Arbitration foes rally to protest IHC policy

After picketing outside a busy Intermountain Health Care clinic Tuesday morning, critics of mandatory medical arbitration headed a few blocks west to heckle arbitration supporters — including a former Salt Lake mayor and Utah governor — who were having a pro-arbitration press event.

The debate on medical arbitration has heated up considerably since IHC's physician group sent out letters to its patients telling them if they think a doctor harms them they must settle it in arbitration rather than the court system. Those who don't sign an agreement to use arbitration are told to find another doctor.

Members of a group called PAMMA, Patients Against Mandatory Medical Arbitration, picketed outside the Salt Lake Clinic at 333 S. 900 East, handing out information packets and waving signs with

messages like "IHC refuses to treat sick babies! Sign or suffer." A number of cars passing by during the 80-minute demonstration honked in support and some drivers pulled over to get an anti-arbitration button or see if there was a petition sign-up.

The goal is to force IHC to back off its mandatory arbitration agreement, said the picket's organizer, Clark Newhall, who is a physician and a malpractice attorney.

Failing that, he said, the Legislature (which made it legal for physicians to refuse to treat patients who, in a non-emergency situation, would not agree to arbitration) should take steps to level the playing field, starting with repealing that law.

Newhall also believes the Legislature should revoke IHC's tax exemption, require that all the results of forced arbitration proceedings be made public and require public reporting of the names of all providers involved in all malpractice payments.

"If the process is more fair as IHC claims," he said, "let the public see the results."

Opponents of arbitration say that it steps on patients' civil rights, and they lament the fact that doctors can use their position to impose it on patients at a time when they need medical care.

Arbitration supporters, lead by former Utah Gov. Norm Bangerter and former Salt Lake Mayor Ted Wilson, now a consultant and a longtime former IHC board member, are forming their own group to get the pro-arbitration word out, they said. The as-yet-unnamed group will be formally announced in the next couple of weeks, Wilson said.

"We believe this arbitration should become the norm in Utah because it is fair, less expensive and faster," he said.