Internet site covers disciplinary data from 49 states

Actions from more medical boards have been added to a consumer database tracking physician discipline.

By Damon Adams, amednews staff. Dec. 1, 2003.

A consumer advocacy group's Internet database now includes disciplinary actions taken against physicians in each state except South Dakota.

Public Citizen in late October added information about physicians from eight states to its Questionable Doctors database (www.questionabledoctors.org). The states were: Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

See related content
Region: States

Technical problems prompted Public Citizen to take the new states off the site temporarily in November, but the data were expected to be back on the Web site by Dec. 5. The Washington, D.C.-based group said it hopes to resolve problems getting complete data from South Dakota soon and add the final state to its Web site.

For more than a decade, Public Citizen has published national and regional editions of Questionable Doctors in book form. In June 2002, it started building an Internet database for disciplinary actions such as incompetence, sexual misconduct and other offenses.

"It's more user-friendly to do it this way, and the majority of people in this country have Internet access," said Sidney Wolfe, MD, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group.

The site covers disciplinary actions from 1992 to 2001. The data come from state medical boards and federal agencies such as the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Drug Enforcement Administration and Food and Drug Administration.

"We have more information on narcotics license violations than the National Practitioner Data Bank," Dr. Wolfe said.

Consumers may search the database for free. They can view and print disciplinary reports on up to 10 doctors for $10. Public Citizen said more than 375,000 people have looked up doctors on the Web site, which has information on 18,000 disciplined physicians.

"Most doctors are practicing good medicine, but a small handful are not practicing good medicine," Dr. Wolfe said.

Another database of medical board disciplinary actions is available online (www.docinfo.org).

"The public needs access to disciplinary actions to make informed health care decisions about their physicians," said James Thompson, MD, CEO of the Federation of State Medical Boards.

Public Citizen advocates funding and staffing increases for state medical boards and the severing of ties between the medical boards and organized medicine.