In a 2007 case in South Carolina, plaintiff parents had sued Quest Diagnostics and Athena Diagnostics for wrongful death, alleging a misclassification of an SCN1A mutation in their son as a variant of unknown significance (VUS). Several months after that report, the child had a fatal seizure and died.
South Carolina code defines healthcare providers as “physicians and surgeons; directors, officers, and trustees of hospitals; nurses; oral surgeons; dentists; pharmacists; chiropractors; optometrists; podiatrists; hospitals; nursing homes; or any similar category of licensed health care providers.” The question facing the court was whether the lab is acting as a healthcare provider “when, at the request of a patient’s treating physician, the laboratory performs genetic testing to detect an existing disease or disorder”.
The court answered ‘yes’, meaning that the genetic testing laboratory is functioning as “a licensed healthcare provider” when performing diagnostic testing at the request of a treating physician for the purpose of diagnosis and treatment, which is a core function of hospitals in diagnosing and treating patients. Another section of the South Carolina code states that “an institution providing health care services…for the diagnosis, prevention, treatment, cure, or relief of a health condition, illness, injury, or disease…including, but not limited to, hospitals and . . . diagnostic, laboratory, and imaging centers.” One judge dissented and wrote that the laboratory’s services were too limited and specialized to make it a healthcare provider.
In this case, the report was written in 2007. The plaintiff alleges she did not learn about the 2007 report until 2014 and that is when the timeline begins. If this is a case of negligence, then there is a concept of ‘discovery’, and the clock can start ticking from the time one recognizes an error. On the other hand, Quest asserts that if they are being considered a health care provider, then the timeline must begin in 2007 when the report was issued to the child’s medical geneticist.
The timeline ruling is critical for the plaintiff because the time to file a medical malpractice lawsuit against a licensed healthcare provider in South Carolina is within three years, with the right to sue lost entirely after six years.
This case is being watched closely because the inclusion of laboratories within the broader definition of healthcare providers could have implications in terms of responsibilities and potential liability. There was an important footnote by the judges – one can still sue a healthcare provider for negligence (which includes the ‘discovery’ principle) so this case may not yet be over.
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