A battle is brewing between the Texas Medical Board and consumer watchdog Public Citizen over doctor discipline, or lack thereof, KXAN reported.
Public Citizen's report claims the medical board has been failing to punish dangerous doctors in Texas, evidenced by Texas consistently earning a spot in the bottom one-half of state medical boards in its ranking system.
Moreover, of the 459 physicians who the state medical board failed to discipline, 93 of them were disciplined by hospitals and other healthcare facilities because of incompetence, negligence or malpractice; 33 were disciplined for substandard care; and 8 were identified as an immediate threat to health or safety, according to the report which analyzed data from the National Practitioner Data Bank from 1990 to 2011.
So the watchdog group has urged Gov. Rick Perry to "initiate immediate action to improve the performance of the Texas Medical Board … and thereby protect patients in Texas from physicians who should have been, but were not, disciplined," according to a letter sent Wednesday.
However, the medical board is disputing the report, sending its own letter to Perry defending its physician disciplinary processes, noted KXAN.
According to the medical board, Public Citizen's report fails to acknowledge that not all actions taken by hospitals against a doctor would necessarily result in an enforcement action by the board, and that it can't take action if clinical privilege reports made by hospitals aren't sent to the medical board, the letter said.
The board also slams the watchdog group's annual ranking system, noting that the Federation of State Medical Boards strongly opposes ranking the states because their medical boards use varying disciplinary processes, according to the letter.
However, Texas isn't the only state whose medical board is facing scrutiny. Earlier this year, Public Citizen raised concerns that most states are underdisciplining physicians with less severe actions like fines and reprimands, as opposed revoking licenses for serious offenses, FierceHealthcare previously reported.
To learn more:
- here's the Public Citizen announcement, letter (.pdf) and report (.pdf)
- read the med board letter (.pdf)
- check out the KXAN article