Doctors want to revive medical lawsuit screening

Kirsten Searer

Monday, Jan. 31, 2005 | 11:05 a.m.

The Clark County Medical Society has sent out a letter to its members saying it will lobby for a new medical screening panel that would examine medical malpractice claims.

Nevada had a panel of doctors and attorneys from 1986 through 2002 to review malpractice claims and issue a ruling on whether the complaint had merit.

The number of lawsuits has "dramatically increased" since the panel was disbanded, said Dr. Michael P. Colletti, president of the medical society.

There were 372 suits against health care providers in Clark County District Court in 2001, according to the medical society. In 2002, when the panel was eliminated, the number jumped to 823.

There were 1,246 cases in 2003 and, as of November, there were 820 suits filed in 2004.

"We'd like to see it instituted so it's not as easy, basically, to file lawsuits against physicians," Colletti said.

The state Board of Medical Examiners, which licenses and oversees doctors, also has voiced support recently for reinstating the screening panel.

The Nevada Trial Lawyers Association calls the potential reinstating of the panel "totally, totally outrageous."

Gerald Gillock, president of the trial lawyers group, says the numbers the doctors are using are misleading and do not reflect a sharp increase in new lawsuits, but rather are the result of attorneys filing in court the claims that had been pending before the old screening panel as well as new cases.

"All of those cases had to be filed or the clients would lose their cause of action," he said. "(Without a screening panel) those cases would have been field in an ordinary course, spread out over a couple of years.

"The move to reinstitute the panel is totally, totally outrageous. The initiative that just passed took away very significant rights of victims of malpractice. The cost of again going to a panel and an additional year's delay will be unconscionable for patients injured by malpractice."

Gillock said medical malpractice insurance companies "abused the process" by refusing to settle cases when the panel found the doctors were at fault and he believes they would do it again. Plus, he said it will be a huge "and unnecessary" expense to the state to reinstate the panel.

Prior to the panel being disbanded, the trial lawyers had said on their Web site that they would "work with Nevada physicians and other interested parties in strengthening the Medical Screening Panel process to expedite screening panel decisions."

But Gillock said that plan went out the window last fall when voters passed Question 3, which set a $350,000 cap on non-economic damages in malpractice suits. That effort is to lower rising insurance rates for doctors.

The previous panel was dissolved during the 2002 special legislative session on medical malpractice. The panel was charged with reviewing cases and recommending whether the case go to trial.

Some doctors, however, previously complained that the panel was slow to make a determination, and about half of the cases that were found by the panel as having no probable malpractice went to court anyway, according to the medical society.

People who proceeded with a lawsuit against a doctor even though the panel said there was no probable malpractice would be held liable for all attorney fees.

It was also difficult to fill membership on the three-attorney, three-doctor panel because it was voluntary. The medical society hopes to make the panel a paid, daytime position, perhaps for retirees or part-time workers.

Sen. Dennis Nolan, R-Las Vegas, said he hopes to work with both doctors and trial attorneys this legislative session to come up with a panel that has some "teeth" but would work for all sides.

The panel should have the ability to forward names of doctors with a pattern of complaints to the Board of Medical Examiners, Nolan said.

The voter-approved cap went into effect in late November and supporters say it should help malpractice insurance rates, but a screening panel would help stop frivolous lawsuits before they get to court, Nolan said.

The trial lawyers, on their Web site, say that since 1996 in Clark County, 22 cases have resulted in plaintiffs verdicts. No verdict included an award for punitive damages. Also, jury verdicts in Nevada are subject to review and modification by the trial judge, the trial lawyers say.

Assemblyman Garn Mabey, R-Las Vegas, who is a physician, previously introduced a bill to reinstate the panel and said he would support it again. But he said he thinks trial attorneys will lobby Democrats to kill the bill, saying it would restrict victim rights.

"I will support it, I'm just not sure the Democrats in either house will support it," he said. "Since the Democrats control the Assembly, I don't think it has a chance."