Earlier this month, the American
Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) held its 2013 State
Legislative Conference in Broomfield, Colorado, just outside of
Denver. A highlight of the conference was the introduction of a new
medical malpractice model currently being floated in the Georgia
legislature, which would place all medical malpractice claims into a
system similar to workers' compensation, where injured patients would
be prohibited from suing their doctor the same way injured workers
are prohibited from suing their employer.
Instead of initiating a lawsuit against
a negligent or incompetent doctor, an injured patient under the
proposed Georgia approach would instead submit a claim to a
newly-created state patient compensation system. The medical
negligence claim would first go to the system's medical review
department which would determine whether a medical injury occurred.
If so, then the claim would be turned over to the compensation
department, which would make awards according to a compensation
schedule based on the type and severity of the injury. Patients who
disagree with the outcome could have the decision reviewed by an
administrative law judge.
Total compensation under the system
would be limited to the total costs of malpractice premiums paid for
the year, with 80% allocated to pay claims and the other 20% going to
pay the costs of staffing the new bureaucracy and operating the new
system.
The model was presented to the AAFP
conference by Georgia
state senator Brandon Beach and Wayne Oliver, the executive
director of Patients
for Fair Compensation, which is a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt "social
welfare organization." 501(c)(4) entities are allowed to be
politically active so long as they spend less than 50% of their
revenue on political activity. This group, headed by doctors and
representatives of hospitals and other healthcare companies, seeks
to eliminate defensive medicine by replacing litigation with an
administrative process like the Georgia model.
AAFP is a nationwide advocacy
organization of family physicians that lobbies government at the
state and national levels on behalf of its members.
