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HOUSE BILL 374
57
TH LEGISLATURE
-
STATE
OF
NEW
MEXICO
-
FIRST SESSION
,
2025
INTRODUCED BY
Gail Armstrong and Mark Duncan and Harlan Vincent
AN ACT
RELATING TO MEDICAL MALPRACTICE; AMENDING THE DEFINITION OF
"OCCURRENCE" IN THE MEDICAL MALPRACTICE ACT.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:
SECTION 1. Section 41-5-3 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 1976,
Chapter 2, Section 3, as amended) is amended to read:
"41-5-3. DEFINITIONS.--As used in the Medical Malpractice
Act:
A. "advisory board" means the patient's
compensation fund advisory board;
B. "control" means equity ownership in a business
entity that:
(1) represents more than fifty percent of the
total voting power of the business entity; or
(2) has a value of more than fifty percent of
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that business entity;
C. "fund" means the patient's compensation fund;
D. "health care provider" means a person,
corporation, organization, facility or institution licensed or
certified by this state to provide health care or professional
services as a doctor of medicine, hospital, outpatient health
care facility, doctor of osteopathy, chiropractor, [podiatrist ]
podiatric physician, nurse anesthetist, physician's assistant,
certified nurse practitioner, clinical nurse specialist or
certified nurse-midwife or a business entity that is organized,
incorporated or formed pursuant to the laws of New Mexico that
provides health care services primarily through natural persons
identified in this subsection. "Health care provider" does not
mean a person or entity protected pursuant to the Tort Claims
Act or the Federal Tort Claims Act;
E. "hospital" means a facility licensed as a
hospital in this state that offers in-patient services, nursing
or overnight care on a twenty-four-hour basis for diagnosing,
treating and providing medical, psychological or surgical care
for three or more separate persons who have a physical or
mental illness, disease, injury or rehabilitative condition or
are pregnant and may offer emergency services. "Hospital"
includes a hospital's parent corporation, subsidiary
corporations or affiliates if incorporated or registered in New
Mexico; employees and locum tenens providing services at the
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hospital; and agency nurses providing services at the hospital.
"Hospital" does not mean a person or entity protected pursuant
to the Tort Claims Act or the Federal Tort Claims Act;
F. "independent outpatient health care facility"
means a health care facility that is an ambulatory surgical
center, urgent care facility or free-standing emergency room
that is not, directly or indirectly through one or more
intermediaries, controlled or under common control with a
hospital. "Independent outpatient health care facility"
includes a facility's employees, locum tenens providers and
agency nurses providing services at the facility. "Independent
outpatient health care facility" does not mean a person or
entity protected pursuant to the Tort Claims Act or the Federal
Tort Claims Act;
G. "independent provider" means a doctor of
medicine, doctor of osteopathy, chiropractor, [podiatrist ]
podiatric physician, nurse anesthetist, physician's assistant,
certified nurse practitioner, clinical nurse specialist or
certified nurse-midwife who is not an employee of a hospital or
outpatient health care facility. "Independent provider" does
not mean a person or entity protected pursuant to the Tort
Claims Act or the Federal Tort Claims Act. "Independent
provider" includes:
(1) a health care facility that is:
(a) licensed pursuant to the Public
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Health Act as an outpatient facility;
(b) not an ambulatory surgical center,
urgent care facility or free-standing emergency room; and
(c) not hospital-controlled; and
(2) a business entity that is not a hospital
or outpatient health care facility that employs or consists of
members who are licensed or certified as doctors of medicine,
doctors of osteopathy, chiropractors, [podiatrists ] podiatric
physicians, nurse anesthetists, physician's assistants,
certified nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists or
certified nurse-midwives and the business entity's employees;
H. "insurer" means an insurance company engaged in
writing health care provider malpractice liability insurance in
this state;
I. "malpractice claim" includes any cause of action
arising in this state against a health care provider for
medical treatment, lack of medical treatment or other claimed
departure from accepted standards of health care that
proximately results in injury to the patient, whether the
patient's claim or cause of action sounds in tort or contract,
and includes but is not limited to actions based on battery or
wrongful death; "malpractice claim" does not include a cause of
action arising out of the driving, flying or nonmedical acts
involved in the operation, use or maintenance of a vehicular or
aircraft ambulance;
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J. "medical care and related benefits" means all
reasonable medical, surgical, physical rehabilitation and
custodial services and includes drugs, prosthetic devices and
other similar materials reasonably necessary in the provision
of such services;
K. "occurrence" means all [injuries to a patient
caused by health care providers' successive acts or omissions
that combined concurrently to create a malpractice claim ]
claims for damages from all persons arising from harm to a
single patient, no matter how many health care providers,
errors or omissions contributed to the harm ;
L. "outpatient health care facility" means an
entity that is hospital-controlled and is licensed pursuant to
the Public Health Act as an outpatient facility, including
ambulatory surgical centers, free-standing emergency rooms,
urgent care clinics, acute care centers and intermediate care
facilities and includes a facility's employees, locum tenens
providers and agency nurses providing services at the facility.
"Outpatient health care facility" does not include:
(1) independent providers;
(2) independent outpatient health care
facilities; or
(3) individuals or entities protected pursuant
to the Tort Claims Act or the Federal Tort Claims Act;
M. "patient" means a natural person who received or
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should have received health care from a health care provider,
under a contract, express or implied; and
N. "superintendent" means the superintendent of
insurance."
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