holding that physician whose privileges were summarily suspended was not required to complete hospital’s peer review process before suing hospital for injunctive relief where physician alleged that hospital itself failed to follow process
How later courts described this case
- holding that physician whose privileges were summarily suspended was not required to complete hospital’s peer review process before suing hospital for injunctive relief where physician alleged that hospital itself failed to follow process
- declining to follow the preemption rationale in Diaz because the parties failed to present a specific legal argument urging *981the Montana court to do so and because the court had not been presented with evidence "of an express declaration in the HCQIA of its intent to preempt state law"
- adopting a “presumption against preemption,” declining to follow Diaz, and finding the trial court was not presented with evidence of an express declaration in the HCQIA of its intent to preempt state law
- “An erroneous report announcing to all interested parties that a physician is being investigated or suspended for unethical activity or impairment has the potential for immediate harm as well as permanent harm, even 20 if later retracted.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
JUSTICE NELSON
concurs.
¶44 I concur in the Court’s decision. Besides the rationale set forth in the Court’s Opinion, I am also persuaded that the propriety of the tests ordered by Dr. Doe for his family was not a matter which was properly within the purview of the Assistance Committee.
¶45 In this regard, MEC and its amici argue at length about the importance and the sanctity of the “peer review” process. I do not disagree that this process serves important quality assurance, patient care and educational purposes. However, under Community Medical Center, Inc. Medical Staff Policy MSP-030, the peer review process is conducted by certain designated medical staff departments and committees, not by the Assistance Committee. Indeed, MSP-050 specifically requires that “[a]ll matters regarding quality of care will be referred to the appropriate Department.” This process was not followed here.
¶46 If, as MEC and its amici contend, the “peer review” process is sacrosanct, then MEC should simply have used that process, rather than the one it did. Despite the arguments on brief of MEC and its amici, our decision here does no violence to the “peer review” process. ¶47 I concur.