When the Tigers announced on Sunday that Dontrelle Willis was going on the disabled list because of an "anxiety disorder," it raised more than a few eyebrows. I know my first reaction to the news was surprise upon finding out that "anxiety disorder" had become another way of saying "can't throw strikes."Of course, I wasn't the only one who learned something new following Willis' diagnosis. Turns out there are plenty of doctors who were surprised to learn that mental disorders can now be diagnosed through blood tests, the method the Tigers used to justify the diagnosis. They must have all missed that conference.
"I can't speak of the specific situation, but to the best of my knowledge, you cannot diagnose an anxiety disorder by a blood test," said Hiten Patel, a psychiatrist at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. "Most psychiatric conditions cannot be diagnosed by blood tests, and anxiety disorder cannot be diagnosed in such a way."So here's what I figure is going on here. Either Willis' diagnosis is a total fabrication and the Tigers are just looking for a way to stash him on the disabled list for most of the season so insurance companies can pay about half of the $10 million they owe him this season, or there is something else wrong with Willis.
Agreeing was Taft Parsons, medical director of the Kingswood Hospital, the in-patient psychiatric facility at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.
"There's no anxiety disorder, no psychiatric disorders, which are diagnosed by blood tests," said Parsons, who explained that anxiety might be a symptom of a medical situation identified by blood work, such as a thyroid condition. "But (anxiety) would not be the disorder itself. Only a symptom."
Maybe Willis' blood tests did show some other, more serious health problem with him, and the team doesn't want to make the news public, so they're using the anxiety disorder as a smokescreen.
For Dontrelle's sake, I hope it's just insurance fraud.
