Profession
Medicine now plaintiffs in Ark. economic credentialing case
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Aug. 20, 2007
Organized medicine is joining a legal fight against an Arkansas hospital's economic credentialing policy that denies privileges to staff physicians who have ownership in competing facilities.
The Pulaski County Circuit Court in July allowed the Arkansas Medical Society and the American Medical Association/State Medical Societies Litigation Center to become plaintiffs in a lawsuit that a group of cardiologists filed against Baptist Health in 2004 to block the policy. The doctors are partners at Little Rock Cardiology Clinic and have ownership in Arkansas Heart Hospital, which competes with Baptist.
David Wroten, AMS executive vice president, said economic credentialing policies have the potential to interfere in patient care. The medical society got involved in the case because "credentialing decisions should be made by medical staffs, not hospital boards, and those decisions should be based on quality and competency, as opposed to economic considerations," he said.
The case is expected to go to trial in March 2008. The Arkansas Supreme Court in 2006 ruled that the doctors could continue to practice at Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock while the lawsuit proceeds.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/08/20/prbf0820.htm.
