Lawmakers targeting medical examiners

Monday, April 14, 2003 | 11:11 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Two state senators want to gut a state Board of Medical Examiners reserve fund to provide subsidies for doctors' malpractice insurance premiums.

The proposal is one of a series of amendments by Sens. Ann O'Connell, R-Las Vegas, and Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, that targets the board that licenses and regulates doctors. The senators planned to attach them to Senate Bill 250, a medical malpractice bill that passed out of the Senate and Commerce Labor Committee Friday.

They plan to offer amendments to move the board's headquarters from Reno to Las Vegas, to eliminate the its authority to hire a private attorney, to toughen standards for disciplining errant doctors and to allow more discretion in permitting new doctors to practice in areas of medical shortage.

The senators point to malpractice costs that doubled and tripled in the past year after St. Pauls Co., which covered 60 percent of the state's doctors, pulled out of the state. The Nevada State Medical Board has said doctors are leaving the state in droves, a contention that the medical examiners board has disputed.

The two senators want to take $5 million from the board's reserve to create subsidies for doctors to pay for medical malpractice insurance premiums. The board said it has only $3.3 million and needs to keep at least $1 million in the reserve.

The reserve, funded by license fees paid by doctors, could dip to less than $800,000 because the board has reduced doctors' renewal fees, Keith Lee, the board's lobbyist, said.

The amendments have set up a confrontation between the medical examiners and the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee that has frustrated the examiners.

Dr. Cheryl Hug-English, president of the board, says it's been criticized for being too tough, then not tough enough. She said the board has been recognized nationally as having the highest standards for initial licensing of physicians and for adopting regulations for pain management.

It could also be the first state in the nation to require continued testing of physicians to ensure they are performing adequately.

She pleaded with the committee last week "not to take away our tools to run effectively."

One amendment calls for moving the board to Las Vegas, where 70 percent of the doctors are based. There have been complaints by Southern Nevada physicians that the board seldom meets in Las Vegas.

"I'm concerned the board has not been interested in the problems in Southern Nevada," O'Connell said.

Its last meeting was in Las Vegas and only three people showed up.

O'Connell and Townsend say the office should be moved to Southern Nevada with the authority to have branch offices.

The O'Connell-Townsend amendment also would eliminate the board's authority to hire a private attorney to act as prosecutor in discipline cases. The board instead would use a deputy attorney general.

The senators also suggest that in "exceptional circumstances" the board may waive some of its requirements to allow doctors to come in and practice in specialty areas that are underserved. Townsend said this does not mean lowering the standards.

Hug-English said she would ask the staff to look regulations that may be impediments for some doctors to get a license.