By SHERRY ROBINSON
All She Wrote
© 2024 New Mexico News Services
Dr. Lawrence Andrade and his wife, Dr. Aedra Andrade, are leaving Gallup. He’s a private practice family medicine doctor and owner of Family Medicine Associates. He’s practiced in Gallup since 2003. She’s a family practice physician with Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital. Together they have 9,000 active patients in a place that’s already undeserved.
Andrade has deep roots here, which makes his loss all the more painful. He’s a Gallup native and graduate of Gallup High School, UNM and the UNM School of Medicine. He is the team doctor for high school sports. He mentors high school and college students and teaches at the medical school.
Losing doctors anywhere in New Mexico is a big loss, but in a rural area it’s a blow to the town’s well being because they’re nearly impossible to replace.
Why would somebody like this leave a town he obviously loves?
Andrade writes: “Due to the current malpractice climate in New Mexico, the high taxes (especially gross receipts taxes for me as a private practice and business owner), and lack of medical specialists in New Mexico, we will be moving out of state this year.
“The malpractice issue and lack of doctors in New Mexico is not a “corporate greed” issue but truly one due to the risk of practicing medicine in New Mexico and being sued, a process that is devastating to doctors. It is truly sad that our wonderful state, which should be a magnet attracting doctors, has in turn become an area doctors are avoiding.”
New Mexico ranks second highest in the nation for medical malpractice lawsuits per capita. Our medical malpractice insurance premiums are nearly twice those of Arizona, Colorado and Texas and still rising. Even then, many malpractice insurance companies lose money. It’s the primary reason New Mexico is the only state that’s actually lost doctors (248 of them) in the last five years.
Think New Mexico, a nonpartisan think tank, has a package of bills intended to address our shortage of healthcare workers. Some of those bills have stoked opposition of the powerful New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association and its sock puppet, New Mexico Safety Over Profit (NMSOP). Both groups beat the drum about “corporate greed” and cry all the way to the bank.
NMSOP is behind a bill to spend $2 million in taxpayer money on a recruiting program, unaware that bad news travels faster than good news. Our lawsuit bonanza is well known to doctors.
The online Searchlight New Mexico recently described NMSOP as a dark money group with close ties to the trial lawyers.
Two bills would fix the problems Andrade has experienced. Senate Bill 176 would cap attorney fees in medical malpractice lawsuits. House Bill 344 would remove the gross receipts tax on small healthcare providers.
SB 176, the malpractice bill, is up to 24 sponsors from both parties, but Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, has had it corralled in her Health and Public Affairs Committee for 40 days of the session’s 60 days, even though the lead sponsor, Sen. Martin Hickey, the Legislature’s only doctor, is her vice chair.
The Albuquerque Journal reported the bill stalled and looked at campaign contributions. Lo and behold, the trial lawyers association was Lopez’s biggest campaign donor in 2024, at $10,500; add money from individual lawyers and law firms and the amount doubles.
More fallout: In the House Taxation and Revenue Committee recently, debate of House Bill 344, the gross receipts tax bill, kept spilling over to malpractice. The frustration was clear.
“We haven’t been allowed to address med mal in the way it needs to be done,” said Rep. Doreen Gallegos, D-Las Cruces.
“We dramatically harmed our doctors when we raised the limits on malpractice,” said Rep. Rod Montoya, R-Farmington. “That’s the real issue for doctors. (The gross receipts tax bill) is a band-aid for a gaping wound. Doctors can be sued out of existence in New Mexico.”
Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena, the tax committee’s vice chair, blamed a dark money group for the narrative “that we either stand with patients or with out-of-state corporations… It’s become a political issue.”
The clock is ticking. How many doctors do we have to lose before lawmakers act?