Louisiana Family Doctor - Louisiana Academy of Family Physicians

Legislative & MembershipCommittee Reportby Wayne Gravois, MD, Committee ChairAfter two Special Legislative Sessions, the 2006Louisiana Regular Legislative Session ended onJune 19, 2006. It was a fairly eventful session,with most of the emphasis on the aftermathrecovery of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Allhealth-care-related bills can be viewed by goingto the LSMS Web site at www.lsms.org andclicking on “Legislative,” then “2006Legislative Summary.” The majority of thesebills fall under the heading EmergencyPreparedness and Liability. The next section,entitled Environmental Health, deals with twosignificant laws — House Bill 1010 and SenateBill 742 — prohibiting smoking in both a vehiclewith a child and in public places. In additionto our efforts, these bills were strongly supportedby the American Cancer Society, among others.They are felt to be bold steps forward inreducing secondhand smoke’s ill effects.10Difficulties in the enforcement of these lawswere debated during committee and flooraction, but the lobbying efforts by all the supporterssuccessfully argued that this law hadbeen implemented in at least 10 other stateswithout any problems.The next section, Healthcare, contains a verysignificant piece of legislation that should impactus as family physicians and the future of famiymedicine in our state. HB 106, by Rep. Durand,extends the “sunset” date of the Interagency TaskForce on the Future of Family Medicine toSeptember 1, 2008, and also provided that onFebruary 15 of each year, the Task Force will presenta report on its findings and recommendationsto the secretary of DHH and the Legislature.HB 106 became Act 331 of 2006, effective onAugust 15, 2006. The task force, created in 2004,was designed to “assist DHH and other healthand human-service organizations in studying anddeveloping strategies to eliminate the significantprimary health care shortage in rural and urbanunderserved areas.” Please make the time toreview our LAFP Web site at www.lafp.org, andclick on Louisiana Interagency Taskforce onthe Future of Family Medicine for updates. Aspecial thanks to all of those volunteers servingon the committee, especially Drs. Ed Martin andRick Streifer. Many long hours have been spenttowards bettering our specialty of family medicine,and we still have a long way to go. As policyand design are formulated, we ask for yourinput and support.Under the next few sections, one of the mostcontroversial bills passed was SB 570, bySen. Hines, which provides for the economicand monopolistic protection of rural hospitalsand requires “ethical referral practices” byphysicians. Both the LAFP and the LSMSstrongly opposed this bill. Quoting the LSMSWeb site: “SB 570 severely impedes investmentand construction of certain health carefacilities by physicians or any ‘proposingparty’ in rural areas in direct competition withrural hospitals in their primary service area,which is defined as either a 25-mile radius orthe number of postal ZIP codes in which 75percent of the rural hospital’s patients reside.”The LAFP joined in the last-minute fight andnearly helped turn the tide. The bill wassqueezed out of the committee by one vote.In addition to the lobbying effort by our lobbyist,Jo Rose, we had one of our own ruralfamily doctors, Dr. Zeb Stearns, testifyagainst the bill. In order for the LAFP to be aforce, we need more active participation ofour members in the legislative process in thefuture. We need to have physicians availablewho are willing to leave their busy practicesto testify. Having Jo Rose, our lobbyistdown at the legislature, certainly can help toexpedite things for those willing. This is OURacademy — YOURS and mine. We also needan updated Legislative Contact List ofphysicians so that we can quickly contactappropriate legislators. Please contactSonora or Linda Foster at OUR AcademyOffice with your contact information.Under the section Medical Malpractice,there were some rather ambiguous resolutionsthat were proposed. There was a “loser-pays”bill, SB 110, which appeared to be mostpromising but was opposed by LSMS andLAMMICO for fear that the physician defendantwould also be subject to penalty. I amstill waiting to understand that one. HB 412,by Rep. Johns, adds the donation of blood andblood products to the definitions of “patient,”“malpractice” and “health care” under privatemedical malpractice. LSMS opposed this, asthis expands the ever-increasing malpracticedefendant arena. As always, there was anunsuccessful attempt to “tinker” with ourmalpractice cap of $500,000. An importantbill that did not get much fanfare, but couldgreatly impact the present state of malpracticein our state, as we know it, is SB 406. We asphysicians need to understand this piece oflegislation before agreeing to this with yourinsurance company. SB 406, by Sen. Lentini,provides, at the option of the defendant, aone-year expedited medical-review-panelprocess to issue an opinion beginning withthe appointment of the attorney chairperson.SB 406 became Act 323 of 2006, effective onAugust 15, 2006. The first 90 percent of thebill sounds very favorable to physicians andorganized medicine, but the last section iswhat concerns me. I quote:“The report of the expert opinion reached bythe expedited medical-review-panel processpursuant to the provisions of this Subsectionshall not be admissible as evidence in any