Group: Board Falling Short (Sept. 2002).
By Steve Taylor of the Valley Morning Star

Health-related agencies should be more accountable, anaylst reports

AUSTIN - A Consumers Union analyst told a House Public Health Committee hearing Tuesday that the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners has too cozy a relationship with the professionals it licenses.

Lisa McGiffert, senior policy analyst with the Consumers UnionÕs Southwest Regional Office, said all health-related licensing agencies need to improve accountability and to approach their work with a clear understanding that their job was to protect the public.

"Anyone who watches these regulatory boards over the years knows of a cyclical phenomenon: they are ignored for years and then get caught in a scandal that draws attention to the agency, leading to outraged policymakers and a shocked public," McGiffert said. "Improving quality of care is key to solving the much publicized problem of rising medical malpractice insurance premiums."

The Consumers Union is proposing five changes to state law that, the group says, will help consumers make better informed health care choices.

The group wants complaint information on hospitals and physicians, now confidential by law, made available to the public. It wants details about physician disciplinary orders and formal complaints filed by an agency to be logged in a consumer friendly and easy- to-access format.

The group also wants medical malpractice information about specific doctors made available to the public in a central location, a streamlined process for registering complaints, and changes to the formation of licensing boards so that most members represent the public Ñ not the profession being regulated.

According to a 2000 survey by the nonprofit Voluntary Hospital Association, 49 percent of respondents had a bad family experience with a doctor or hospital in the previous three years. In a highly publicized report published in 1999, the federal Institute of Medicine found that between 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die each year from medical errors.

McGiffert said that in 1999, the Texas Hospital Association inserted an obscure provision into a bill that made it impossible for the public to find out what complaints have been filed against a hospital Ñ information that had been public for years. Two Consumers Union-backed bills to reverse the new secrecy law were vetoed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2001.

Kathy Julia, president of the South Texas Trial Lawyers Association, praised McGiffert for her testimony. "Until the Dallas Morning News ran a story on medical enforcement, the State Board had not revoked the license of a single doctor for committing medical errors in the past five years," Julia said. "Bad doctors affect the quality of health care as well as the cost of malpractice insurance for everyone else. Creating a more effective board or another supervisory mechanism should be a legislative priority."

Julia criticized the tort reform proposals offered by David Dewhurst while the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor was on a visit to the Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen on Monday.

In a five-point plan, Dewhurst proposed a $300,000 cap on punitive damages, with $250,000 going to the victim and the remaining $50,000 going to a Texas Malpractice Insurance Assistance Fund to pay for medical malpractice insurance in under-served areas like the Rio Grande Valley.

"If Mr. Dewhurst, a Houston millionaire Republican, is elected lieutenant governor, we all hope that he learns that the solution to health care in the Valley involves more than lawyer bashing," Julia said.

"If Mr. Dewhurst lived and worked in the Rio Grande Valley, he would understand that his proposal cheapens the lives of children and the elderly. By placing limits on the non-economic damages, he is saying that wealthy peopleÕs lives and health are worth more, no matter what the facts of a case, than the lives of children and senior citizens," Julia added.

McGiffert said that just as there are some doctors who cause harm to patients there are lawyers who file bad cases that harm consumers and the medical profession. "We should target and punish those lawyers rather than eliminating or weakening an important forum for patient protection," McGiffert said. "We must address quality of care issues before taking away consumer access to the courts Ñ one of the few places a victim can go for help."

(This was published by the Valley Morning Star on September 24, 2002. http://www.valleystar.com/files/n209254.htm)