ATTORNEY ARGUES PHYSICIAN NEARLY LOST CAREER.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer

Dr. Claudia Jensen lost her job - and almost her career - when she accused other managed-care physicians of putting convenience and profits ahead of patients' health, her attorney told a jury Thursday.

The pediatrician claims in a $750,000 wrongful termination lawsuit that her criticism of other doctors resulted in her firing from the Greater Valley Medical Group, which had paid her $128,000 a year plus benefits. After she was fired Jan. 24, 1996, she claims, she couldn't get a job with any other physicians group, so she had to go into private practice in Ventura, where she now earns about $20,000 a year.

``Her economic loss, the evidence will show, is truly staggering,'' her attorney, Lawrence Schulner, said in opening arguments in Ventura Superior Court.

But defense attorney Ken Drake countered that Jensen was unproductive and difficult, and was laid off for financial reasons when Greater Valley ran into money trouble as it expanded into western Ventura County.

``Due to a number of economic forces, the patient increases that were expected, particularly in the Oxnard, Ventura and Camarillo areas, were not realized and it became necessary at that time for the group to deal with these economic reversals,'' Drake said.

He said Jensen, along with three other doctors and 12 support staffers, were laid off because the medical group was losing $400,000. He also said Jensen was let go because she had the lowest productivity of any doctor in the group's Ventura County offices and was not a ``team player.''

Outside court, Schulner said this is the first case to test a 1993 California law that prohibits physicians groups and health maintenance organizations from firing a doctor for advocating medically appropriate health care for patients.

He said it could set a precedent either through a verdict or the way Superior Court Judge William Peck rules on related trial motions.

``If we were to prevail and the law was determined to be as we view it, then doctors might be more comfortable advocating health care,'' he said.

Schulner told jurors his client had been an ``inside critic'' of managed care during her 11 years of working in such a system.

Her complaints started in mid-1995 when Greater Valley, which operated primarily in the San Fernando Valley and eastern Ventura County, bought another physicians group as part of a plan to expand into western Ventura County, Schulner said.

Doctors subsequently created a ``call panel'' of six physicians who took turns handling off-hours calls from a growing number of Greater Valley patients.

Jensen complained in writing that the call-panel system was causing some patients to get bounced from doctor to doctor, and might be inhibiting the development of patient-doctor relationships.

She also indicated that over New Year's weekend 1996, she saw 156 patients and shuttled between several hospitals during a hectic four-day shift. She maintained that this was unfair to her as well as the patients.

Schulner says his client was terminated later that month and ordered not to communicate with any of her former patients.

Drake said the medical group never received any ``substantial'' complaints about its call panel.

``It presented no threat or risk to the patient population it served,'' he said.