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| Governor John Kasich State Medical Board of Ohio the only state with anonymous physician confidential complaints where the Board cheats by changing th |
| 14th of Dec, 2011 by User531067 |
| Ohio remains the only state whose Medical Board accepts 'confidential' physician complaints. Recently the State of Texas outlawed 'anonymous' physician complaints with a law changing a bad practice only barely - but at least it was a step in the right direction of transparency. In Ohio the ridiculousness continues, and you can't resolve anything based on 'confidential' - might as well do a random coin toss for heads-or-tails. 'Confidential' is not the way to solve pill-mill problems, get a discussion of the issues, resolve care standard disagreements, or to get a judgment which can be used in suing for malpractice - it is not a way for a harmed patient to find a lawyer. The process of undoing the harm, or preventing the harm, has to be better = medical mistake laws. Medical Board complaints can't even be used to get withheld physician records in Ohio - they allow their 'friends' to edit to the point where what happened can never be determined unless you have the clairvoyance and second-sight of wizard such as Merlin. The records then never get to the consultants for even more years. Nothing is binding with 'confidential.' It is just a rain dance; an illusion that the Medical Board, be it Ohio or Texas, is doing something when it fact, it is doing nothing but ruining the lives of innocent physicians - who asked for the Board to do something about the bad standards of care in a meaningful way to help improve the practice of medicine. This should be done non-punitively. If you ask the Medical Board in Ohio to stand up for a standard of care, they say that you need counseling to accept things as they are = the Board's 'help.' The Help in Ohio then takes the medical license of the physician trying to ask for help. The crime: making too much of medical mistakes, asking for help with admittedly bad care. If you can't understand your male colleagues with aequanimitas, then you need the Board's help. Well forgiving mistakes is one thing, but legislating that colleagues can keep harming patients is another - and that is what the State Medical Board of Ohio does by helping concerned physicians lose their licenses for saying something. And everyone got mad at Joe Paterno. In Ohio we have a Board of JoePas - who won't do anything, but take the license of the physician that brought the problem to their attention. Medical mistakes are the problem, because they can be reduced, but that does not mean sending the 'victim' patient to Board-ordered psychotherapy by a new right Ohio psychiatrist. Medical mistake laws mean immediately recognizing the MEDICAL ERROR, developing a coherent logical plan, and referring to the tertiary center that can do something about the fracture left uncasted for too many days by Dr. 'Polo' Nice, the thyroiditis that was missed because the right labs were not done by the Lafferty endocrinologist at University Green Road, the cut popliteal artery during a knee replacement because the saw was not checked by the Surgical Technologist, and the post-partum infection from too many monitors and vaginal exams during a prolonged labor. The problem with 'confidential' physician complaints in Ohio is that when they don't prove to be true, instead of having a path to dismiss the complaint, and undo the suspension, the Ohio Medical Board just tries to ‘change’ the complaint and do another ‘confidential’ case. There is no process for immediately re-licensing the falsely accused physician, returning them to the job of being a physician the week after, and paying them back for every day of missed practice and family life. Complaints in Ohio don't have to bear the burden of proof with 'confidential,' before they are acted on. Governor Kasich is concerned about keeping every job except keeping physicians working = not unduly harassed or falsely disciplined by the State Medical Board. Nothing can be believed at the State Medical Board of Ohio, and no one at Riffe Center knows what is going on. The Ohio legislators all know that the Medical Board changes the 'confidential' complaints, and the pile of false suspensions is getting worse. There are so many falsely suspended physicians, that releasing the 'confidential' complaints of all unresolved Medical Board cases, would paralyze the state legal system with justified complaints for damages. In 2003, then Speaker Larry Householder admitted this, and the problem has compounded since. The 'confidential' morphs over the years in Ohio, and the case becomes increasingly impossible to resolve with all the different versions of the 'confidential.' After 19 years no one knows what the case is really about, and the Board Members tell you to lie - but that's not the TEBOW thing. There has to be a way to dismiss false complaints, and when everything is 'confidential' you can't do that - there is no verification, no witnesses that know what the case is really about when they testify, and nothing can be improved as to medical practice care standards. The elephant in the room never gets discussed at the Hearings. It's a complete waste of time and money, with Hearing officers that are talking-heads. Patients try to use the Medical Board route as a last resort for malpractice, but any decision of the Medical Board can't be used in court when everything is 'confidential' - it just makes it easier for the physician involved to get everything thrown out. The Medical Board is not the way for lawyers to determine the malpractice $-value of a case; some cases collect, and the Medical Board completely exonerates the physician and vice versa. It's a crap shoot of an arbitrary Board, and patients should know that their 'confidentiality' will not be respected. The State Medical Board is only using patients as government does. In one case, the Ohio Medical Board listed the names, in public records, of the patients that would not return to the physician doing marginal care - their 'friend.' If the State Medical Board was doing their job, the standards would never be such that really bad malpractice would occur - or it would occur less and less often with checklists and quality control measures at every point in patient care = the real job of the State Medical Board of Ohio. Procedures would all have a number of cases attached before a physician attempts them (so orthopedics could not cast wrist fractures if they don't do at least 4/month like touch-and-goes for pilots). As soon as a mistake happened, a colleague with more experience would have to be called. 