News in brief - Feb. 24, 2003

Fla. task force issues liability recommendations - Pa. plaintiffs need certificate of merit - Loan program consolidates medical school debt - Patient Safety Awareness Week approaching - Minn. medical society names new leader - Minn. plan for statewide medical database faces opposition

Fla. task force issues liability recommendations

A Florida task force charged by Gov. Jeb Bush with offering solutions to medical liability insurance problems has recommended creating a patient safety authority, enacting a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages per incident, better regulating who can serve as an expert witness at trial, allowing physicians to pay damages over time and other reforms.

The recommendations are part of the final report issued by Florida's Select Task Force on Healthcare Professional Liability Insurance on Feb. 4.

"The 60 recommendations of the task force are a bold move forward, now the Legislature must act," Florida Medical Assn. EVP/CEO Sandra Mortham said in a statement.

Florida is one of 12 states the AMA identified last year as experiencing a medical liability insurance crisis.

Pa. plaintiffs need certificate of merit

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court officially amended procedures and now requires plaintiffs to file a "certificate of merit" from an expert physician within 60 days after filing a medical malpractice lawsuit. The expert must state that there is a reasonable probability that the care fell outside acceptable professional standards and that it contributed to patient harm. A COM also will be required from appropriate experts when malpractice cases are filed against other professionals in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell estimates that the amendment could reduce malpractice lawsuits by 25%.

Loan program consolidates medical school debt

Physicians with debt from medical school have another loan option to consider. Sallie Mae and the Assn. of American Medical Colleges now offer a product to consolidate medical education debt into one payment. Called MEDLOANS Consolidation Loan, the federal loan program allows eligible borrowers to lower their monthly student loan payments by up to 50% or more, according to the AAMC, by locking in historically low interest rates.

The new loan becomes the combined balance of the previous loans, with a weighted average interest rate of the underlying loans' interest rates, adjusted up to the nearest 0.125%. The new interest rate, which is locked in for the life of the loan, cannot exceed 8.25%.

Borrowers who have their monthly payments directly debited from a checking or savings account are eligible for a 0.25-percentage point reduction in their interest rate. Those who make their payments on time may receive additional discounts, such as a one percentage point cut in their interest rate for their first 48 payments. More information can be found at the MEDLOANS Web site (http://www.aamc.org/students/medloans/start.htm).

Patient Safety Awareness Week approaching

Flyers, fact sheets, stickers, posters, prerecorded public service announcements, videos, and journals for patients to record medical information are some of the materials being made available by the National Patient Safety Foundation for distribution during Patient Safety Awareness Week, planned for March 9-15.

Organized this year by NPSF, the event was launched last year by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs' National Center for Patient Safety and Persons United Limiting Substandards and Errors.

For information, contact Craig Samuels at (312) 464- 5752, or visit NPSF's Web site (http://www.npsf.org/).

Minn. medical society names new leader

Robert K. Meiches, MD, of Minneapolis, is the new chief executive officer of the Minnesota Medical Assn.

Dr. Meiches, who specializes in internal medicine and geriatrics, replaces Paul S. Sanders, MD, a family physician from Cambridge, who left the position after 12 years.

Dr. Meiches served as chair of the association's board of trustees from 1999 to 2002 and has been active as a member in many health care issues. He served as vice president of medical affairs and operations at Fairview-University Medical Center and Fairview Health Services in Minneapolis. He received his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Illinois Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine and earned a master's degree in business administration from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.

Minn. plan for statewide medical database faces opposition

Legislative hearings are being held in the Minnesota House of Representatives on two bills aimed at slowing down the creation of a statewide medical database that officials say would help the state manage chronic diseases and study patient safety and epidemiological trends.

Although the Legislature approved the creation of the database in 1993, it wasn't until Dec. 2, 2002, that an administrative law judge ruled that the plan could go forward. Opponents, however, said the database would be an invasion of privacy and would make a patient's personal medical records public property.

Representative Bill Haas has sponsored a bill to repeal the data collection law. Representative Marty Seifert's bill would not allow the state health department to go forward with its plan to collect hospital discharge data without approval from the Legislature.

One opponent of the database, Twila Brase, a nurse and president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care, worried that the state's budget crisis may prevent lawmakers from discussing anything except financial concerns.

"Once they start working on the [budget] deficit, it will be hard to get them to work on anything else," she said. "But, until they adjourn and go home, no one knows what will happen."

Brase added that her organization has been working on getting a sponsor for the Haas bill in the state Senate.