EP 83: Sham Peer Reviews: A Deep Dive with Dr Lawrence Huntoon

Parallax by Ankur Kalra

“The hospitals like things just the way they are. It gives them almost complete immunity for any peer reviews, good faith, or bad faith, that they conduct against a physician.” The Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 considers accused physicians to be guilty of the charges unless and until they can prove their innocence. Over the years many hospitals abused the peer review system to extort and silence competent physicians. Dr Lawrence Huntoon, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, returns for a deep dive into the topic of the hospital peer review system. In this second episode of our medico-legal series, Dr Kalra invites Dr Huntoon for an overview of the key terminologies and processes of the hospital peer review system. Dr Huntoon summarises some of key actions you can take as a physician to prepare and defend yourself. We learn more about different sham peer review tactics through recent cases. Dr Huntoon shares his thoughts on what we can do to create a just system and better future for practicing physicians. What do you need to know about hospital investigations? What is the difference between OPPE and FPPE? How can you get educated on hospital bylaws and processes? Get involved with the work of AAPS and access more free-to-access resources on this topic: https://aapsonline.org Questions and comments can be sent to “[e-mail]” and may be answered by Ankur in the next episode. Guest: Dr Lawrence R Huntoon Host: @AnkurKalraMD Produced by: @RadcliffeCARDIO.