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Minnesota Recognizes Negligent Credentialing

Posted by: euser
October 04, 2007
Topic: Minnesota Personal Injury

The Minnesota Supreme Court decided recently in the case of Larson v. Wasemiller that Minnesota law recognizes a cause of action against a hospital for negligent credentialing/privileging of a physician.

Physicians who are independent contractors must be "credentialed" to be granted hospital privileges and access to hospital facilities. Each hospital has a credentialing committee that reviews the background, character, and qualifications of physicians to determine whether a particular physician should be credentialed at that hospital. A hospital has a duty to exercise reasonable care when selecting is medical staff to permit only competent and qualified physicians the privilege of using its facilities. The committee must therefore perform an adequate investigation to ensure that a physician it credentials is competent and qualified. This duty of care is owed to all hospital patients because it is reasonably foreseeable that negligent credentialing will cause harm.

What information was actually acquired and reviewed by a credentialing committee when making a credentialing decision, and what transpired during a credentialing meeting, must be held confidential under Minnesota statute, and is not subject to subpoena or discovery. However, the Larson court determined that this requirement of confidentiality does not preclude a cause of action for negligent credentialing because negligence can be shown by what was actually known or what should have been known by the hospital and committee at the time of the credentialing decision.

Although Minnesota law on this subject is thus far limited to what was discussed in Larson, many other states have also recognized negligent credentialing as a cause of action. Generally for a hospital to be held liable for negligent credentialing, it must be shown that the hospital knew or should have known that the particular physician did not possess the proper professional competence to practice. Expert testimony is usually required to show that the committee deviated from an ordinary standard of care when making a credentialing determination. A claim of negligent credentialing has been most successful in other states when there was a grievous oversight by the credentialing committee, such as not discovering previous malpractice claims against a physician or not checking into whether the physician was properly trained or certified. Moreover, it must be shown that the physician's incompetence directly and proximately caused the plaintiff patient's injuries or death.



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