SB 330--
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Session of 1997
SENATE BILL No. 330
By Senators Huelskamp and Salmans
2-14
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AN ACT concerning the board of healing arts; establishing and creating
health care provider profiles; establishing duties and requirements re-
garding the reporting, collecting, compiling and dissemination of nec-
essary information; amending K.S.A. 65-2898a and repealing the ex-
isting section.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Kansas:
New Section 1. The state board of healing arts is hereby directed to
collect the following information to create individual profiles on health
care licensees in a format created by the board that shall be available for
dissemination to the public:
(a) A description of any criminal convictions for felonies and serious
misdemeanors as determined by the board, within the most recent 10
years. For the purposes of this subsection, a person shall be deemed to
be convicted of a crime if the person plead guilty or was found or ad-
judged guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction;
(b) a description of any charges to which a licensee plead nolo con-
tendere or where sufficient facts of guilt were found and the matter was
continued without a finding by a court of competent jurisdiction;
(c) a description of any final board disciplinary actions within the most
recent 10 years;
(d) a description of any final disciplinary actions by licensing boards
in other states within the most recent 10 years;
(e) a description of revocation or involuntary restriction of hospital
privileges for reasons related to competence or character that have been
taken by the hospital's governing body or any other official of the hospital
after procedural due process has been afforded, or the resignation from
or nonrenewal of medical staff membership or the restriction of privileges
at a hospital taken in lieu of or in settlement of a pending disciplinary
case related to competence or character in that hospital. Only cases which
have occurred within the most recent 10 years shall be disclosed by the
board to the public;
(f) all medical malpractice court judgments and all medical malprac-
tice arbitration awards in which a payment is awarded to a complaining
party during the most recent 10 years and all settlements of medical
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1 malpractice claims in which a payment is made to a complaining party
2 within the most recent 10 years. Dispositions of paid claims shall be re-
3 ported in a minimum of three graduated categories indicating the level
4 of significance of the award or settlement. Information concerning paid
5 medical malpractice claims shall be put in context by comparing an in-
6 dividual licensee's medical malpractice judgment awards and settlements
7 to the experience of other health care licensees within the same specialty.
8 Information concerning all settlements shall be accompanied by the fol-
9 lowing statement: ``Settlement of a claim may occur for a variety of rea-
10 sons which do not necessarily reflect negatively on the professional com-
11 petence or conduct of the health care provider. A payment in settlement
12 of a medical malpractice action or claim should not be construed as cre-
13 ating a presumption that medical malpractice has occurred.'' Nothing
14 herein shall be construed to limit or prevent the board from providing
15 further explanatory information regarding the significance of categories
16 in which settlements are reported. Pending malpractice claims shall not
17 be disclosed by the board to the public, and nothing in this section shall
18 be construed to prevent the board from investigating and disciplining a
19 licensee on the basis of medical malpractice claims that are pending;
20 (g) names of medical schools and dates of graduation;
21 (h) graduate medical education;
22 (i) specialty board certification;
23 (j) number of years in practice;
24 (k) names of the hospitals where the licensee has privileges;
25 (l) appointments to medical school faculties and indication as to
26 whether a licensee has a responsibility for graduate medical education
27 within the most recent 10 years;
28 (m) information regarding publications in peer-reviewed medical lit-
29 erature within the most recent 10 years;
30 (n) information regarding professional or community service activi-
31 ties and awards;
32 (o) the location of the licensee's primary practice setting;
33 (p) the identification of any translating services that may be available
34 at the licensee's primary practice location; and
35 (q) an indication of whether the licensee participates in the medicaid
36 program.
37 The board shall provide individual licensees with a copy of their profiles
38 prior to release to the public. A licensee shall be provided a reasonable
39 time to correct factual inaccuracies that appear in such profile.
40 A physician may elect to have his profile omit certain information pro-
41 vided pursuant to subsections (l) to (n), inclusive, concerning academic
42 appointments and teaching responsibilities, publication in peer-review
43 journals and professional and community service awards. In collecting
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1 information for such profiles and in disseminating the same, the board
2 shall inform physicians that they may choose not to provide such infor-
3 mation required pursuant to subsections (l) to (n), inclusive.
4 New Sec. 2. The clerk of any court in which a health care provider
5 licensed in this state is convicted of any crime or in which an unregistered
6 practioner is convicted of holding such unregistered practioner out as a
7 practioner of medicine or of practicing medicine, within one week there-
8 after shall report the same to the board together with a copy of the court
9 proceedings in the case. For the purposes of this section, a person shall
10 be deemed to be convicted of a crime if such person plead guilty or was
11 found or adjudged guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction.
12 Where a health care licensee pleads nolo contendere to charges or
13 where sufficient facts of guilt were found and the matter was continued
14 without a finding by a court of competent jurisdiction, such clerk shall,
15 within one week thereafter, report the same to the board of healing arts
16 together with a copy of the court proceedings in the case.
