Tell patients about their bad doctors
Patients deserve to know when their doctors are on probation, one misstep away from losing their licenses to practice medicine.
Credit the state Senate with finally pushing for transparency. Even the California Medical Board, the regulatory agency led by doctors, has begun to recognize this is a legitimate issue.
But the California Medical Association? Nope. The physician trade group still wants to keep patients in the dark to bolster the financial security of a few hundred bad doctors.
Fortunately state senators last month decided overwhelmingly not to get in the gutter with the CMA. By a 36-4 bipartisan vote, they approved legislation requiring egregious doctors to notify their patients when they’re on probation.
The bill is now in the Assembly, where members should put patients’ interests ahead of political pressure and CMA campaign contributions.
If anything, the legislation doesn’t go far enough to require patient notification by doctors whom the medical board places on probation. The requirement only applies to the worst of the worst physicians.
Nevertheless, the bill’s author, state Sen. Jerry Hill, DSan Mateo, deserves credit for his perseverance. When he tried to pass similar legislation last year, it died as 25 of 40 senators voted no or didn’t vote.
This time, he included the notification provision in a bill, SB 798, authorizing the medical board to continue operating another four years. Originally, the bill would have required that all doctors on probation notify their patients.
These are not physicians who have committed minor transgressions; they’re generally one step away from losing their licenses to practice medicine.
Like the Piedmont doctor who had a sexual relationship with one patient and inappropriately prescribed narcotics for another. The Antioch internist who kept sloppy records and provided negligent care to a patient who subsequently died. And the Los Gatos internist who excessively prescribed narcotics and psychotropic drugs to multiple patients.
As of earlier this year, there were only 497 doctors, or less than half of 1 percent of the physicians living in and licensed to practice in California who were on probation.
But, at the urging of the medical board, even some of those doctors were excluded from the bill’s notification requirement. SB 798 was weakened to require patient notification only by doctors on probation for sexual misconduct, drug or alcohol abuse during practice or a criminal conviction involving the practice of medicine. Repeat offenders — those doctors that have previously lost their licenses or been on probation — would also be subject to the notification requirement.
Weakening the bill won over the support of the medical board. But it still wasn’t enough for the CMA, which claimed that doctors on probation would have to spend too much time notifying patients.
We doubt their patients would agree.
Fortunately state senators last month decided overwhelmingly not to get in the gutter with the CMA. By a 36-4 bipartisan vote, they approved legislation requiring egregious doctors to notify their patients when they’re on probation.