profession
California slow to discipline physicians
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Aug. 22, 2011
More than 700 California doctors sanctioned for poor care by hospitals, HMOs and other private health care organizations during the last two decades have faced no disciplinary action from the state's medical board.
More than half of the 1,312 California physicians who had clinical privilege disciplinary actions against them reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank between 1990 and 2009 avoided state medical board discipline, according to an analysis of public records by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen and reported to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown in an Aug. 9 letter (link).
The Medical Board of California is chronically short-staffed, and its examiners do not have permission to see the names of physicians reported to the practitioner databank to follow up on the disciplinary actions, a board spokeswoman said. The state has borrowed millions of dollars from the board and has not repaid the money, said Paul Phinney, MD, a pediatrician who chairs the California Medical Assn.'s board of trustees. "The medical board's been robbed of the resources it needs to do its job," he said. Dr. Phinney also said many of the actions reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank are relatively minor and do not involve patient harm.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/08/22/prbf0822.htm.