'Confidential' complaints are a poor substitute for functional medical mistake laws - and Ohio is one of the few states left with no medical mistake laws on the books, and none in Committee. That's what Governor Kasich should have been doing instead of getting 'up close and personal' will pill-mill physicians. If they were making a medical mistake, the case would have been open-and-shut. Medical mistake laws instead go after the process, not the individual person, that fails: that after a correctable mistake, another physician, another plan, is not adopted immediately. Then if the physician fails to refer or consult, the case is solid - the physician failed to recognize the mistake, and have a check-list for undoing the mistake. Medicine always has inherent mistakes, what patients should be demanding is medical mistake laws with provisions for damage control and quick settlements. The Medical Board in Ohio doesn't stick with 'confidential' regarding patient care - and who knows what that is really about - they go after a physician's whole life for decades - one case has gone on for 19 years at a cost of over $500,000 to the State of Ohio. Two days in 1995 were spent discussing her sex life, and if she liked men enough to be licensed in Ohio - well not the married type looking for 'understanding' - which should be a no-brainer. Mr. Whitehouse does no accounting or budgeting of finances - he just goes after 'confidential' with an administrative fishing expedition - looking for something that will stick with bottomless state credit cards, something to threaten the physician with - and it's a brutal process of more mistakes. The Ohio Court of Appeals will then throw it out, and the roundabout continues wasting taxpayer monies and solving nothing. Every good lawyer tells their client not to admit anything - even for a traffic ticket - and that includes 'confidential' - which can be anything and everything in Ohio. Ironically 'friends' of Members of the State Medical Board get their 'confidential' complaints against state law - to counter-complain about the person who complained about them - and they can get very personal as the 'confidential' is usually used against someone who the 'confidential' complainant knows well. It's a cat-fight of men behaving badly. One complaint case, that has gone on for 19 years was that the physician - who then counter-complained as the complaint was given to the him - would not discuss and refer in a timely way. In residency, this would be handled by the Chief, but his Chief was his neighbor and drinking buddy at the Community Hospital. The initial complaint was that the physician-patient just wanted the physician orthopedic to discuss, promised no suit if the problem was referred to the Cleveland Clinic, and the orthopedic used the excuse that because he had friends on the State Medical Board, he did not have to discuss, refer, consult or send medical records - it was the ill physician's job to refer herself without his summary and with him telling other orthopedics that she didn't 'deserve' care. This orthopedic, under the 'confidential' system, still does not have to discuss - he got the Medical Board to do his physician job and protect him against malpractice for leaving fractures uncasted for weeks, while he shopped for polo ponies. The Medical Board of Ohio is his dating service, his buddy, his referral service, and his malpractice guarantee to keep his rates down. 'Confidential' complaints are being used to go after colleague physicians, as a last resort to malpractice problems that can't be filed, and to solve personal issues that need mandated discussions. But no one can guarantee that Mr. Whitehouse will discuss the false cases at the State Medical Board of Ohio - not even the Governor. There is no oversight, no checks and balances for the Ohio State Medical Board. It's a waste of government time, and a ridiculous waste of a physician's time to be suspended & disciplined for 'confidential' - which won't improve anything when it was not about the physician's patient care - it was about disagreeing with her colleagues. The files in Ohio have been recommended to be opened for reforms since 1998-9; but the Governors haven't figured it out yet. Maybe the 'confidential' isn't really a case, maybe it's not about what the complaint says (the hidden agenda), maybe the signers wanted personal things such as office space and patient referrals? And no one can verify a 'confidential' complaint, so licenses are taken on the basis of 'provisional, and for sure only one-sided 'partial' information. This has resulted in Ohio having the most false physician suspensions & disciplines in the United States - a system of half-truths and word-of-mouth illusions without scientific basis - which is what medical care is supposedly based on. Wikipedia defines the scientific method as a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. Nothing about the State Medical Board of Ohio has ANYTHING to do with the scientific method or logical reasoning - and that's not good for medical practice. If there is a decision about care standards during a case, then it needs to be applied, and can't if everything is 'confidential.' Medical care has to be able to self-correct with the scientific method = measurable evidence. The State Medical Board of Ohio needs to to stop the recycling of false physician complaints at the State Medical Board, return the licenses of physicians unjustly accused of making too much of bad care, and clear the records. Most physicians in Ohio would do this without the $ damages (OHIO is broke) if they could get their license back and get on with their lives. However, policies have to be developed to penalize the State of Ohio, and the Medical Board, for falsely destroying a physician's live and career - policies like those that exist in most other states for paying for the fees and re-training to get the physician back to work. The State of Ohio Medical Board has no procedures for accountability. Governor Kasich is not taking a ‘good’ look at what is going on at the State Medical Board – where 'confidential' physician complaints by colleague physicians continue to destroy careers, and waste lives. One should be able to contact the Medical Board about getting records, or a physician to discuss, refer, consult, and be physicianly - without penalty of having one's own medical license suspended for not handling things better. 'Friends with benefits' should not be misusing the state's services, monies, and 'confidential' complaints to get out of doing their physician job. All physicians should get their complaints in a timely manner to be able to defend themselves and get on with their practice. |
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