Editorial: Eliminate this cloak of secrecy

Friday, March 25, 2005 | 8:59 a.m.

Doctors increasingly are performing surgeries in their offices instead of in hospitals, a situation that holds down expenses and, naturally, warms the hearts of cost-conscious health insurers. But Assemblywoman Susan Gerhardt, D-Henderson, is worried about this trend. She says that not all medical offices have the same kind of up-to-date equipment found in hospitals. Further, there isn't a way for the state to always know when something goes wrong when surgeries are performed outside of hospitals.

So Gerhardt has authored legislation, Assembly Bill 120, that would require doctors' offices to report to state medical regulators on the number of problems that occur during surgical procedures. Physicians groups say that this would create unnecessary paperwork, but their complaints, about what they see as red tape, miss the point. This is all about improving medical care. If there is an unusually high rate of injuries and deaths involving specific doctors and types of procedures, then the state Board of Medical Examiners and the State Board of Osteopathic Medicine should know about it. We would think that improving patient care, through the identification of those doctors who are experiencing problems, would be something that the medical community would get behind.

Neena Laxalt, during compelling testimony she provided to the Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee on Wednesday in support of AB120, told legislators about her aunt, who died after she went to see a doctor because of a lump in her throat. Laxalt testified that her aunt died several days after she was given too much anesthesia during a procedure in the doctor's office, causing respiratory failure. Admittedly, not every adverse outcome is the fault of the doctor or the equipment being used, and we don't know if the case involving Laxalt's aunt would have had a different outcome if the procedure had been undertaken in a hospital. But right now we're completely in the dark when something goes wrong in a doctor's office because of the lack of reporting to the state.

While this nation offers the greatest medical care in the world -- at least to those who can afford it -- the fact also remains that insurance companies keep pressuring doctors to hold down costs, a situation that can endanger lives if the quality of care correspondingly deteriorates. The Legislature shouldn't waste any time in passing AB120.