When money is paid out on a medical liability claim, the doctor’s name is automatically entered on this federal database — and that may have more serious consequences for the doctor’s career than the payout itself. (Vicki T. Brenthall, Medical Economics, Feb. 15).
National Practitioner Data Bank
When money is paid out on a medical liability claim, the doctor’s name is automatically entered on this federal database — and that may have more serious consequences for the doctor’s career than the payout itself. (Vicki T. Brenthall, Medical Economics, Feb. 15).
6 Comments
Eliminating doctors with really bad records is a reasonable policy that is not furthered by tracking liability claims. Litigation stems from adverse outcomes whether from true malpractice (a very small part) or vicissitudes. The correlation between liability claims and the quality of doctors is dubious. States with low malpractice caps would have wonderful doctors.
1) A doctor settled, with an agreement to not get reported.
2) This traitor to clinical care was reported to the NPDB, along with the colluding plaintiff lawyer. Both got reported to their respective licensing authorities for colluding to evade mandated reporting.
3) Absolutely nothing happened to either. The reporting of this collusion was dismissed by all regulatory bodies, despite a copy of the settlement agreement. The agreement admitted no med mal wrong doing.
This article illustrates the extortion effect, pressuring doctors to settle weak cases with agreement to not report, to avoid risking a verdict and reporting. Just another lawyer con.
If an employer is stupid enough to explicitly refuse to hire based on an entry in this bogus database, the doctor should enjoin the employer and the databank. These defamers should prove to the judge that listed doctors are more dangerous than unlisted doctors. Any employer who uses the database should be listed in a databank. All should be sued as a class by the listed doctors.
In cases with multiple defendant physicians where the action settles, defense counsel routinely throws one of the physicians to the wolves and insists that the settlement is for only that physician, the rest are voluntarily dismissed from the case. That way, only one physician is listed with the database.
The non-settling doctors won at trial. They ended a long line of successful similar medmal claims, all with mid 7 figure verdicts.
One defendant continued to report each of the two plaintiff lawyers, the lawyer of the settling doctor, the settling doctor, and their plaintiff experts to licensing authorities, dozens of times. Every month, for years, he would cite a single phrase from depositions and trial transcript, as professional misconduct, one a month, to each state licensing authority and professional society. The nationally know expert stopped accepting cases. The lawyer went on to another lawyer subject than medmal.
A patient with a similar, but this time, legitimate claim, reported that no lawyer within 200 miles would even consider hearing about her case.
Resistance is riskier and more painful than appeasement, but it pays off. Resistance protects the future of clinical care.
This isn’t the first time Medical Economics has raised this red herring. Medical Economics is a ‘throw-away’ magazine targeted at doctors, and they make their money by selling ads, because they give their magazine away to doctors.
I’ve seen the National Practitioner Data Bank raised at that magazine several times while I was doing peer review work as a physician, and like pinstriped suits, some things never go out of fashion.
Here’s the reason why the issue is a red herring: if a doctor settles a suit or is found to be negligent, or is found to have a problem by a state board, etc., he/she has to report it to the NPDB, which then distributes information to health-care organizations, hospitals, insurers, etc. Good idea, right? Except for the bleating by doctors who say that erroneous information gets incorporated into the NPDB, bleat, bleat, bleat, and thus the poor doctors are ruined when they are up for credentialing at a hospital or insurer, because hospitals and insurers always make arbitrary and capricious decisions and never let a doctor explain a situation.
The flaw in that argument: doctors are required to disclose that information anyways. I’m a doctor, and I’ve filled out any number of credentialing forms over the years. These forms ALWAYS ask if you’ve ever settled a suit, found negligent in a suit, have ever been denied credentialing anywhere, have had an adverse action from the state board, etc. And a whole lot more. And you sign that credentialing form attesting to its veracity — lie to the hospital or insurer and you have major new problems.
So the information gathered by the NPDB is information you’re supposed to provide anyway. So why is the NPDB necessary? Take a wild guess.
Steve: Being sued correlates positively with being a good doctor. It means, the reputation has increased the referral of tough patients. Bad outcomes from severity of illness result in claims. Most are weak. A listing is a badge of competence.
Any employer refusing employment based on a listing should be sued for negligent refusal to hire, along with the database. The refusal would have no validated, scientific evidence of inadequacy. If the defense costs of the database exceed $1 mil, the federal government will take it down. Organized medicine has passively allowed its members to get attacked unjustly, and done nothing about that injustice.
I don’t see how the argument, “…bleat, bleat, bleat,” persuades people past the third grade.
This unscientific, unreliable, lawyer enacted database is to intimidate doctors. A database should list rent seeking lawyers who are enemies of the economy.