Web Sites Ease Pain of Finding a Doctor
People don’t have to rely on guesswork when picking a licensed medical doctor anymore. A few moments of research on the Internet can alert patients to trouble in a physician’s past.
The California Medical Board allows the public to look up physicians’ license records at its DocFinder site, at https://www.docboard.org/ca/df/casearch.htm. Visitors have searched the site more than 8 million times since it became available in late 1997.
“There is a problem in some areas of the state of unlicensed practitioners posing as physicians, and one trip to our Web site can confirm whether a person is licensed,” said Candis Cohen, a spokesperson for the medical board.
Visitors search by physicians’ names to find their license status and address, as well as where and when they graduated from medical school. Physicians who have had certain disciplinary actions taken against them will have that noted online, as well.
DocFinder will list any formal complaints to the medical board that merited a referral to the attorney general, any discipline taken by the California Medical Board or a medical board in another state, any felony convictions reported after 1991 and any malpractice judgments or arbitration awards after 1993.
The site also notes any hospital disciplinary action after 1995 that resulted in a loss of staff privileges for a reason related to patient care. The actual reports are not public, but the name of the hospital, the date the report was issued and the action taken are noted.
DocFinder doesn’t list complaints or investigations that did not result in formal charges. Nor does it list malpractice claims or settlements.
Still, Cohen estimated that 1% to 2% of California physicians will have some disciplinary action noted on their records during their careers.
DocFinder is also available for other states. Click to https://www.docboard.org to look up information on physicians in 17 other states. Reporting standards vary, however, and information that shows up on physicians’ records in one state might not appear in another.
Massachusetts’ service (https://www.docboard.org/ma/df/masearch.htm) outshines California’s by showing details on physicians’ professional publications, postgraduate training and what insurance plans they accept. Massachusetts also allows site visitors to search for physicians by hometown.
Checking a physician’s license and disciplinary record is just the first step. Patients who visit specialists will also want to check whether those physicians are board certified.
You can do that on the American Board of Medical Specialties Web site at https://www.abms.org/newsearch.asp.
The site includes the membership lists of the organization’s 24 member boards. Board-certified specialists have passed special written exams testing their knowledge in a specific field of medicine.
Visitors can search by a physician’s name to find what certifications, if any, the physician holds. You can click on a name to get a doctor’s complete list of certifications. Then you can click on those certifications for a definition and a more complete explanation of a specialist’s duties in that area.
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Robert Niles is a producer for Latimes.com.
