medical/Legal
Laboratory testing is also used to establish diagnoses, but insurance companies leave this function to clinical physicians.
Insurance companies use tests that have shown predictive value in mortality and morbidity assessment (such as abnormal
liver tests).
The perfect test is:
Highly sensitive i.e. positive in disease with a low false negative rate
Highly specific i.e. negative in health with a low false positive rate
Without analytical variation
Non-invasive
Inexpensive
Unfortunately, there is no perfect test. Often, as sensitivity rises, specificity falls and vice versa.
Blood tests are inexpensive and minimally invasive, and urine tests are inexpensive and non-invasive, but both have biological variation and sampling errors. For example, jogging before a urine test may cause protein in the urine sample. Variations in tests can be due to:
Biological variation (age, sex, fasting, pregnancy, trauma to muscle or bone)
Sample variation due to specimen collection & handling
Prolonged tourniquet time (2 mm max)
Delay in spinning sample
Time in the tube
Exposure to extremes of temperature
Analytic variation (type of test and inherent accuracy of the technique)
Reference ranges are determined by each laboratory based on the type of testing done. For many tests, the bell shaped curve is used to set the `normal range". The "normal" part of the curve includes the middle 95% of the test results. Other tests; such as glucose, cholesterol, and prostate specific antigen (PSA), have nationally standardized normal ranges.
Laboratory tests are a crucial part of risk assessment in life insurance underwriting.
In summary, when underwriting a abnormal lab result history, Life Insurance Solutions suggests for those persons looking for life insurance for an abnormal lab result, the following suggestions are relevant to lab exams in assessing the risk:
- Fast for a period of twelve to fourteen hours prior to examination. This allows the digestive process to be completed and the liver functions to return to normal.
- Continue to take all prescribed medications at this time.
- Avoid strenuous exercise during the prior 24 hour period - this could prevent the possibility of excess protein in your liver.
- Avoid drinking coffee and smoking for a couple of hours prior to examination.
- Avoid alcoholic beverages for a minimum of 12 hours prior to the examination.
- Drink good amount of water prior to exam. (It's good for you and helps to facilitate the obtaining of a urine specimen.)
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