Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Doctor: Panel's demise led to more lawsuits

Judges meeting in an effort to resolve backlog of medical malpractice cases

As Clark County district judges this week explore ways to handle more than 300 backed up medical malpractice cases, the president of the Clark County Medical Society cited what he sees as a key cause of the problem.

It was, he said, the actions of a few influential physicians, who worked to end the panel of doctors and lawyers who had for years filtered out malpractice lawsuits deemed to be without merit.

"A small group of doctors didn't think the Medical Dental Screening Panel worked well at weeding out cases and helped convince the Legislature to get rid of it in 2002," said Dr. Michael Colletti. "We've had a large number of frivolous cases filed since then. It was a huge mistake."

Court spokesman Michael Sommermeyer agrees.

"A number of these cases probably would have never gotten this far," Sommermeyer said. "I never could figure out why physicians wanted to get rid of the screening panel."

Twenty-one medical malpractice cases are scheduled for trial in April, Sommermeyer said.

"We only have 21 criminal and civil judges, so I suppose we could have them do only medical malpractice," he said. "But these are six-week trials, and that's not going to happen. We have to figure out what to do."

On Wednesday and Thursday, Sommermeyer said, a panel of district judges will meet with attorneys handling the malpractice cases. It is the first time, he said, that judges have taken such a step on medical malpractice lawsuits.

In the past, he said, judges have called for such major conferences on construction defect cases.

"With all these cases pending, they're like a looming dinosaur," Sommermeyer said. "The law says they have to be adjudicated within two years."

Sommermeyer said that meeting with attorneys this week will help judges determine which cases are ready to go to trial and which are close to settlement. Cases then can be scheduled accordingly.

Concerns about the flood of medical malpractice lawsuits come at the same time Colletti is alerting Clark County Medical Society members the organization will lobby state legislators for a new medical screening panel.

"Health care continues to decline in Southern Nevada," Colletti wrote the agency, adding that "reinstituting the panel will be a positive force in attracting high quality physicians to Clark County and Nevada."

In the letter, Colletti noted that in 2001 there were 372 lawsuits filed against health care providers. By the end of 2002, after the panel was eliminated, the number jumped to 823. In 2003 the number climbed to 1,246. Through November, 2004, 820 lawsuits had been filed.

"The panel should have been kept in place with modifications to make it more efficient and meaningful," Colletti wrote.

Had that been done, Colletti said in an interview, there would have been no need for the Question 3 initiative on the November ballot. Known as Keep Our Doctors In Nevada, voters approved it overwhelmingly, largely because physicians argued that a $350,000 cap on damages for pain and suffering in all cases would limit the number of lawsuits filed.

Such a cap, the argument went, would lower malpractice insurance rates and keep physicians from leaving.

But Colletti said passage of Question 3, which went into effect immediately, wasn't enough. Lawsuits are still being filed at a rapid pace.

"It was a major mistake to eliminate the screening panel," his letter states.

New panels should be overseen by administrative law judges, Colletti said, and doctors and lawyers on the panels be paid. Lawyers were included on the old screening panel.

"A pool of physicians and lawyers, perhaps some who are working part time or are retired, would be excellent candidates to serve on these panels," Colletti wrote.

Though he said he would support a bill that calls for the formation of a new screening panel, Assemblyman Garn Mabey, R-Las Vegas, a physician, said Monday that it's highly unlikely any bill for a screening panel would go far.

"I'd say it was dead on arrival," he said.

Mabey suggested that lawmakers, Democrats in particular, might find it strange to work to resurrect something doctors worked so hard to kill.

Trial lawyer Jim Crockett said he was stunned that doctors now want a screening panel that lawyers had pleaded with them to keep.

Crockett said no state in the union has both a screening panel and a law similar to the Keep Our Doctors In Nevada initiative, which limits the amount of money an attorney can make off a malpractice case and shortens the statute of limitations in medical malpractice actions.

"Doctors are the ones who said they needed the Keep Our Doctors in Nevada law because the screening panel didn't work, that it would solve their problems," he said. "It's ridiculous. There's no end to this octopus. When doctors have any idea what they're doing, let me know."