California law aims at medical board makeover

Among the changes is a medical license fee hike to fund staff positions that were previously cut.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Jan. 16, 2006.

The new year brought with it a license fee increase for California physicians -- the first hike since 1994. Effective Jan. 1, the license fee that doctors pay every two years went from $600 to $790.

Medical Board of California Executive Director Dave Thornton said the license fee increase will generate an extra $10 million a year for the board, allowing it to restore some of the 45 positions lost to budget cuts from 2001 to 2003.

Anmol S. Mahal, MD, president-elect of the California Medical Assn., said the group's physicians were not opposed to a fee increase as long as the medical board could justify it.

"We want an effective and well-funded medical board that fulfills its mandate of public safety and that also is fair to California physicians," said Dr. Mahal, a gastroenterologist in Fremont, Calif.

The increase is one of several changes taking effect this year under a new law designed to improve how the medical board licenses and regulates the state's nearly 93,000 physicians. In addition to the fee increase, the board will change how it investigates complaints, improve its diversion program for troubled physicians and strengthen its public disclosure policy.

Dr. Mahal said, "All in all, we think the medical board has worked well." But he added that the new measures would strengthen the board's efforts to crack down on bad doctors.

"What we don't want out there are physicians who are sub-par physicians," he said. "It's to the detriment of the medical community and certainly to society as a whole."