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[mariansmusings]

How Do You Know If a Doctor is Good? (Pssst. It’s Not Easy.)

 “You should know better than to go to a bad surgeon.”  That was the comment made to a patient advocate who had just told his personal story of a twice-botched surgery to the Medical Board of California. The person who made that comment in front of the elevators was a member on that Board.

 It was a jaw dropping moment. In fact, it took a few moments for the words to register. For one, the flippant comment seemed so incongruous with the lofty goal of the Medical Board, which is supposed to be “to protect healthcare consumers.” Second, it made me wonder if the Medical Board really blames patients for choosing a bad doctor. Even worse, do Board members actually think people deliberately seek out bad doctors to botch our surgeries? The idea is ludicrous.

 So, how do we find out if a doctor is good or not? We are told to look up doctors, but that is not easy.  Most people have no idea where to research a physician’s history.

 Unlike members of the Medical Board who have insider knowledge of complaints and actions against doctors, the average Joe is at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing the Who’s Who of medical competence – or incompetence.

 A recent survey by the Federation of State Medical Boards found 1 in 5 patients experienced unethical or unprofessional conduct or substandard care by a doctor but that only about a third of these people filed a complaint. Of those who filed a complaint, only about a third of those contacted their state board.  At least half of those surveyed did not know their medical board regulates and disciplines doctor.  The FSMB site does have a link called DocInfo.org, but that basically takes you to your state board’s website. (More on board websites below.)

 A quick Google search will pull up doctor sites such as Doximity, Healthgrades, or Vitals, which mostly give educational backgrounds and contact information but rarely any disciplinary history.  Yelp reviews can be easily manipulated by doctors who are concerned about their online presence. (If you see a review that refers to the doctor as a “clinician,” you know it was written by a colleague or office employee.)

 The National Practitioner Data Bank contains the most complete reports on doctor disciplines and malpractice history.  Congress established the NPDB in 1986 in order to “improve healthcare quality, protect the public, and reduce health care fraud and abuse in the United States.”  The problem with the NPDB is that it’s confidential.  Patients are not allowed to access this valuable information.  Congress deliberately set up the NPDB so that only state medical boards, hospital administrators, insurance companies, and law enforcement can view doctor records, not based on a name, but a secret number. Congress trusted medical boards to use the information to prevent bad doctors from moving from state to state.  However, a recent article by MedPage shows that not all medical boards regularly consult the NPDB.

 Even if you did know that you could look up your doctor on your state’s medical board website, you won’t be able to find the most current information.  Most boards do not post whether a doctor has recent complaints filed by other patients or is under investigation for sexual misconduct, an addiction, or professional negligence that resulted in a patient death or permanent harm.

 It’s surprising to learn to learn that most medical boards move very slowly when it comes to investigating a doctor – and that most of the time, a doctor can remain in practice while being investigated. Even if a patient dies from a catastrophic error in the operating room, there is no immediate investigation and no indication on his/her medical board page that a complaint has been filed.  In fact, some medical boards, like California’s, can take as long as six months just to decide whether there will be a full investigation of a complaint.  The investigation itself can take three years or more.

 In contrast, the California Contractors State Licensing Board, lists complaints on its website, so consumers wanting a new kitchen or bathroom can check a contractor’s page and find out immediately whether he is under investigation, as well as what fines have been paid for violating state law. A CSLB probe can take less than a year. Ironically, both the CSLB and the Medical Board are under purview of the Department of Consumer Affairs.  So it appears that the state of California is more concerned about a consumer ending up with a botched kitchen than a botched surgery.

 Some state board websites have little more than a confirmation that a doctor has a license. But even those that are rated the best can come up lacking. California’s Medical Board website, for example, will reveal whether a doctor is on probation.  However, in order to determine why a doctor is on probation, consumers will most likely have to scroll through more than a dozen pages of legalese to find the actual violation.  Like most other state websites, California’s won’t reveal whether your doctor is currently under investigation, how many complaints have been lodged, or how many medical malpractice settlements have been reached, unless three or four have been settled in the last five years AND are more than $30,000 each. The Medical Board of California does not require doctors to report settlements under that amount.

 So, in getting back to that derisive comment by a Board member, it is impossible for any patient to know how safe or dangerous a doctor is at any given time, thanks to the roadblocks that medical boards and even politicians put in our way.

 A friend of mine whose son was permanently harmed by an unethical pediatrician put it rather succinctly.  He said finding a good doctor is basically “a crapshoot.”

 We deserve better than that.

[pknoepfl]

Medical Board of California Task Force to Investigate Stem Cell Clinics

Medical Board of California Task Force to Investigate Stem Cell Clinics

State involvement in reining in predatory stem cell clinics has never been more important, which is why it’s such good news that the Medical Board of California has a task force in the works to investigate such firms.

According to a new NBC7 report (linked to above) focusing both on this news and on their own investigation of San Diego area stem cell clinics by JW August, Mari Payton and Tom…

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[pknoepfl]

Pending State Medical Boards Group Report on Stem Cell Clinics Could be Game Changer

Pending State Medical Boards Group Report on Stem Cell Clinics Could be Game Changer

We have a big problem with clinics in the U.S. selling unproven and non-FDA approved stem cell “treatments” to patients and part of the reason in my view why we have this mess today with upwards of 700 such businesses from coast to coast is that regulators including both the FDA and state medical boards haven’t realized the scope of the clinic industry and/or taken proportionate action…

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[horrorpaingoredeath]

#sepultura #schizophrenia #sweatshirt #fsmb #foreverstreetmetalbitch #yo (at Joe's Steaks + Soda Shop)

[kodiguidescreator]

US Medical Board Group Launches Blockchain Certification Pilot

US Medical Board Group Launches Blockchain Certification Pilot

A national non-profit group for state medical boards is launching a new blockchain pilot focused on digital certifications.

The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) announced today that it would be the latest organization to test the use of Blockcerts, an open-source standard built on top of bitcoin that developed by Learning Machine Technologies and the MIT Media Lab. The non-profit used…

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[londonmcauley]

#SVSPhilly | pictures now up at https://www.svsthetour.com/ | #SVSTHETOUR #SVS #party #photography #PSU #LU #philadelphia #215 #FSMB