Provides relative to the Medical Malpractice Act. (8/1/26)

Senate Bill 366 amends the Medical Malpractice Act by raising the caps on damages recoverable in medical malpractice claims and creating alternative procedural pathways for initiating such claims. The bill increases the maximum recovery per claim from five hundred thousand dollars to one million dollars, adjusted annually for inflation based on the Consumer Price Index, while specifically excluding future medical care and related benefits from this calculation. Additionally, it raises the liability cap for individual qualified healthcare providers from one hundred thousand dollars to two hundred fifty thousand dollars, also subject to annual inflation adjustments. The legislation establishes a mechanism for handling awards that exceed the one million dollar cap by allowing courts to hold excess damages in trust with the Patient's Compensation Fund to reimburse patients or providers for future medical care as it is incurred. The bill also repeals prior provisions governing the allocation of damages when awards reached the statutory maximum.

The practical effect of these changes impacts patients, healthcare providers, and the Patient's Compensation Fund substantially. Patients with serious injuries can now recover significantly higher amounts in medical malpractice cases, with the legislation requiring courts to make specific findings regarding necessary future medical care and benefits. Healthcare providers face increased individual liability exposure, though the qualified provider cap provides some limitation on direct exposure per patient claim. The bill also modifies the procedural requirements for bringing malpractice actions by offering claimants an alternative to the medical review panel process through an affidavit signed by a board-certified physician attesting that adequate records have been reviewed and that a breach of the standard of care caused or contributed to patient injury or death. This alternative pathway allows claims to proceed directly to court without initial panel review, though it establishes a prescriptive period requiring actions to be filed within three years of the alleged act, omission, or neglect.

The legislation operates within the framework of Louisiana's medical malpractice liability system established in Revised Statutes Title 40, Chapter 3, which has long balanced protection for healthcare providers through damage caps against compensation for injured patients. The Patient's Compensation Fund, which was created to ensure that claims exceeding individual provider liability could still be paid, remains central to the new scheme but now serves an additional function as a trustee for future medical care expenses when awards exceed the statutory cap. The bill preserves the requirement that healthcare providers obtain malpractice liability insurance and continues the prohibition against reporting the filing of medical review panel requests to licensing boards or credentialing agencies. The inflation adjustment mechanism ties both the general and provider-specific caps to the Consumer Price Index, ensuring that the nominal dollar amounts increase automatically each year without requiring further legislative action. These changes become effective August 1, 2026.