Bill > H1301

This bill aims to improve patient safety and access to care by modifying regulations surrounding medical malpractice and error reporting. It clarifies that providing expert testimony in a malpractice case against a physician constitutes practicing medicine. Insurers providing malpractice insurance to physicians will be required to report annually to the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety and Medical Error Reduction, detailing the top ten categories of losses and defendant specialties, which the Center will use to develop best practices for reducing medical errors. The bill also mandates that expert witnesses in malpractice cases must be board-certified in the same specialty as the defendant physician. Furthermore, it introduces provisions for periodic payments of future damages exceeding $50,000 in malpractice cases, rather than a lump sum, to ensure adequate compensation and manage financial risk, with specific rules for modification and security. Finally, the bill alters how interest is calculated on malpractice judgments, tying it to a federal Treasury yield rather than a fixed rate, and establishes that defendants in malpractice cases will only be severally liable for their proportionate share of fault, not jointly liable for the entire judgment.