MINNESOTA
JULY 2018
PHYSICIAN
THE INDEPENDENT MEDICAL BUSINESS JOURNAL
Volume XXXII, No. 04
The BME complaint review process A physician’s guide BY RUTH MARTINEZ, MA, AND DAVID BUNDE, JD
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ince 1883, physicians in Minnesota have been licensed by the state Medical Board. Originally known as the Board of Medical Examiners, the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice has steadily grown and expanded its functions during its 135 years of existence. The Board’s mission is to protect the public’s health and safety by ensuring that physicians and other allied health professionals are competent, ethical practitioners with the necessary knowledge and skills.
Minnesota’s price transparency law A good first step BY NEIL A. SHAH, MD, FAAD
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n March 20, 2018, Gov. Mark Dayton signed into law SF 3480, a bill that calls for price transparency and disclosures from health care providers, including doctors and hospitals. The purpose of this article is to review those changes in the law, provide background on price transparency in health care, and discuss why increasing price transparency is critical to reducing health care costs. SF 3480 takes a few simple but important steps towards price transparency: 1. When asked by a patient, a provider must provide a good faith estimate, within Minnesota’s price transparency law to page 124
Since the 1980s, the Board’s jurisdiction has expanded well beyond physicians to include physician assistants, respiratory therapists, acupuncturists, athletic trainers, genetic counselors, traditional midwives, and naturopathic doctors. In all, the Board licenses over 31,000 practitioners, despite having fewer full-time staff than it did 15 years ago. The BME complaint review process to page 144