Alerts foil state-jumping by disciplined doctors

A more mobile society, telemedicine and the Internet have heightened the need to monitor physicians across state lines.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. May 21, 2007.

For having sex with a patient and inappropriately prescribing her drugs, an Alabama family physician had his license revoked in 2005 by the state's medical board. Soon after, Ohio, where the doctor also was licensed, was alerted to the discipline.

Ohio's board investigated and came to the same conclusion last year -- the doctor should not practice medicine. It took away his license as well.

Ohio acted promptly on the Alabama doctor thanks to the Disciplinary Alert Service of the Federation of State Medical Boards. The service alerts medical boards by e-mail within 24 to 48 hours when one of their licensees is disciplined in another state.

Before the service began in 2000, boards relied on a monthly federation report that required individual state board staff members to comb the paper report to see if one of their licensed doctors was disciplined elsewhere. With the alert service, boards are doing a better job of tracking and cracking down on disciplined doctors who might try to move across state lines and set up practice.

From 2003 to 2006, the federation said reciprocal actions jumped 37%, from 786 to 1,073. Those include discipline for sexual misconduct, substance abuse and probation violations. Reciprocal actions made up 19% of the 5,574 total actions medical boards took in 2006.

"The large jump in reciprocal actions is arguably directly related to the Disciplinary Alert Service," said James N. Thompson, MD, the federation's president and CEO. He added that the number of boards participating in the program grew from 24 in 2000 to nearly 70 today.