Physicians fight for malpractice reform — and win
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After years of physician departures and "nuclear verdicts," New Mexico physicians describe how cross-specialty advocacy and patient engagement drove landmark malpractice reform.
New Mexico has faced its share of health care challenges in recent years, but perhaps none has been more urgent than the loss of physicians, many of whom cite the state’s extreme malpractice climate as a major reason for leaving.
“Between 2017 and 2024, between 200 and 300 physicians left the state as a net negative,” says Aaron Snyder, M.D., a board-certified emergency physician practicing in Albuquerque. “It’s the only state in the country that actually had a net loss during that period.”
Snyder, who has been fighting for malpractice reform since arriving in New Mexico in 2021, believes the medical-legal risk of practicing there bears much of the blame. Indeed, surgical oncologist Amani AJ Jambhekar, M.D., says she left the state for mainly that reason.
“It wasn’t that I was personally worried I would be sued,” Jambhekar says. “It was the downstream impact of the malpractice environment on the ability to recruit collaborating plastic surgeons and provide the care our patients need.” In the two years that she practiced in the state, Jambhekar says that she didn’t see a single plastic surgeon move into her community.
Jambhekar advocated for malpractice reform by writing op-eds, sharing information on social media and visiting legislators before ultimately deciding to leave the state.
“As a surgeon who treats patients with breast cancer, I had patients driving more than 250 miles to get comprehensive reconstructive care. The environment was very, very challenging because of these limitations.”
Read more at MedicalEconomics.com.
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Editor's note: Episode timestamps and transcript produced using AI tools.
0:16 — Introduction: Aaron Snyder, M.D., on New Mexico's net physician loss from 2017 to 2024
0:37 — Amani AJ Jambhekar, M.D., on the plastic surgery access crisis and why breast cancer patients were driving 250 miles for reconstructive care
3:15 — History of New Mexico's Medical Malpractice Act and the structure of the Patient Compensation Fund
5:00 — The 2021 legislative overhaul: raised caps, uncapped punitive damages, and lumping independent practices in with hospital systems
7:52 — Personal financial exposure under New Mexico's limited asset protections
8:03 — Punitive damages attached to 92% of malpractice cases and the forced-settlement dynamic
9:42 — A $412 million nuclear verdict in a urology case accelerates the physician exodus
10:00 — A husband-and-wife primary care team closes after two decades and relocates to Missouri; insurers exit the state
15:00 — Emergency physicians absorbing primary care volume; a jaundiced patient's story prompts real-time legislator outreach in the ER
16:27 — QR codes for constituent contact, rallying major health systems, and the emergence of HB 99
18:26 — What HB 99 actually does: caps on punitive damages, raised evidentiary standard, and post-discovery sequencing
20:00 — Jambhekar on leaving New Mexico, feeling relieved, and the state as a cautionary tale for Virginia
22:54 — Jambhekar on missing her New Mexico patients; the outsider trial bar's structural grip on an unpaid legislature
25:00 — Resident retention rates, incentive gaps, and what it would take for Jambhekar to return; Snyder on how advocacy became an antidote to physician burnout
30:00 — Closing from host Rebekah Bernard, M.D.
30:40 — End