(a) At the request of a defendant physician or health care provider or claimant, the court shall order that medical, health care, or custodial services awarded in a health care liability claim be paid in whole or in part in periodic payments rather than by a lump-sum payment.
(b) At the request of a defendant physician or health care provider or claimant, the court may order that future damages other than medical, health care, or custodial services awarded in a health care liability claim be paid in whole or in part in periodic payments rather than by a lump sum payment.

Terms Used In Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.503

  • Claimant: means a person, including a decedent's estate, seeking or who has sought recovery of damages in a health care liability claim. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
  • Court: means any federal or state court. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
  • Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
  • Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
  • Health care: means any act or treatment performed or furnished, or that should have been performed or furnished, by any health care provider for, to, or on behalf of a patient during the patient's medical care, treatment, or confinement. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
  • Health care liability claim: means a cause of action against a health care provider or physician for treatment, lack of treatment, or other claimed departure from accepted standards of medical care, or health care, or safety or professional or administrative services directly related to health care, which proximately results in injury to or death of a claimant, whether the claimant's claim or cause of action sounds in tort or contract. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
  • Health care provider: means any person, partnership, professional association, corporation, facility, or institution duly licensed, certified, registered, or chartered by the State of Texas to provide health care, including:
    (i) a registered nurse;
    (ii) a dentist;
    (iii) a podiatrist;
    (iv) a pharmacist;
    (v) a chiropractor;
    (vi) an optometrist;
    (vii) a health care institution; or
    (viii) a health care collaborative certified under Chapter 848, Insurance Code. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
  • Physician: means :
    (A) an individual licensed to practice medicine in this state;
    (B) a professional association organized under the Texas Professional Association Act (Article 1528f, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes) by an individual physician or group of physicians;
    (C) a partnership or limited liability partnership formed by a group of physicians;
    (D) a nonprofit health corporation certified under § 162. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001

(c) The court shall make a specific finding of the dollar amount of periodic payments that will compensate the claimant for the future damages.
(d) The court shall specify in its judgment ordering the payment of future damages by periodic payments the:
(1) recipient of the payments;
(2) dollar amount of the payments;
(3) interval between payments; and
(4) number of payments or the period of time over which payments must be made.

  Previous section
Next section  
 Subchapter K Contents