Thursday, April 17, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

MEDICAL MALPRACTICE: Doctors board fund targeted

Lawmakers look to subsidize specialists

CARSON CITY -- Lawmakers crafting reforms in Nevada's malpractice insurance laws are looking to subsidize medical specialists' premiums by dipping into a state doctors board's $3.3 million reserve.

The short-term subsidy plan will be included in a more than 120-page amendment to Senate Bill 250, which was passed on deadline Friday by the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee.

The amended bill would reshape Nevada's medical regulation in an effort to avoid doctor shortages and malpractice insurance premium spikes, and better track malpractice cases.

It's set to go before the full Senate next week along with Senate Bill 97, a lawsuit reform bill that was gutted last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The two are among several malpractice-related bills that have pitted powerful doctor and lawyer lobbies against one another. The bills were spurred by a spike in doctors' insurance premium prices in 2001. Premiums have since stabilized, but some doctors say they're still unaffordable.

Lawmakers passed lawsuit reform in a four-day special session in 2002 but many said the issue needed more discussion. A doctors-led group called Keep Our Doctors In Nevada pushed to tighten jury award caps, and some legislators have pushed for malpractice insurance reform.

Some lawmakers, including Sen. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, blame the state Medical Examiners Board for not doing enough to ease doctors' premiums.

The board has some of the toughest licensing standards in the nation and is set to make Nevada the first state in the nation to require periodic competency examinations for doctors.

But O'Connell and Senate Commerce Chairman Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, say its $3.3 million reserve fund is too much.

In a testy exchange Wednesday, O'Connell urged medical board President Cheryl Hug-English to "become part of the solution."

Hug-English responded that the subsidy plan would cause the board to go broke because of increasing staff costs and recent license fee reductions. She said it could create a conflict of interest and was unfair to nonspecialists.

"Why should I as a family practitioner be subsidizing OB-GYNs that make three times the salary that I do?" Hug-English asked.

The Senate panel will discuss the subsidy plan again today.

The new version of SB9, pending before the full Senate, has been stripped of provisions mirroring California lawsuit reform and opposed by lawyers. It would include several provisions encouraging insurers to settle malpractice cases.

It also would allow doctors to collect a "benefit penalty" of up to $150,000 from insurers if an insurer "unreasonably" rejects a malpractice victim's settlement offer against the doctor's wishes, and a court finds malpractice has occurred.

It also would require a district judge to hold a hearing to screen out frivolous malpractice claims, allowing settlements before a full court hearing.