AMC/NOMA Legislative Committee Update

Although the Ohio General Assembly adjourned sine die, the Governor held a special session to address election law reforms. There has been a flurry of legislative activity over the past few weeks since once the new legislators take office in January all pending legislation will die and have to be reintroduced again before it can be evaluated and debated by the legislature. The AMC/NOMA legislative committee met in December 2004 to evaluate the final wrap-up in legislation for this year.

Business and Product Liability Tort Reform (SB 80) – The AMC/NOMA has been following the changes and amendments to SB 80 and as a long standing member of the Ohio Alliance for Civil Justice, a broad coalition of business, insurance and healthcare organizations, the AMC/NOMA has been very supportive of SB 80.

SB 80 includes the following provisions:

• Placing limits on the recovery of punitive damages – two times compensatory damages for large employers; for small employers and individuals, the lesser of two times compensatory damages, 10 percent of the employer’s or individual’s net worth, or $350,000
• Placing limits on the recovery of non-economic damages – the greater of $250,000 or three times the amount of economic damages up to $350,000 for non-catastrophic injuries; prohibits the use of certain evidence in determining non-economic damages for catastrophic injuries.
• No cap on non-economic damages for “catastrophic injuries” but judges would be required to review and possibly lower large jury awards based on certain criteria; 
• Establishing a 10-year statute of repose for product liability and construction-related claims
• Permitting the introduction of collateral sources of payment to plaintiffs for damages
• Immunity from prosecution for restaurants and food companies that are sued by plaintiffs who blame the restaurant for making them fat or unhealthy.
• Setting limits on the successor asbestos-related liabilities
• Eliminating the consumer expectation test as a stand-alone test for design defect causes of action

Other pieces of legislation that passed at the end of the year of importance physicians and the AMC/NOMA include the following:

Chicken Pox Immunizations (HB 463) – This bill requires, except in select circumstances, that students be immunized for chicken pox before beginning kindergarten. The House concurred on the Senate’s changes and the bill now awaits the Governor’s signature. The AMC/NOMA strongly supported this legislation.

Mammography Screening (HB 331) – This legislation increases the cap on reimbursement for mammography screening. The Senate adopted an amendment that creates a fee schedule by which health care providers and medical records companies may charge for copying related to medical records. 

The bill changes the fees that may be charged for copies of medical records and establishes two fee schedules. The first applies when the request is from a patient or patient's personal representative. The second applies when the request comes from a person or entity other than a patient or patient's personal representative. The bill provides for these schedules to be in effect through December 31, 2008.The bill requires the Director of Health to adjust the fee schedules annually beginning not later than January 31, 2006 to reflect an increase or decrease in the Consumer Price Index over the previous 12-month period. The AMC/NOMA strongly supports this legislation and plans to prepare a revised fact sheet regarding medical records and provide it to our members in the next few weeks. 

Attorney Fee Data Collection (HB 425) – The original intent of this legislation pertained strictly to mine subsistence insurance, however, amendments were made to the bill that ask the Ohio Supreme Court to adopt rules governing data collection on contingency fees that plaintiffs’ attorneys receive. Continuing law requires medical malpractice insurers to report information to the Department of Insurance at least annually on all malpractice claims resulting in a final judgment of any amount, a final settlement, or a final disposition of the claim resulting in no indemnity payment on behalf of the insured. HB 425 requests the Ohio Supreme Court to adopt rules of professional conduct that require attorneys who represent persons on medical malpractice claims to file a report with the Department of Insurance or the Department's designee describing the attorney fees and expenses received for the representation, as well as any other data necessary for the Department to reconcile the attorney fee and expense data with other medical malpractice closed claim data received by the Department. 

The bill defines any information submitted to the Department by an attorney, law firm, or legal professional association pursuant to rules adopted by the Ohio Supreme Court to be confidential and privileged and not a public record. Under the bill, the information submitted is not subject to discovery or subpoena and cannot be made public by the Department of Insurance or any other person. The Department, however, is required under the bill to summarize the information received and to include the information in the annual report prepared by the Department on closed medical malpractice claims. Individual claims data cannot be released in the annual report. The data would be reported to the Ohio Department of Insurance in a confidential format, and in turn the ODI would then issue an aggregate report to the Ohio General Assembly. The AMC/NOMA strongly supports the provisions of this legislation pertaining to reporting of attorney information. 

Campaign Finance Reform

Another very important matter taken up by this General Assembly was campaign finance reform. Called into a special legislative session by Governor Bob Taft, the legislature made sweeping changes to Ohio’s Campaign Finance Laws. Among those most notable and applicable to AMC/NOMA members are:

• Increasing caps on minimum personal contributions. Current law allows for individual contributions of up to $2500.00 per election cycle per candidate. With the passage of the campaign finance reform effort, that cap has increased to $10,000.00 per election cycle per candidate.
• Restricting funds that may by used for “issue advocacy” groups. Previously unregulated, the bill imposes several new forms of regulation on third party groups that are formed to discuss issues, not specific candidates. Under current law, corporate funds could be used to finance activity of issue advocacy groups regardless of how close to an election that group’s activity is. The new law states that corporate contributions to issue advocacy groups cannot be used on any activity within thirty days of an election for which the group is advocating. Within that thirty-day window, only personal contributions may be used for advocacy activity.
• Whereas issue advocacy groups were under to obligation to report its donors, the new law makes all financial activity of a group, both donations and expenditures, reportable to the Ohio Secretary of State.

There were no substantive changes made to Ohio’s limits on contributions to Political Action Committees (PAC’s). Therefore, any impact that this bill has on the AMC/NOMA and our PAC – (NOMPAC) activities is expected to be minimal.