Nevada has overhauled the state medical board’s discipline procedures to allow quicker response to dangerous practices and more public scrutiny.
The action follows a scandal last year when some 50,000 patients were possibly exposed to hepatitis C at two endoscopy clinics that reused vials and syringes. As of April 2009, nine confirmed diagnoses were linked to the clinics, and 105 other hepatitis C cases were considered suspect.
The new law permits the board to suspend immediately the license of a physician whose actions may pose an imminent danger to patients. Had that power been available in 2008, the endoscopy clinic doctors would have been suspended immediately instead of weeks after the initial complaint, medical board Executive Director Louis Ling, JD, told a state Senate committee.
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To promote timeliness, the board now has 90 days after a complaint is filed to decide whether to dismiss or investigate it. Ling said the board reviews about 700 cases each year.
For the first time, complaining patients will be allowed to appear at disciplinary hearings and to address the board before sanctions are imposed. Also for the first time, summaries of cases will be made public.
…And Caps in Colorado and Nevada Remain Unchanged
Meanwhile, efforts to modify or eliminate caps on “pain and suffering” damages in malpractice awards failed in both Nevada and Colorado.
Colorado has limited noneconomic damages to $300,000 since 2003. A bill to raise the cap to $460,000, with automatic annual adjustments for inflation, also required insurance companies to get state approval before they raised malpractice premiums by more than 5%.
After a committee removed the cap from consideration, the full House rejected the insurance provision as unnecessary. The defeat was the second in two years for proponents trying to raise the damage cap.
Nevada has limited noneconomic damages to $350,000 since 2004. In another reaction to the state’s 2008 hepatitis scandal, legislators proposed eliminating the cap altogether in cases of gross negligence, which was defined as “disregard for and indifference to the safety and welfare of the patient.” The cap would have remained in force for cases of professional negligence.
This bill was approved by the state Assembly, but it died when a Senate committee failed to act before a legislative deadline.
