The majority in Montgomery held that the continuing care exception may apply to health care facilities. We therefore transfer this case to the Supreme Court pursuant to Rule 83.02 because of the general interest and importance of the issue involved. Transferred to the Supreme Court. The exception has not changed since that time. But the days of Marcus Welby, M.D., ended long ago.
Modern medicine involves other decision-making entities such as hospitals and HMOs.
They, too, have a duty of continuing care and treatment that is essential to recovery. In continuing to utilize this antediluvian reasoning, courts ignore the significant role played by other medical entities and overlook the fact that in many cases physicians do not make decisions alone. When a patient chooses to continue to receive treatment at a hospital or subscribe to a decision-making HMO after suffering from an incidence of alleged medical malpractice, the statute of limitations should be extended to those entities. For example, Pennsylvania courts have recognized a corporate negligence or corporate liability theory under which a hospital is liable if it fails to uphold the proper standard of care owed its patient. This theory was later expanded to include HMOs.