Keeping You Connected

The SBCMS keeps you up to date on the latest news,
policy developments, and events

SBCMS News/Media

rss

Free CME: The Doctors Company offers free workshop for physicians

The Doctors Company is hosting a complimentary workshop for physicians on Wednesday, October 5, 2016, at the Sacramento Hyatt Regency. The “Surviving Litigation Seminar” is open to all physicians and practice administrators—not just members of The Doctors Company. This seminar delivers essential tips from litigation experts to help physicians understand the legal process, provide insights on how doctors can be effective in court, and teach techniques for dealing with the stress of malpractice litigation. Participants can earn 2.5 continuing medical education (CME) credits. Because of limited availability, please register before September ...

Trial lawyers begin collecting signatures for anti-MICRA ballot initiative

Driven by greed and the promise of inflated attorney fees, California trial lawyers have renewed their fight to lift the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) cap on speculative, non-economic damages, presenting ballot language that seeks to more than quadruple the maximum award for non-economic damages to roughly $1.1 million.   If successful, these efforts would be devastating to California’s health care system. More meritless lawsuits will lead to reduced patient access to our health care professionals – and fewer options for affordable, quality health care – especially in rural and ...

Trial attorneys re-file anti-MICRA ballot initiative

On August 30, the trial attorneys re-filed their proposed anti-MICRA ballot initiative with the Attorney General’s Office, a political maneuver that will buy them more time as they attempt to navigate around the organized opposition to the proposal. The revised initiative was filed only hours before the start of the long Labor Day weekend, an obvious attempt at keeping their proposal off the public’s radar as best they could.   Despite the revisions, the central focus of this proposed initiative remains to be to more than quadruple California's current $250,000 cap ...

MICRA: Haven't we all seen this before?

For nearly four decades California trial attorneys have been trying to rewrite the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA). By now, you’ve likely heard the main narrative spun by the trial lawyer-backed Consumer Watchdog and other MICRA opponents – 38 years is too long for a law such as MICRA to exist without being updated in some fashion. Oddly enough, Consumer Watchdog and others are quick to leave out the fact that the only time MICRA was successfully altered, trial lawyers agreed to back off in exchange for a bigger piece ...

MICRA Update: Crunch time in the Capitol

A little more than three weeks remain in the 2013 legislative session, which means both sides in the growing fight over California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) are working hard to woo members of the state Assembly and Senate over to their side of the issue. In the days following the Legislature’s return from its summer recess, the California Medical Association (CMA) and other members of the Californians Allied for Patient Protection began blanketing legislative offices with letters of support for the historic patient and provider protections built into ...

Public trust in physicians an asset in the coming MICRA fight

By now, you’ve likely heard that Consumer Watchdog, a political astroturf group backed heavily by California’s trial attorneys, has thrown its weight behind a ballot initiative that seeks undo major provisions of California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA). Should MICRA be touched, it would severely limit access to care of millions of patients across the state. Rest assured, this initiative is misguided and fueled by the trial attorneys' desire to inflate jury awards as a way to increase the legal fees they can collect from their clients. The California Medical Association ...