Mother campaigns for malpractice disclosure

Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

GOLDEN - The loss of her only son still a sharp wound, Patty Skolnik is determined to make Colorado the 16th state to publicize malpractice judgments against doctors.

Skolnik, of Centennial, appeared at a news conference Tuesday where Health Grades announced it has gone online with the first national data base with information on malpractice settlements against doctors. Information on malpractice judgments, settlements and arbitration awards against doctors from 15 states is available at www.healthgrades.com.

Health Grades, which bills itself as the nation's largest independent health-care rating company, can only make available the information if the states don't shield it, said Sara Loughran, executive vice president.

The Colorado legislature is working on the Michael Skolnik Medical Transparency Act, which would require all doctors to report final malpractice judgments, settlements or arbitrations against them.

The information would be collected by the state Board of Medical Examiners. Health Grades would pick up that information and make it available in a consumer-friendly way, said Loughran.

The Michael Skolnik Transparency Act, HB 1331, unanimously passed the House Health and Human Services Committee last Thursday and now is in appropriations. It would cost doctors in Colorado an extra $19 on their licenses.

Michael Skolnik was 22 in 2001, studying to be a pediatric nurse, when he blacked out while playing with the family dog.

Skolnik said a series of mistakes led to her son getting unnecessary surgery from an inexperienced doctor who jostled his brain.

A few months later, while the neurosurgeon was saying that Michael would be fine after rehab, doctors at Craig Hospital said her son was half blind, partly paralyzed, was psychotic and had the reasoning ability of a third-grader.

There followed two years of hell, a half-dozen hospitals and $4.8 million in medical expenses.

"He couldn't walk or talk," Skolnik said of her son. "Every day he would put his hand to his head, like pointing a gun."

Finally, on June 4, 2004, Michael mouthed the words, "I love you," to his father and died.

Skolnik said if she had known that the neurosurgeon, Dr. David Wayne Miller, had had a malpractice claim against him in Georgia - she would have sought a different physician. She is frustrated that he still continues to practice - now in Scottsbluff, Neb.

During the discovery process in a lawsuit Skolnik filed, she found out that the doctor had done just one other such procedure.

Health Grade's report on Miller says he has no state disciplinary action against him, but does have a Bridges to Excellence certification.

Skolnik said that unless he practiced in a state that requires that information on malpractice settlements be publicized, consumers will never know.

Miller, who practices now at Western Plains Neurosurgery in Scottsbluff, didn't return telephone calls seeking comment.

The Colorado Civil Justice League, an organization opposed to frivolous lawsuits, originally opposed HB 1331, saying anyone can file a malpractice suit, and that they too often harm a doctor's reputation, often in unfair ways.

Later, CCJL and COPIC, the company that ensures most of Colorado's doctors, withdrew their opposition after language was softened to no longer require that current lawsuit claims - as opposed to final judgments - be publicized.

Loughran said that Health Grades won't include the mere filing of lawsuits against physicians, but will list judgments and the amount of settlements, at least in states that allow that information to be known.

A single settlement may not indicate that the doctor is incompetent, but a half-dozen settlements, or a single lawsuit with a $1 million settlement, might.

Michael was Patty and David Skolnik's only child. "Our world revolved around him," she said.

Skolnik said she and her husband paid about 15 percent of that $4.8 million - on co-pays, vans, lifts, therapies, beds, prescription drugs - and had to ask extended family members for financial help.

Skolnik isn't sure why Michael blacked out in the first place, or why a small black dot was found on his brain.

"I think he had a seizure," she said. "He died with that dot still in his head. It might have been just a lesion, nothing."

scanlon@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-442-8729