My Year in the UMA

Last Friday, I was joined by my wonderful family as I passed the torch of leadership of the Utah Medical Association to its new President, Dr. Brian Hales.  This was a bittersweet experience for me; I will miss my time as President, but I know that Dr. Hales has much to add in this new role.  I think this is an appropriate time for me to reflect on the things we were able to accomplish in the last year.

Here are a couple of legislative highlights:

House Bill:  this legislation which we advocated, was to allow physician offices the right to dispense free samples of medications for up to 30 days or longer, depending on medical necessity.  Previously, DOPL regulations prohibited clinics sending home more than 3 days worth of medications.  We recognize that patients often do not fill their prescriptions due to cost and studies have shown that over half of prescriptions are never filled thus putting the patient in significant danger.  By increasing this sampling time, doctors can  provide free medications, for a significant length of time, to patients who may not be able to afford them.

Another bill dealt with the treatment of cancer patients.  This bill allows oncologists and cancer clinics to treat patients at the time of service at the clinic with specific anti cancer medications provided at cost.  Previously, patients had to leave the clinic and obtain their oncology medications.  Often, patients are very ill from the disease itself or from the side effects of their treatments.  This bill helps patients to obtain these vital medications and then post treatment to go directly to their homes or rehab centers without the delay in getting their medications filled or ordered.

I really liked both of these bills as they truly helped patients.  

SJR 15 was a very important bill that I testified on before the Senate Committee.  In late 2011, a District Court ruling struck down protection of peer review in hospitals.  This ruling created the dangerous potential of limiting the frank and open discussion by physicians and  hospital personnel about patient complaints, injury and system problems. The result would be lack of discussion due to fear of litigation. This bill restored an amendments of the Rules of Civil Procedure, the confidentiality and peer review protection.  This restored the confidential review of cases in order to improve quality care.  Importantly, the bill did not limit the rights of the patient to their records nor inhibit their rights to litigation, if they choose.

Another rewarding role was to be the physician representative on the Utah State Medical Liability Reform Committee.  Chaired by Lt Gov. Bell, this committee has worked with many stakeholders including the trial attorneys, Utah Medical Association, Department of Health, etc. to consider alternatives to current medical liability system which is very problematic.  The current liability system is fraught with adversarial, hugely expensive legal proceedings which does not help the injured patient.  We are studying an early dispute resolution program as an alternative to the traditional tort system.  This program, if adopted would allow patients and physicians to communicate and resolve their disputes sooner and in a much more open and collegial manner.  Similar programs in Michigan have found much lower costs, fairer and quicker dispute resolution;  further, patients retain their ability to opt out to the traditional system if needed.

These are just a few of the legislative highlights of the past year for me.  It was engaging, and rewarding as we successfully advocated for patient care, public health and preserving the doctor patient relationship.

Healthcare Reform is an extremely important issue to me, and I hope to continue to fight for reasonable, bipartisan healthcare reform on Capitol Hill.