News in brief - May 23/30, 2005

Suspicious hospital visits checked - Report: Liability expenses for Pa. hospitals topped $600 million in 2004 - Most of expert witness' suit dismissed - Virtual medical group goes online

Suspicious hospital visits checked

Federal security officials in late April raised concerns about fake inspectors visiting hospitals in Los Angeles, Boston and Detroit. They are working to create awareness among hospitals about the impostors. Security officials do not have new intelligence that terrorists plan to target hospitals for attack, but last year officials warned medical facilities that they could be targets.

The move to step up hospital awareness about impostors comes after the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations issued alerts when phony inspectors paid visits to three hospitals earlier this year. JCAHO was concerned enough to contact the FBI.

Report: Liability expenses for Pa. hospitals topped $600 million in 2004

Pennsylvania hospitals reported spending $636 million on liability expenses during the 2004 fiscal year, according to a report the state's Health Care Cost Containment Council released in early May.

About two-thirds of the 182 general acute-care hospitals in the state self-insure, with many facilities changing their liability coverage strategy since 2002, according to the report.

Costs varied significantly across the state, according to the report. Hospitals near Philadelphia, for example, reported liability expenses at a rate that was more than double what hospitals near Pittsburgh reported.

Roger F. Mecum, executive vice president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, said the statistics were only "the tip of the iceberg," because the report did not include liability costs for physicians and other health professionals.

Most of expert witness' suit dismissed

A judge dismissed a California physician's defamation lawsuit he filed last year against three Florida doctors. Also dismissed was all but one claim against the Florida Medical Assn., which was named in the suit.

John Fullerton, MD, an internist and geriatrician from San Francisco, said the physicians and FMA defamed him and hurt his professional credibility when the doctors requested that the FMA review the expert witness testimony he gave for a plaintiff in a Florida malpractice trial. The three physicians were defendants in the case in which the jury found no negligence.

After the verdict, the doctors asked the FMA to review Dr. Fullerton's and another doctor's testimony under a program the FMA created to weed out improper expert witness testimony. The three said the physician expert witnesses presented false testimony and false theories about strokes.

Dr. Fullerton's suit challenges the medical expert peer review process that the FMA created. He says the program is an intimidation tactic that targets doctors who testify for plaintiffs. The FMA has said the process is confidential, like a typical peer review procedure.

Dr. Fullerton is appealing the judge's ruling to dismiss his case against the physicians. Because one claim against the FMA remains, Dr. Fullerton cannot appeal the claims that the judge did dismiss against the medical association, said James F. McKenzie, Dr. Fullerton's attorney based in Pensacola, Fla.

Virtual medical group goes online

Texas Tech University in Lubbock, which has added a practical business course on medicine to its residents' curriculum, recently launched a Web site on the topic. The actual class is not available to off-campus learners yet, but the school intends to make it available in the future.

Called the "Virtual Medical Group," the program covers physician employment agreements, physician productivity and reimbursement issues, professional liability agreements and other business issues that physicians encounter.

Part of the Web site (www.virtualmedicalgroup.ba.ttu.edu) is open to the public. This was reported in an earlier issue (AMNews, Feb. 21)