Croft says that about 60 percent of the nation's hospitals have never filed any peer-reviewed actions with the data bank and that far less reporting is done by health plans. He explains that plans tend to take action more through their contracting with providers than via peer review. This is a very serious problem. Bliley's proposed legislation would allow Americans to search the NPDB for a physician's licensure status, malpractice judgments and settlements, criminal convictions, hospital and state medical board disciplinary actions, and any Medicare and Medicaid programs exclusions. And yet the American public currently has more comparative information about the used car we purchase or the snack food we eat than the doctors in whose care we entrust our health and well being.
Consumer advocates agree.
Secrecy doesn't protect good physicians. Good physicians should not be fearful of a strong public disclosure policy. But the medical community believes the release of unfiltered data bank information would not be in the public's interest. We support what is happening at the state level, which is good information for patients to make good decisions. The AMA and others say Bliley's bill is political payback for organized medicine's support of the controversial Democrat-backed Patients' Bill of Rights.