42 U.S.C. § 11101
Section 11101 · Findings
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 292 court decisions — leading case Smith v. OUR LADY OF LAKE HOSP. (1994)
Most recently applied in Heigel v. MetroHealth Sys. (April 2024)
Cases citing this section usually also cite 42 U.S.C. § 11112 · 42 U.S.C. § 11111 · 42 U.S.C. § 11151
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) The increasing occurrence of medical malpractice and the need to improve the quality of medical care have become nationwide problems that warrant greater efforts than those that can be undertaken by any individual State.
(2) There is a national need to restrict the ability of incompetent physicians to move from State to State without disclosure or discovery of the physician's previous damaging or incompetent performance.
(3) This nationwide problem can be remedied through effective professional peer review.
(4) The threat of private money damage liability under Federal laws, including treble damage liability under Federal antitrust law, unreasonably discourages physicians from participating in effective professional peer review.
(5) There is an overriding national need to provide incentive and protection for physicians engaging in effective professional peer review.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
The Federal antitrust laws, referred to in par. (4), are classified generally to chapter 1 (§1 et seq.) of Title 15, Commerce and Trade.
Short Title
Section 401 of title IV of Pub. L. 99–660 provided that: “This title [enacting this chapter and provisions set out as a note under section 11111 of this title] may be cited as the ‘Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986’.”