New rules open door for more doctors

Monday, Dec. 8, 2003 | 10:42 a.m.

RENO -- More out-of-state doctors are qualifying to practice in Nevada under new regulations adopted by the state Board of Medical Examiners.

That's good news because the state needs more physicians, said Larry Matheis, executive director of the Nevada State Medical Association, an organization of physicians.

The examiners board, at its meeting Friday and Saturday, granted 24 licenses, with 16 of them approved under the new regulation.

Tony Clark, assistance executive director of the Examiners Board, said those 24 are in addition to the 200 doctors admitted under the regular rules during the last six months.

"It looks like there are plenty of physicians coming to Nevada," he said.

Under the old rules, to be admitted in Nevada a doctor had to have passed the state's Special Purpose Examination within the past 10 years. That's the basic test a new doctor takes when completing his training.

Because the test covers a broad range of medical knowledge, many veteran doctors who have been specialists in their field for a long time believed it would be difficult for them to pass the test, board officials said.

The board amended its regulations Friday to allow licenses for doctors who have been recertified or have passed examinations in their medical specialties in the last seven to 10 years. Or doctors could be admitted if they were examined by specialists in their fields.

Sixteen doctors were approved under this new regulation. The board denied the application of six physicians who did not meet the criteria.

While Nevada is the fastest growing state in the nation, Matheis said there was a net gain of only 23 new physicians last year, and there was a net increase of only seven doctors in Clark County.

Southern Nevada has "far too few specialists such as neurosurgeons and pediatric surgeons," Matheis said.

He said Nevada was 45th in the ratio of physicians to population in 1999 and dropped to 48th in 2001.

The board's records indicate there were 3,546 active physicians in Nevada at the end of 2002 compared with 3,523 at the close of 2001.

The major reason was the increase in medical malpractice liability insurance rates, Matheis said. An initiative petition that makes changes in the malpractice law is on the ballot next November.

The 2003 Legislature, in an effort to help attract new doctors, changed the law to allow the board to waive its requirements to admit new doctors if they were licensed in other states.

The Examiners Board has been reluctant to do that.

The board granted one new license Friday under the reciprocity law approved by the Legislature. That went to Dr. Peter Fodor, head of plastic surgery at UCLA.

The Federation of State Medical Boards, which recently completed an audit of the Nevada board, recommend the Legislature repeal the law that would allow the waiver of some standards if the doctor only had a license in another state.

The federation said issuing a license based solely on the fact the doctor practices in another states would lower the standards of medical care in Nevada.

The board did not take action on establishing a branch office in Las Vegas. It has spent $53,000 on a video-conference system to televise its meetings to Southern Nevada. The board wants to see how this will work for the next few meetings before deciding whether to open a Las Vegas office.

The board also decided not to hire the Federation of State Medical Boards to audit the board's licensing procedures.

The federation just completed an audit of the handling of disciplinary cases by the board and gave the state agency mostly high marks. Clark said the audit also dealt with the licensing policies and there was no need for another study.

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