What is a “Peer Review Lawyer”?
A "peer review lawyer" refers to an attorney who represents doctors and other medical professionals (nurses, physician assistants) when organized medical staff, a hospital or physician group raises concerns about their professional performance or qualifications. These lawyers handle investigations relating to specific negative patient outcomes, denials of privileges and the imposition of privilege restrictions, mandatory additional training programs, mandatory proctoring and other restrictions on the right to freely practice.
In many cases the medical professional will be suspended from practice pending the outcome of an investigation or following a Medical Executive Committee (MEC) determination that is negative toward to provider. A peer review lawyer will challenge this and may represent the medical provider at a hearing to determine the qualification of the healthcare provider.
Peer Review law is a specialty in law and it focuses on the representation of doctors and medical professionals by attorneys expert in rules and procedures that are designed to apply only to the medical profession. This includes the peer review privacy statute known as H&S 1157, medical board reporting, National Practitioner Data Bank reporting and other rules special to medical law.
These lawyers are expert in law such as California Evidence Code § 1157 which provides almost complete protection against the discovery of the rationale for peer review decisions and they protect doctors from negative reports filed with the state medical board and with the federally maintained National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB).
Peer Review hearings provide some due process protections for doctors and this includes the right to a hearing on the allegations. However, peer review lawyers do not have access to information or witnesses in the same way that a criminal lawyer or even a civil lawyer will have. These attorneys learn to present their client's case with these limitations and these unique rules that apply to peer review hearings distinguish the ordinary practice of law with the specialization of an attorney as a peer review lawyer.
