Bill > H1705

This bill addresses several aspects of patient safety, medical error reporting, and medical malpractice in Massachusetts. It expands the definition of a "medical peer review committee" to include more comprehensive evaluation of healthcare services, covering quality of care, standards compliance, cost reasonableness, and provider fitness. The bill requires insurers providing coverage to physicians to submit annual reports to the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety and Medical Error Reduction, detailing the top ten categories of medical error claims and defendant specialties. It also establishes new provisions for medical malpractice lawsuits, including requirements that expert witnesses in malpractice cases must be board-certified in the same specialty as the defendant, and introduces a system of periodic payments for damages over $50,000 instead of lump-sum payments. Additionally, the bill clarifies that offering expert testimony in a malpractice case constitutes practicing medicine, and modifies interest rate calculations for judgments in medical malpractice cases by linking them to the weekly average 1-year Treasury yield. These changes aim to improve transparency, accountability, and patient safety in the healthcare system.

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https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H1705