Credentialing Applications May Contain Waiver of Peer Review Protections

It has been brought to the attention of AMS legal counsel that at least one hospital, as part of their credentialing process, is requiring physicians to sign language agreeing that the hospital’s internal peer review hearing and appeals process will be the physician’s sole and exclusive remedy.

AMS believes this is a direct violation of the Arkansas Peer Review Fairness Act (Act 766 of 2013), which your Medical Society helped Senator Cecile Bledsoe to pass.  Act 766 states that “a physician may seek an injunction or other equitable relief” in a court of law.  It appears the application language may be a hold-over from old applications prior to Act 766.

Nevertheless, if you are presented with language that attempts to limit this right of redress, and if the hospital will not remove it, we advise you to submit a statement, along with the application, that the language violates the Arkansas Peer Review Fairness Act and that you are signing the document under duress