Negligent credentialing put under the microscope in Kentucky
The Kentucky Supreme Court (the “Court”) recently reversed a Court of Appeals ruling that would have allowed patients to sue hospitals for negligent credentialing of non-employee physicians who are given staff privileges. The Court’s decision strikes down negligent credentialing as a separate and new cause of action against hospitals in Kentucky.
The first recognition of the tort of negligent credentialing by hospitals occurred in 1965 in Illinois in the case Darling v. Charleston Community Memorial Hospital. It has since been specifically recognized by dozens of states. Kentucky has not been one of them.
To determine if Kentucky law recognized the tort of negligent credentialing, the Court considered three consolidated cases.
In one case, Spring View Hospital, LLC v. Jones, the plaintiff in this case sued Spring View Hospital in Lebanon, Kentucky, for negligent credentialing after experiencing complications stemming from two knee surgeries in 2007 performed by Daniel Bailey, MD. After seeing another physician in August 2009, the plaintiff suspected Bailey’s treatment may have been the cause of her injury.
In May 2010, the plaintiff filed suit against Bailey for medical malpractice. She then amended her complaint, alleging that Spring View was negligent for granting Bailey credentials.
Bailey had signed a recruiting agreement with Spring View in September 2006, which required that he be duly licensed as a physician in Kentucky and obtain and maintain active medical staff privileges with Spring View.
According to Spring View’s bylaws, members of its active medical staff “Must be Board certified in the specialty for which they seek privileges, or have successfully completed a residency training program ... in the specialty for which they are applying for privileges; or be board certified or board admissible by one of [several] specialty boards in the specialty for which the practitioner is applying for privileges.”
In Bailey’s December 2006 application to join Spring View’s medical staff, he left the section requesting the names of the specialty boards in which he was certified blank.
Spring View granted Bailey provisional medical staff privileges for one year once the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure granted him a license to practice; Spring View then granted him active medical staff privileges in July 2008.
Spring View filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s claim because negligent credentialing was not a recognized cause of action in Kentucky. The circuit court agreed and granted the motion. The plaintiff appealed.
Source: News and Analysis
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