Still not satisfied with the authority given to the executive director of the Arizona Medical Board to dismiss complaints against medical doctors, Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-8, has come up with an amendment to impose limitations.

Her amendment requires that court judgments against an MD for malpractice may not be dismissed by the director — they must be acted upon by the Medical Board.

Current law requires prosecutors of malpractice cases to notify the board of the outcome of all such cases, but the executive director is not required to take those cases to the board. Medical Board Director Barry Cassidy says he has no problem with Ms. Allen’s amendment

“That makes perfectly good sense,” he said.

The amendment was a compromise reached with Ms. Allen, chairman of the Senate Health Committee, Mr. Cassidy said. It is attached to H2025, a bill dealing with, among other things, a testing and treatment program for doctors with behavioral disorders.

He said Ms. Allen originally wanted all malpractice court cases, even those settled before trial, taken to the board, regardless of the circumstances of the cases.

Ms. Allen told Arizona Capitol Times she regrets having supported a bill when she was in the House several years ago that gave the Medical Board director authority to dismiss cases after consulting with medical experts. The dismissal authority was granted to help eliminate a growing backlog of complaints.

Ms. Allen also is concerned about the findings of a recent audit of the board, which questioned several of Mr. Cassidy’s dismissals of malpractice complaints.

The Senate had not scheduled final action on H2025 as of April 21.

The Arizona Medical Board was first in the country for taking disciplinary action against medical doctors from 2001 through 2003, as ranked by the Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. The Washington D.C.-based consumer organization ranked the board fourth for 2003 alone, as did the Federation of State Medical Boards.

The health research group credited, among other things, the board’s “independence from state medical societies and other parts of state government” for its high rankings. —