Greedy Trial Lawyer
Medical Hellholes Revealed
Category: In Your Face
The report does not use the term "Medical Hellholes", but it does paint an ugly picture of the quality of medical practice in some states.
Public Citizen Issues Annual Ranking of State Medical Boards
Public Citizen today released its annual report ranking how effective state medical boards are at disciplining doctors, with Mississippi ranked worst and Alaska best.The rankings are based on state-by-state data released by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) about the number of disciplinary actions taken against doctors in 2006, combined with data from earlier FSMB reports covering 2004 and 2005. Public Citizen calculated the rate of serious disciplinary actions (revocations, surrenders, suspensions and probation/restrictions) per 1,000 doctors in each state for each year and compiled a national ranking of state boards by the average rate of serious disciplinary actions for 2004-2006 and for earlier three-year intervals. Non-serious board actions were not included.
There were 2,916 serious disciplinary actions taken by state medical boards in 2006, down 10.4 percent from the 3,255 serious actions taken in 2005. The national average disciplinary rate was 3.18 serious actions per 1,000 physicians, compared to 3.62 in 2005. The three-year state disciplinary rates ranged from 1.41 serious actions per 1,000 physicians (Mississippi) to 7.30 actions per 1,000 physicians (Alaska), a 5.2-fold difference between the best and worst states.
The bottom 10 states - those with the lowest serious disciplinary action rates for 2004-2006 - were, starting with the lowest: Mississippi (1.41 serious actions per 1,000 physicians); South Carolina (1.45); Minnesota (1.45); South Dakota (1.52); Nevada (1.68); Wisconsin (1.78); Washington (2.06); Delaware (2.22); Maryland (2.25); and Connecticut (2.34).
Nine states have experienced at least a 10-place drop in ranking between the 2001-2003 ranking and the 2004-2006 ranking: Alabama went from 13th to 26th; Georgia from 15th to 25th; Idaho from 14th to 24th; Mississippi from 20th to 51st; Nevada from 33rd to 47th; New Jersey from 24th to 40th; North Dakota from 3rd to 19th; South Dakota from 37th to 48th; and Virginia from 30th to 41st.
What does all this mean?
"The data demonstrate a remarkable variability in the rates of serious disciplinary actions taken by state boards," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the health research group at Public Citizen. "As there is no reason to believe that physicians deserving of discipline are much more common in one state than another, these large differences in rates are likely due to the board's practices themselves. There is considerable evidence that most boards are under-disciplining physicians.""Most states are not living up to their obligations to protect patients from doctors who are practicing medicine in a substandard manner and endangering the lives and health of their patients," Wolfe said. "State legislatures must act to increase the amount of doctor discipline and patient protection. Without adequate oversight, many medical boards will continue to perform poorly."
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