States eye tougher stance on doctor discipline, competency testing

The climate in some states is adversarial; in others, consensus bills are on the table.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. March 3, 2003.

Lawmakers across the country are considering a variety of bills aimed at physician issues this year, and several of them, if passed, are likely to mean increased scrutiny for doctors in those states.

Medical societies in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas, Oregon and Virginia are confronting bills on medical error reporting, public disclosure of disciplinary actions and physician competency testing.

"The trial lawyers are out in full force -- as are the doctors," said Larry Lewis, a legislative aide for New Jersey Assemblyman Herb Conaway, MD, who in 2002 co-sponsored the New Jersey Patient Safety Act, a bill that would shield hospitals' in-house analysis of medical errors from the judicial discovery process.

Out West, Oregon Medical Assn. Director of Government Affairs Scott Gallant said ongoing talks are aimed at creating a state agency to oversee collection of medical error data.

"It's essentially a semipublic private corporation for a voluntary, nonpunitive system that provides for the sharing and reporting of [medical error] information," he said, adding that participants in the talks included representatives from medical groups, education and health care institutions, government, consumer groups and insurance companies.

In Texas, debate is expected to be heated as bills dealing with competency testing, funding for the board of medical examiners and adding more nonphysicians to the medical board work their way through the process.

A consumer group called Texas Watch wants complaint and error information to be publicly available, and it also wants to make nonphysician members a majority on the state medical board. "We have not seen a good-faith effort to rein in bad doctors from the medical industry itself," said the group's executive director, Dan Lambe. "The doctors have been unable to police their own."