02/15/1996 01:34 PM Senate L&C

 SL&C 2/15/96                                                                  
                                                                               
        SB 254 MEDICAL MALPRACTICE: PANEL & DEFINITIONS                       
                                                                              
 SENATOR KELLY announced  SB 254  to be up for consideration.                  
                                                                               
 SUSAN COX, Department of Law, said there are two purposes to this             
 bill which clarifies what they believe to be existing law.                    
 However, they have found sometimes that when a suit is filed                  
 against a health care provider, and the State is the defendant the            
 question arises whether the malpractice action can or should be               
 referred to an expert advisory panel.  Present statute, AS 955.536            
 as currently worded does not distinguish between cases brought                
 against governmental entities or others.  In most cases the court             
 has referred these cases to an expert advisory panel.  So they                
 believe sections two and three merely clarify existing law so the             
 issue does not have to basically waste time being argued in court.            
                                                                               
 There has been one time when the court has refused to send a                  
 malpractice case to an expert advisory panel simply on the basis              
 that the State was named as a defendant - although the case did               
 involve malpractice.                                                          
                                                                               
 Section 4 would revise the definition of health care provider.                
 Initially they sought to include physician assistant in the                   
 definition.  They get occasional malpractice cases brought against            
 the Department of Corrections where care is often provided by                 
 physician assistants.  There is a question of whether those                   
 malpractice actions can be referred to an expert advisory panel.              
 The definition is now extremely broad, but for some reason                    
 physician assistants are not included.                                        
                                                                               
 SENATOR SALO moved to pass SB 254 from Committee with individual              
 recommendations.  There were no objections and it was so ordered.             
 SENATOR KELLY noted that there was a $0 fiscal note and it has                
 additional referrals to the Judiciary and Finance Committees.