Minnesota ranks last when disciplining doctors, Public Citizen says

Well, don't say you weren't warned. As per its tradition, Public Citizen has taken the data just released from the group representing state boards of medicine and immediately given it a spin of its own--rating states based on the number and type of disciplinary actions taken against their physicians.

According to the new Public Citizen Health Research Group analysis of state medical board data, Minnesota was the least-effective state when it came to disciplining doctors, while Alaska was the most effective. 

The ratings came from a three-year average of data on medical license revocations, surrenders, suspensions, probations and suspensions prepared by the Federation of State Medical Boards. The report created by Public Citizen also includes a "serious actions per 1,000 physicians" rating.

Minnesota got its low marks because it took only 0.95 serious actions per 1,000 physicians during the period studied, while Alaska had 6.54 serious actions per 1,000 physicians.

What's notably absent, from all of this is feedback on just what Public Citizen estimates to be an appropriate level for each state, and how it would adjust for local conditions. Now that might be interesting.

For more data from the study:
- read this Modern Healthcare piece [1] (reg. req.)

Related Articles:
Doctor disciplinary actions up a hair in '08, but serious actions lower [2]
State med board disciplinary action numbers fall again
[3]Study: Medical board discipline varies widely [4]