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Panel bars hospitals from denying privileges for economic reasons, preserves clinical access
Summary
HB370 would prohibit hospitals from using economic criteria unrelated to competence or patient safety to deny clinical privileges; the committee approved an amendment clarifying hospitals may consider malpractice history and then passed the bill unanimously.
The committee adopted an amendment and passed House Bill 370, a bill that prevents hospitals from engaging in "economic credentialing" — denying privileges to clinicians for reasons tied to economic competition rather than competence or patient safety.
Supporters, including the New Mexico Medical Society, said the bill is meant to protect patients' access to community clinicians and to prevent hospitals from excluding independent practitioners for competitive reasons. "If a provider meets all the criteria established by [hospital] bylaws, the hospital should not be able to deny the provider privileges simply because the clinician may be an economic competitor," Carrie Robin Brunder of the New Mexico Medical Society said.
The committee's adopted amendment clarifies that hospitals may still consider whether a clinician is a defendant in an unresolved medical-malpractice lawsuit when evaluating privileges, a factor hospitals currently use to assess safety risk. With that amendment, the committee voted to advance the bill; the clerk recorded a unanimous recorded vote, 10-0.
Proponents said similar statutes exist in multiple states and framed the bill as preserving patient choice and local access to care by preventing nonclinical economic criteria from dictating credentialing decisions. Opponents were not recorded in the hearing.
The bill now advances to the next referred committees. If enacted, it would restrict hospital credentialing policies from excluding clinicians for economic reasons while allowing hospitals to continue evaluating professional competence, quality and patient-safety records including malpractice history.
