The nonprofit group Public Citizen, which provides information on various consumer and citizen interests, has just released its latest ranking on State medical boards' disciplinary actions. The report is authored by Sidney M. Wolfe, M.D., Rebecca Kahn and Kate Resnevic.

According to the report, based on the data released by the Federation of State Medical Boards on all disciplinary actions taken against doctors in 2009, the rate of serious actions per 1,000 physicians is a little higher than 2008, but "significantly lower than the peak for the past ten years."

The 10 worst states with the lowest serious disciplinary action rates for 2007-2009 were Minnesota, South Carolina, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Florida, Maryland and Vermont. The 10 best states with the highest rates of serious disciplinary actions are Alaska, North Dakota, Kentucky, Ohio, Arizona, Oklahoma, Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico and Hawaii.
In the discussion of the analysis, the authors say considerable evidence exists that boards are under-disciplining physicians and that some states' "ability to rapidly increase or decrease their rankings...can only be due to changes in practices at the board level."

State boards are better at discipline, the authors say, when conditions are present including adequate funding, staffing, proactive investigations, using varied sources of data, better leadership, independence from state medical societies and state government, and a reasonable legal standard for discipline such as preponderance of evidence.

The Public Citizen report may be accessed at: http://www.citizen.org/hrg1905

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