This blog post is a writing assignment for MAST 1010: Legal & Ethical Concerns in the Medical Office, part of the Health Care Management (HC23) Associate of Applied Science Degree program at Southern Crescent Technical College.

Task: Visit the Website for the U.S. House of Representatives. List any health care legislation currently pending before the House that you believe is relevant to the health care profession you will practice.

List two additional Websites where information about health care legislation can be found.

Search the Website of the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA). Use the site to find out if your states passed civil justice reform acts that pertain specifically to health care practitioners. If so, briefly describe the acts and how they might affect health care practitioners.

A Judicial Hellhole is a state where procedures and laws are unfairly practiced in civil proceedings against defendants (Judicial Hellholes, n.d.a). Judicial Hellholes is a program of the American Tort Reform Foundation (ATRF), whose website claims the existence of eight Judicial Hellholes in the U.S., including Georgia. The entity claims medical liability is one area affected the most in Georgia. Following a Georgia Supreme Court decision in 2010, medical liability awards are increasing. One example is a medical malpractice case in DeKalb County, where a child received $12 million for being born with defects. The mother did not stop taking her blood pressure medication even after her OB/GYN warned her about using the drug during pregnancy and recommended ceasing use. The jury found her doctor liable for more than $6 million. The ATRF claims that Georgia must take action for change (Judicial Hellholes, n.d.b).

The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) also acknowledges the need for reform in Georgia, where there are no rational limits on liability. The current situation has resulted in insurance companies increasing costs or withdrawing from the market. Doctors also stop highrisk services, leave the state, or cease medical practice altogether. The ATRA advocates for applying a limit for noneconomic damages of $250,000, allowing set future payments for damages, creating a contingent fee sliding scale to pay lawyers, and eliminating the collateral source. One reform listed on the ATRA website was regarding claims resulting from an emergency. In a suit resulting from an emergency against a hospital, a provider can not be found liable unless clear evidence exists that the provider was blatantly negligent. Emergencies do not always result in desired outcomes. A provider doing all he can to save a life may still lose that life, and this reform will help protect providers from angry and saddened families of emergency patients. Another reform prevents a provider’s apologies and communication of sympathy and regrets from being used as evidence or an admission of guilt. Still, another reform sets a ceiling of $350,000 per healthcare provider for noneconomic damages and $1.05 million as a cumulative limit. These three reforms help protect providers in malpractice suits (ATRA, n.d.).

The U.S. House of Representatives currently has several bills introduced related to health care. One bill pertains to HIMT, which I have studied. H.R. 9067 was introduced on September 29, 2022, requiring a report about medical device interoperability to be sent by the Secretary of HHS. Although more bills are pending, the others are less directly related to my future career. Several of them are related to the military or Veteran Affairs. H.R. 9105 would create the National Medical Corps Program and give community college students access to premedical instruction to begin medical school. H.R. 9007 would allow grants for developing education programs to treat and prevent substance use. H.R. 8994 would create the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Grant Program, which may assist EMS entities (U.S. House of Representatives, n.d.b).

The Georgia General Assembly provides much information regarding Georgia healthcare bills and their statuses. Some of the bills have the status of being signed by the governor. For example, there is information about HB 209, a pending reform to expand the Medicaid program to provide coverage for the uninsured. Within this website, two different sites are helpful, the House Committee on Health and Human Services and the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services (Georgia General Assembly, n.d.a) (Georgia General Assembly, n.d.b).

One website, LegiScan, is a one-stop place for finding legislative information as it tracks federal and all states’ legislative activity in real-time. Visitors can search and follow activities in the U.S. Congress and any state. Organized tabs facilitate easy navigation to quickly sort between statuses of introduced, passed, vetoed, etc. LegiScan is a very useful website for anyone wanting or needing to stay informed of legislative changes (LegiScan, n.d.a) (LegiScan, n.d.b).

References

ATRA. (n.d.). Medical Liability Reform. https://www.atra.org/issue/medical-liability-reform/?state=georgia.

Judicial Hellholes. (n.d.a). About. https://www.judicialhellholes.org/about/.

Judicial Hellholes. (n.d.b). Georgia. https://www.judicialhellholes.org/hellhole/2019-2020/georgia/.

Georgia General Assembly. (n.d.a). House Committee on Health and Human Services. https://www.legis.ga.gov/committees/house/115?session=1029.

Georgia General Assembly. (n.d.b). Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. https://www.legis.ga.gov/committees/senate/76?session=1029.

LegiScan. (n.d.a). GA Legislation | 2021-2022 | Regular Session. https://legiscan.com/GA/legislation.

LegiScan. (n.d.b). US Legislation | 2021-2022 | 117th Congress. https://legiscan.com/US/legislation.

U.S. House of Representatives. (n.d.a). U.S. House of Representatives. https://www.house.gov/.

U.S. House of Representatives. (n.d.b). U.S. House of Representatives. https://live.house.gov/.

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