Doctor Disciplinary Actions Hit Record High

WASHINGTON —  A record 3,081 doctors in the country were disciplined by state authorities last year but further efforts are needed to weed out incompetent or unfit physicians, officials of a national organization said Tuesday.

The number of disciplinary actions has increased 14% in four years, according to Dr. Hormoz Rassekh, president of the Federation of State Medical Boards, whose members include 67 state and territorial medical licensing boards.

“The encouraging part of this data is that we see overall continued activity in an upward movement,” said Dr. James R. Winn, the federation’s executive vice president. But he added: “We think more can be done and we intend to do more.”

Disciplinary actions rose in California as well, although the Medical Board of California disagreed with the federation’s figures for the state. According to the federation, California officials took action in 280 cases last year. But Dixon Arnett, executive director of the state board, said that the actual number was 367--an increase from 202 the previous year.

The numbers differ because the state counts certain actions, such as temporary restraining orders and interim suspensions, that the federation does not include, Arnett said in a telephone interview.

Assuring high quality medical care has become a clarion call in the health care reform debate in part because the White House has embraced it as an abiding principle.

In a related development Tuesday, union officials announced that the labor movement has begun an aggressive grass-roots lobbying effort to persuade undecided Democratic members of the House to support President Clinton’s health legislation.

Full-time staff members of various unions have been dispatched to 32 congressional districts to coordinate volunteers on behalf of the legislation, said Gerald Shea, who heads the AFL-CIO’s health care efforts.

At a news conference earlier Tuesday, union officials released a study claiming that working families could lose as much as $128 billion over the next six years if a tax is placed on employer health benefits to help finance health care reform. The tax would be passed along to workers, forcing them to dip into their pockets to maintain coverage, according to the study, which was conducted by the Lewin-VHI research firm for the Service Employees International Union.

The proposed tax on benefits is included in a health care reform package sponsored by Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) that is being advanced as an alternative to the Clinton health plan.

The disciplinary actions against doctors cited by the federation cover a range of punishments, including the most serious steps--revocation or suspension of licenses to practice.

Winn said that the federation hopes to encourage greater funding for state boards to speed up disciplinary proceedings. Currently, an average of 37 weeks passes between the receipt of a complaint and disposition of a case, said Gerald J. Bechamps, a Winchester, Va., physician and incoming federation president.

Concern over quality also has been fanned by the growth of managed care networks, which many believe is not always consistent with the delivery of the best quality care. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations announced Tuesday that it has launched a major new program to provide public evaluations of medical provider networks. Hospitals, insurance companies and doctors are rapidly forming combined service networks.