• 17
  • March
    2011

According to a recent report released by the Public Citizen's Health Research Group, the Texas Medical Board and 32 other state boards have failed to discipline a significant percentage of in-state doctors who either lost their hospital privileges or had been restricted in their hospital practices.

The research group collected data over a 20 year period-from 1990 to 2009-from the National Practitioner Data Bank, to which hospitals report sanctions against doctors. Among other things, the study found that 55% of the 10,672 physicians listed in the bank had not been disciplined by state boards, including 3,218 doctors who had permanently lost their practice privileges.

The report noted that, in Texas, 60.4 percent of the 725 doctors listed in the database had avoided medical board action.

According to Leigh Hopper of the Texas Medical Board, hospitals are required to report to the board when they discipline a doctor who presents a threat to public welfare. Unfortunately, she said, not all of them do report.

One Texas doctor reportedly avoided action by the medical board after paying $2.6 million in 22 medical malpractice claims between 1996 and 2008. Among his botch-jobs were claims that he operated on the wrong body part and had permanently damaged three patients.

The research report, while it does measure sanctions, does not account for disciplinary actions against doctors, since the national bank from which the data was taken does not automatically notify state medical boards of disciplinary reports. The medical board, though, can pay a small yearly fee to be notified of actions disciplinary against doctors in their state.

With 49,397 in-state doctors, and a fee of $3.25 per doctor per year, Texas would pay roughly $160,540 per year to be notified within 24 hours of any disciplinary actions taken against a doctor. Such a cost is nominal, according Hopper.

"We are shocked that more medical boards don't take advantage of this," said Dr. Sydney Wolfe, director and supervisor of Public Citizen Research Group and supervisor of the study.

Source: statesman.com, "UPDATED Report: Texas fails to discipline doctors hospitals have punished," Mary Ann Roser, 16 Mar 2011.