More Data About Doctors Now on Internet
Want the skinny on your doctor? It’s just a click of the mouse away.
Under a new state law, the public can find information on the Internet about doctors’ histories that until Jan. 1 had been kept private.
The information is at https://www.medbd.ca.gov. The Web site can reveal disciplinary actions by hospitals--recommended by fellow doctors--as well as all court and private judgments against physicians, even if the Medical Board of California has not acted against the doctors.
The new law makes California one of the most open states for disclosure of physician information, authorities said.
For example, if a hospital has terminated or revoked a doctor’s privileges (meaning the physician is no longer allowed to treat patients there), that information now is available.
Also, the public can find out whether a physician has paid any arbitration awards or monetary judgments ordered by a judge or jury.
This new information is in addition to other physician background data that has been available through the medical board’s Web site for eight months.
However, the information is brief. Take the example of Dr. Patrick Chavis of Lynwood. The site reveals that the medical board has suspended his license and filed an accusation (equivalent to a charge), that he has not yet had a hearing or been found guilty of any charges, and that his staff privileges were revoked by Suburban Medical Center in Paramount. But it does not reveal what he is accused of.
Chavis was accused by the medical board last year of seriously injuring two patients and keeping them at different times in his own home, and of abandoning a third patient--groggy from liposuction surgery--in his office. That patient later died at a Lynwood hospital. The physician has denied the allegation of gross negligence.
The law making the information public was sponsored by Assemblywoman Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont), who has championed other consumer-oriented, health-related legislation.
“For years, we’ve had consumer groups pushing to receive this kind of information,” Figueroa said. “With California being one of the largest states in managed care, patients shouldn’t have such limited information about their doctors.”
The California Medical Assn. opposed some provisions of the original bill but, after revisions, supported the legislation.
“If we can find ways to help the public pick their doctors, assuming they have a choice anymore, with all the HMOs, we are open to that,” said Steven Thompson, the medical association’s vice president for government.
Physicians have long argued that peer review at hospitals must be confidential, that doctors would be loath to judge the performance of colleagues if their decisions became public and exposed them to lawsuits. But critics have argued that keeping such actions private has allowed bad doctors to merely switch hospitals.
“We still want to make sure doctors have some confidentiality with the hospitals,” Figueroa said. For example, lesser disciplinary actions will remain private, allowing erring physicians to seek help or improve their performance, she said.
“We just want to know the most egregious ones, the situations that could be harmful to patients,” she said.
Hospitals have been required to send the state medical board notice of such discipline against doctors for years so the board could investigate. But the public cannot depend solely on that, Figueroa said, because the medical board has long been unable to investigate all the cases. And the process is time-consuming, she said.
“And in the meantime, the patients don’t know about it,” Figueroa added.
The issue goes back to the early 1990s, when the only information the board would disclose was its own actions, even though it was collecting other information about malpractice judgments, criminal convictions and hospital discipline, she said.
At the time, the board had so few investigators that it was able to take few disciplinary actions. Meanwhile, the backlog of complaints was mounting.
After a 1993 investigation of the agency by the California Highway Patrol found that hundreds of complaints against doctors had been dismissed or destroyed, the board decided to disclose to the public the new information. It includes malpractice awards of more than $30,000, felony convictions and serious hospital disciplinary actions. The last category, opposed by the medical board at the time, was nullified by a state office that reviews agencies’ compliance with state laws. With the new law, AB103, those reports are now disclosed to the public.
However, under the law, malpractice lawsuits that are settled before trial, as most are, will not be disclosed. That provides a “huge incentive” for doctors to settle, said Julie D’Angelo Fellmeth, administrative director of the Center for Public Interest Law in San Diego.
Fellmeth said it is important for the public to know if their doctors have a pattern of being sued for malpractice.
Settlements, unless sealed by the court, are public record, but to get the information a person often must go to a courthouse to look it up, Fellmeth said.
“It should be disclosed by the agency that is supposed to be a repository of information about its licensees,” she said.
Thompson said the medical board does not necessarily oppose the disclosure of settlements. But the issue is tricky, because often insurance companies, not the doctors, insist on the settlements because they are cheaper than going to court, he said.
A record of malpractice lawsuits can mistakenly imply that a physician is at fault, he said. Some specialists, such as obstetricians, neonatologists and neurosurgeons, are sued more often than others because they deal in riskier practices, where deaths and brain damage happen even with the best care, he said.
Thompson said the best neonatologist he knows has been sued 42 times.
“Real malpractice is malpractice,” he said, but a lot of malpractice lawsuits “are the result of a litigious society.”
Consumer advocates point to Massachusetts’ physician disclosure law, considered the nation’s most far-reaching. That state provides complete profiles of doctors’ backgrounds, including malpractice settlement amounts, felony and misdemeanor convictions that involved incarceration, a wider range of hospital disciplinary actions, honors received, hospital affiliations and insurance companies accepted.
Figueroa said she has been told that 92% of the physicians listed in Massachusett’s Internet site “had absolutely nothing [negative] to report.”
“I expect that it is that high in California,” she said. “I think we are concerned with only a small minority, and this [disclosure law] will show that.”
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Giving Your Doctor a Checkup
Doctors’ professional backgrounds can be accessed on the Internet by calling up the Medical Board of California’s home page, https://www.medbd.ca.gov. Click on the line called “check on doctor,” then type in the physician’s name or license number and click again. The information that is available includes:
* License status
* License number
* City and state
* Original license date
* License expiration date
* Medical school attended and year graduated
* Judgment amount, if any, court of jurisdiction, lawsuit docket number
* Arbitration awards, if any
* Date of action, if any
* Description of medical board action, if any
* Felony convictions and sentence, if any
* Revocation or termination of hospital privileges
For more information
In cases of multiple disciplinary or court actions, you may have to call up more than one page. Information is sketchy, but if you need more details, you can contact the medical board through the Internet or by calling (916) 263-2382.
Sources: Medical Board of California and the Internet
Researched by MARCIDA DODSON / Los Angeles Times
