2021 New Mexico Statutes
Chapter 41 - Torts
Article 5 - Medical Malpractice Act
Section 41-5-3 - Definitions. (Effective January 1, 2022.)

As used in the Medical Malpractice Act:

A. "advisory board" means the patient's compensation fund advisory board;

B. "fund" means the patient's compensation fund;

C. "health care provider" means a person, corporation, organization, facility or institution licensed or certified by this state to provide health care or professional services as a doctor of medicine, hospital, outpatient health care facility, doctor of osteopathy, chiropractor, podiatrist, nurse anesthetist, physician's assistant, certified nurse practitioner, clinical nurse specialist or certified nurse-midwife or a business entity that is organized, incorporated or formed pursuant to the laws of New Mexico that provides health care services primarily through natural persons identified in this subsection;

D. "hospital" means a facility licensed as a hospital in this state that offers in-patient services, nursing or overnight care on a twenty-four-hour basis for diagnosing, treating and providing medical, psychological or surgical care for three or more separate persons who have a physical or mental illness, disease, injury or a rehabilitative condition or are pregnant and may offer emergency services. "Hospital" includes a hospital's parent corporation, subsidiary corporations or affiliates if incorporated or registered in New Mexico; employees and locum tenens providing services at the hospital; and agency nurses providing services at the hospital;

E. "independent provider" means a doctor of medicine, doctor of osteopathy, chiropractor, podiatrist, nurse anesthetist, physician's assistant, certified nurse practitioner, clinical nurse specialist or certified nurse-midwife who is not an employee or not an agent of a hospital or outpatient health care facility. "Independent provider" includes a business entity that is not a hospital or outpatient health care facility that employs or consists of members who are licensed or certified as doctors of medicine, doctors of osteopathy, chiropractors, podiatrists, nurse anesthetists, physician's assistants, certified nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists or certified nurse-midwives and the business entity's employees;

F. "insurer" means an insurance company engaged in writing health care provider malpractice liability insurance in this state;

G. "malpractice claim" includes any cause of action arising in this state against a health care provider for medical treatment, lack of medical treatment or other claimed departure from accepted standards of health care that proximately results in injury to the patient, whether the patient's claim or cause of action sounds in tort or contract, and includes but is not limited to actions based on battery or wrongful death; "malpractice claim" does not include a cause of action arising out of the driving, flying or nonmedical acts involved in the operation, use or maintenance of a vehicular or aircraft ambulance;

H. "medical care and related benefits" means all reasonable medical, surgical, physical rehabilitation and custodial services and includes drugs, prosthetic devices and other similar materials reasonably necessary in the provision of such services;

I. "occurrence" means all injuries to a patient caused by health care providers' successive acts or omissions that combined concurrently to create a malpractice claim;

J. "outpatient health care facility" means an entity that is licensed pursuant to the Public Health Act as an outpatient facility, including ambulatory surgical centers, free-standing emergency rooms, urgent care clinics, acute care centers and intermediate care facilities and includes a facility's employees, locum tenens providers and agency nurses providing services at the facility. "Outpatient health care facility" does not include independent providers;

K. "patient" means a natural person who received or should have received health care from a health care provider under a contract, express or implied; and

L. "superintendent" means the superintendent of insurance.

History: 1953 Comp., § 58-33-3, enacted by Laws 1976, ch. 2, § 3; 1977, ch. 284, § 1; 2021, ch. 16, § 1.

The 2021 amendment, effective January 1, 2022, defined "advisory board", "fund", "hospital", "independent provider", "occurrence", and "outpatient health care facility", and revised certain definitions, as used in the Medical Malpractice Act; added new Subsections A and B, and redesignated former Subsection A as Subsection C; in Subsection C, after "physician's assistant", added "certified nurse practitioner, clinical nurse specialist or certified nurse-midwife or a business entity that is organized, incorporated or formed pursuant to the laws of New Mexico that provides health care services primarily through natural persons identified in this subsection"; added new Subsections D and E, and redesignated former Subsections B through D as Subsections F through H, respectively; added new Subsections I and J and redesignated former Subsections E and F as Subsections K and L, respectively; in Subsection K, deleted "licensed" preceding "health care provider"; and in Subsection L, after "insurance", deleted "of this state".