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medpundit |
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Monday, December 30, 2002"A stoppage of practice may be detrimental not only to your patients, but also to your practice, your standing amongst colleagues, as well as your license should your conduct be found to constitute abandonment," Weaver wrote. (Weaver is in charge of the office that licenses physicians) In addition, some doctors got the following notice from the state licensing board: Adding to the unease of Pennsylvania's doctors is a notice received by about 15,000 of them from the state's Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs. The notification said that due to "unanticipated production problems" the doctors would not get their 2003 license, but rather "temporary" 120-day authorizations to practice medicine. That would be unnerving - to be told on the one hand that if you limit your practice the state will consider you to be in violation of ethics rules, and on the other hand that your current license is only “temporary.” It’s all the more unnerving when you consider this: Dozens of Scranton area doctors will effectively be off the job January 1st, when their malpractice insurance expires. According to state law, they can't practice medicine without it. So, let’s see if I’ve got this straight. The physicians won’t have malpractice insurance come January 1, because they can't afford the premiums. They can’t practice legally without it, but if they follow the law and stop practicing, they’ll lose their licenses nonetheless. If politics is like an enema, then Pennsylvania just told its doctors to bend over. If I were practicing in Pennsylvania, I know what my response would be. I’d be looking for a practice in another state. Preferably one with good tort reform laws on the books. Pennsylvania just insured that a work stoppage is going to be the least of their problems. Count on a surge of retirements and relocations in the coming year, and even worse, more long-term problems with access to care. ADDENDUM: Meanwhile, in Mississippi, tort reform is a go: Mississippi's medical malpractice reform law caps pain and suffering awards at $500,000, increasing to $1 million by 2017. Another law rewrites the state's product liability statutes, capping punitive damages at $20 million for the largest corporations. posted by Sydney on 12/30/2002 08:26:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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