17 New Sec. 3. When collecting information or compiling reports in-
18 tended to compare individual health care providers, the board of healing
19 arts shall require that:
20 (a) Provider organizations which are representative of the target
21 group for profiling shall be meaningfully involved in the development of
22 all aspects of the profile methodology including collection methods, for-
23 matting and methods and means for release and dissemination;
24 (b) the entire methodology for collecting and analyzing the data shall
25 be disclosed to all relevant provider organizations and to all providers
26 under review;
27 (c) data collection and analytical methodologies shall be used that
28 meet accepted standards of validity and reliability;
29 (d) the limitations of the data sources and analytic methodologies
30 used to develop provider profiles shall be clearly identified and acknowl-
31 edged, including, but not limited to, the appropriate and inappropriate
32 uses of the data;
33 (e) to the greatest extent possible, provider profiling initiatives shall
34 use standard-based norms derived from widely accepted, provider-de-
35 veloped practice guidelines;
36 (f) provider profiles and other information that have been compiled
37 regarding provider performance shall be shared with providers under
38 review prior to dissemination, provided that opportunity for corrections
39 and additions of helpful explanatory comments shall be provided prior to
40 publication; and provided that such profiles shall only include data which
41 reflect care under the control of the provider for whom such profile is
42 prepared;
43 (g) comparisons among provider profiles shall adjust for patient case-
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1 mix and other relevant risk factors and control for provider peer groups,
2 when appropriate;
3 (h) effective safeguards to protect against the unauthorized use or
4 disclosure or provider profiles shall be developed and implemented;
5 (i) effective safeguards to protect against the dissemination of incon-
6 sistent, incomplete, invalid, inaccurate or subjective profile data shall be
7 developed and implemented;
8 (j) the quality and accuracy of provider profiles, data sources and
9 methodologies shall be evaluated regularly;
10 (k) providers shall be reimbursed for the reasonable costs that are
11 required for assembling, formatting and transmitting data and informa-
12 tion to organizations that develop or disseminate provider profiles; and
13 (l) the benefits of provider profiling shall outweigh the costs of de-
14 veloping and disseminating the profiles.
15 New Sec. 4. The board of healing arts in implementing the provi-
16 sions of section 1 shall not disseminate a health care licensee's profile by
17 electronic media, any form of telecommunications, or CD-Rom, before
18 July 1, 1998. The board shall conduct a study of the impact of publication
19 of health care licensee profiles by electronic media on the personal safety
20 of health care licensees and their families, and shall report its findings to
21 the legislature on or before January 1, 1998. The board shall include in
22 the report a sample profile designed with safeguards recommended by
23 the board. No later than December 1, 1997, and after a public hearing,
24 the board shall promulgate rules and regulations to eliminate, to the ex-
25 tent practicable, the possibility that certain information contained in the
26 profiles may jeopardize the personal safety of health care licensees and
27 their families.
28 Sec. 5. K.S.A. 65-2898a is hereby amended to read as follows: 65-
29 2898a. (a) Any complaint or report, record or other information relating
30 to a complaint which is received, obtained or maintained by the board
31 shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed by the board or its em-
32 ployees in a manner which identifies or enables identification of the per-
33 son who is the subject or source of the information except the information
34 may be disclosed:
35 (1) In any proceeding conducted by the board under the law or in an
36 appeal of an order of the board entered in a proceeding, or to any party
37 to a proceeding or appeal or the party's attorney;
38 (2) to a hospital committee which is authorized to grant, limit or deny
39 hospital privileges, if any disciplinary action authorized by K.S.A. 65-2836
40 and amendments thereto has at any time been taken against the licensee
41 or if the board has at any time denied a license to the person;
42 (3) to the person who is the subject of the information or to any
43 person or entity when requested by the person who is the subject of the
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1 information, but the board may require disclosure in such a manner that
2 will prevent identification of any other person who is the subject or source
3 of the information; or
4 (4) to a state or federal licensing, regulatory or enforcement agency
5 with jurisdiction over the subject of the information or to an agency with
6 jurisdiction over acts or conduct similar to acts or conduct which would
7 constitute grounds for action under this act. Any confidential complaint
8 or report, record or other information disclosed by the board as author-
9 ized by this section shall not be redisclosed by the receiving agency except
10 as otherwise authorized by law.
11 (b) Information that is confidential under subsection (a) shall not pre-
12 vent the reporting of a description of any final board disciplinary action
13 for the purpose of compiling a health care provider profile under section
14 1 of this act and amendments thereto.
15 (b) (c) This section shall be part of and supplemental to the Kansas
16 healing arts act.
17 Sec. 6. K.S.A. 65-2898a is hereby repealed.
18 Sec. 7. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its
19 publication in the statute book.