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The Pennsylvania General Assembly's Legislative Budget and Finance Committee has released its report examining the possible effects of a proposal to change medical malpractice venue rules, finding plenty for both proponents and challengers to like.

The committee, which is made up of members of both the state House and Senate, voted to make the report public Monday, after committee staff worked on the report for nearly a year. Covering a range of topics, including the impacts of decades-old venue changes on professional liability insurance rates and medical malpractice filings, the report tops out at 200 pages.

The changes seek to allow injured plaintiffs to sue in any venue where their health care provider regularly does business, essentially scrapping venue rules put in place in 2002 under the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Errors (MCARE) Act. As the rules stand, plaintiffs in medical malpractice cases are limited to suing in the venue where their injuries occurred.

The report did not provide any recommendations about whether the current venue rules should be scrapped, and in some instances determined that it could not come to any conclusions about what has affected rates and filings over the past few decades, citing in some instances incomplete data and variables outside the scope of the review.

However, the report outlined some details that both sides of the debate are likely to point to as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's Civil Procedural Rules Committee, which proposed the changes in late 2018, takes up the issue.

Included among the points made in the report:

• "The data indicates there were no measurable effects of venue on the availability of physicians across the commonwealth from the 2003 tort reforms; however, the health care landscape Pennsylvania has significantly changed for physicians since that time."
• "In Pennsylvania from the period 2000 to 2002 compared to the period 2015 to 2017 there was a 44.9% decrease in medical malpractice filings. The shift in claims from Philadelphia and Allegheny counties is prominent and at least one surrounding county has also shown a dramatic increase in claims."
• "The effects of the proposed rule change on the number of medical malpractice filings and/or the value of medical malpractice payments in Pennsylvania could not be determined with any certainty."

The committee was tasked with reviewing potential impacts of the controversial medical malpractice venue rule changes in February, after the state Supreme Court agreed to hold off on considering whether to implement the changes until after an impact study could be completed.

State Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Luzerne, who is the majority chairwoman of the Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee, proposed a resolution directing the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to analyze the potential impacts of the rule change. During the session Monday, she suggested that the committee hold a follow-up public hearing for stakeholders to discuss to the findings.

READ THE REPORT: