Bill Offers Physicians Protections While Shifting Focus to Pay for Performance
April 1, 2015 | Strategic Insights for Health System
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The U.S. House of Representatives has recently passed a bill with a provision that would protect physicians by preventing federal quality-of-care standards from being used in malpractice cases, states a March 30, 2015, New York Times article. According to the article, many physicians and their insurance companies contend that federal standards and guidelines do not accurately reflect the standard of care and should not be used to show negligence by a doctor or a hospital. However, consumer advocates and other opponents of the provision believe that performance on federal quality metrics should be fair game for lawsuits, as violations of federal standards can help to establish that an institution failed to meet its "duty of care."