Legal and Malpractice Corner: Transparency and Errors

Wayne J. Guglielmo, MA

States Ride the Transparency Bandwagon

Facing increasing consumer demands for greater transparency, state medical boards have been rushing headlong in recent years to publish more and more physician data.

According to a story in American Medical News, the kind and quantity of data publicly available still vary considerably by state, but "at least five states have recently passed or are considering legislation that would create more transparency, particularly in the area of physician disciplinary records and procedures.^[1]

Why the consumer push? One reason is consumer enchantment with the Internet, which many believe, often naively, will deliver high-quality information at the click of a mouse.

But there's another cultural shift driving the demand for more physician information. In contrast to the era when doctor-patient relationships typically endured as long as marriages, and sometimes longer, today's patients are often compelled to switch physicians, making background checks more essential.

Medical groups have been supportive, up to a point. In North Carolina, for example, medical society reaction to the state medical board's transparency efforts -- which have resulted in more thorough physicians' histories available online -- has been mixed. "The information that is most valuable is information that is vetted for quality, and the [medical] board opted not to do that," says Steve Keene, Deputy Executive Vice President and General Counsel for the North Carolina Medical Society. "It's phony transparency when you put information out there that has never been vetted for quality."