There are 2472 doctors (at least) who have lost or settled five or more malpractice suits. Only 556 (22%) have had disciplinary action against them by a hospital or a state licensing board. Of the 285 doctors who have TEN or more malpractice suits, less than HALF have had any type of disciplinary action, either by a hospital or by a licensing board. The proof is here. This information comes from the Annual Report of National Practitioner DataBank, 2001, Table 20 which is available here .

That report also tells us that the information that is supposed to be in the Data Bank, and is supposed to protect us from doctors who repeatedly injure patients, is not even complete. Reports on every malpractice payment made on behalf of a doctor is supposed to be reported to the Data Bank. The DataBank study cited here admits that it has no idea of the number of reports that are NOT made, but is sure that there are many doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and state licensing boards that are not complying with the reporting requirements. Notably, there are a substantial number of hospitals in Utah that have never made a report of a disciplinary action against a physician.

Unfortunately, none of this information is available to consumers as to individual doctors or hospitals. Therefore, there is no way it can be used by anyone except those who are doing such a crummy job of policing themselves, the hospitals and the medical industry. Secrecy shrouds every action taken against a doctor, every settlement made by a hospital. Even though doctors who have a hospital disciplinary action taken against them are supposed to be reported to the state licensing agency and the federal DataBank, often the reporting is not done. The data is not available to the public on individual doctors except in relatively infrequent circumstances. That is why the secrecy of the forced arbitration agreements is so pernicious--it will seriously degrade an already failing system of discipline.

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