Physician’s Report Cards

Physician’s Report Cards

Linda Skiff

HCA 305

Instructor: Lesa Crane

November 28, 2011

Physician’s Report Cards

A physician report card gives the public access to physician information, including disciplinary records, malpractice actions, and whether a physician has lost privileges at a hospital. A dozen states have passed this legislation, but Florida has taken it one step farther by releasing the exact amount of every malpractice payment going back to the 1980s and allows the public to request a summary of each case that includes the patient’s allegations (Sultz, Harry A., 07/2010). I feel that as long as the consumers are getting their information from the right sources then a physician report card can be fair and balanced. I will explain the right place to get the information from later on in this paper. I also feel that as a consumer, the report card on any physician can be a very important part in making any kind of medical decision.

Physician report cards probably go back as far as the 1990s, with the publication of the open heart surgery data. With all the information now being put out there about physicians a report card is really just another tool for consumers to get the information they need about any physician. As with all things in life, one of the problems with the report cards is that there is not a lot of patients attributable to any given doctor. Therefore, it makes it harder to make a reliable, valid, reproducible report card. On the other hand, once you give doctors good information about how they stack up relative to a peer, group, get out of the way because they will trample you on the way to change.

Report cards have been a powerful stimulus to change behavior in the right direction. Probably the best example of that is the National Diabetes Quality Improvement Alliance project. The American Diabetes Association and the AMA joined together (with other groups) to give doctors a special certificate or extra recognition as being a...