An Act relative to patient care access

This bill amends Massachusetts laws to improve patient safety by expanding the definition of medical peer review committees to include pharmacy groups and voluntary committees formed by individual providers. It requires insurance companies to submit annual reports to the Betsy Lehman Center detailing the top ten categories of medical error claims and the most frequent defendant specialties to help develop better safety practices. The legislation also mandates that expert witnesses in medical malpractice cases must be board-certified in the same specialty as the doctor being sued and clarifies that offering expert testimony counts as practicing medicine. Additionally, the bill updates language regarding what types of injuries are compensable in medical negligence cases.