Malpractice cases go unreported to data bank

A report recommends that three federal health agencies create a process to address such cases.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Nov. 7, 2005.

Government agencies have failed to report nearly 500 medical malpractice cases to the National Practitioner Data Bank, a move that has lessened the data bank's effectiveness, a new report says.

Failing to report the cases deprived state medical boards and hospitals of useful information to make licensing and credentialing decisions on physicians, according to the October report from the Dept. of Health and Human Services' inspector general.

A 1990 HHS policy directive calls for all settled or adjudicated HHS medical malpractice cases to be reported to the NPDB, said Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson. But between June 1997 and September 2004, three HHS agencies did not report 474 cases. Those agencies were Indian Health Service, Health Resources and Services Administration (which manages the data bank), and National Institutes of Health.

Several factors led to the underreporting, including lost files, incomplete file information and the failure to replace a key claims official who handled NPDB reporting duties.

"Underreporting of the department's own medical malpractice cases lessens the usefulness of the NPDB and undermines departmental efforts to regulate private- and public-sector compliance with NPDB requirements," Levinson wrote.