The SMBO spends $8.5 MILLION yearly to regulate 42,000 physicians with the distinction of being the #1 Medical Board (based on number of Physician Prosecutions per 1000 licensed physicians). Ohio is not the #1 Board for patient care improvements - or patient care. Senator Tom Patton knows this. It's the #1 State for false Medical Board actions that ruin lives & careers.
It has long been known that the State of Ohio has more prosecutions per 1000 licensed physicians than any other state, for reasons that no other state would even consider prosecuting or waste a minute of Board time on. Many of these investigations, and prosecutions, have been known to have been 'false' - with the Medical Board cheating as bad as Lance Armstrong - or worse.
The cost of these false investigations, many of which the current Interim Director is responsible for, has been exorbitant. The current Interim Director of the State Medical Board of Ohio, Kimberly Anderson, is the former Chief of Physician Investigations. So the 'most abusive person in Columbus' is now running the State Medical Board of Ohio - and Senator Tom Patton knows this - and has done nothing to get someone better appointed and Ms Anderson 'resigned.' Ms. Anderson should never have been appointed Interim Director.
No apologies have been given by Governor Kasich, Tom Patton, or the State Medical Board for the long-term abuses - no Oprah interviews. The criteria for these investigations is always 'confidential, ' and there is no point system. Cases can go to the top of the list for political reasons, or because a Board Member is involved and has to destroy the physician telling the truth about the Board Member.
In cases where women MDs report molestation & harassments by male MDs, even beatings in medical offices, the woman MD is punished. Tom Patton has one case in his district that he knows about, and has done nothing to stop the abuse - the woman MD is still getting abused by friends of the orthopedics who did the initial abusing.
The woman MD has her parish priests defending her, and the priests have noted the parallels with the Catholic Church scandals - but the Medical Board, and State Legislature, are now hiding the abusers - which are male physicians in Tom Patton's district. Can the priests now complain to the civil courts about male physicians abusing women MDs in Ohio? Would be a breath of fresh air.
There are male MDs offering licenses for favors, beating women MDs in their offices if they won't 'change their story.' One woman MD had her arms beaten & bruised in a Cleveland Metro orthopedic's office - nothing was done; she was reported to deserve the beating as she was trying to 'rebreak her wrists.' And someone believed that line - including the Chiefs of Orthopedics at University - Victor Goldberg MD & Randy Marcus MD.
Ohio is the #1 abusive Medical Board in the US. They have disciplinary cases where physicians have had their medical licenses suspended for objecting to the wrong medical/orthopedic care of themselves - where the Board admits that the care was admittedly bad & negligent, but that the physician should not have complained.
Medical licenses are taken to order the woman physicians to serial psychiatric evaluations by Board experts. These are done with Rorschach tests that never have the answers recorded, and diagnoses that don't exist. Note: Rorschach tests have long been known to be reliable for nothing; a waste of time & money. But the Ohio Medical Board plays the 'Rorschach game.'
The Medical Board gets away with this because the legislators, and their offices, do not know medical terminology, or the criteria for these diagnoses. The Medical Board serial psychiatric evaluations are paid for by the State of Ohio, the experts are paid to lie for the State. Physicians have to get their own out-of-state experts; these cost $50,000-$100,000/evaluation to refute the Medical Board. The burden of proof is on the physician. The State Legislators, for the most part, are duped by the medical terminology - including Senator Patton.
Women MDs have not been allowed even one set of blood work before their medical licenses have been suspended indefinitely for supposedly 'exaggerating' that diagnoses were missed on them by friend-of - the-Board male physicians. There is no due process, and no physician right to treatment before an impairment determination; no 'care-to-function. Senator Patton is allowed care-to-function.
Thyroid diagnoses are especially missed as the Medical Board does not allow women MDs to get blood work before taking their licenses; the Medical Board of Ohio does not allow 'care-to-function.'
One woman was not allowed thyroid function tests; her thyroiditis was left untreated for 10 years (which means a cancer risk for her for life), while the Medical Board ordered her to 4 psychiatric evaluations for 'exaggerating' thyroid symptoms. Her case is still ongoing, and every year is a prosecutorial stat; for the last 20 years. The stats are never looked at - the same stats repeat over and over.
Mr. Dilling and Mr. Whitehouse - the last two Executive Directors - did not believe that women MDs deserved medical care or medical lab testing - just a new right Ohio psychiatrist. Four psychiatric evaluations were done on one woman MD before she got blood work in another state; no physician would help her in Ohio. Physicians accused by the State Medical Board of Ohio have a problem getting medical care, and get negligent care even by The Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Tony Licata has refused to treat the bone problem of one woman MD falsely accused, because The Cleveland Clinic was involved in the misdiagnosis. The Cleveland Clinic does not admit their mistakes. There are no medical mistake laws in Ohio. Dr. Tom Stellato refused to treat the same woman, claiming that she 'stood him up' - she wasn't on a date with Dr. Stellato, it was a complication of his care. Both physicians need to stop this mistreatment - the woman MD was innocent.
The Ohio State Legislature has known of the humongous number of false medical license actions for about 15 years now. Speaker Larry Householder, considered a crook by many, even admitted the problem in but that the Legislature would do nothing because of the scope of the problem.
The number of false Medical Board actions was so huge, even in that opening only the currently active 'confidential' files would trigger a paralysis of Columbus legal systems, and a bankruptcy of the State of Ohio - because of the number and size of the legal damages & liabilities involved - the number of justified cases that would be filed in an estimated one month's time.
At this point in 2013 the number of false Medical Board action cases, and legal damages, has at least doubled or tripled in Ohio. So Columbus legal systems would be paralyzed within a week with the filing of legal damages by falsely accused physicians - for justified liability & reputational damage reasons. The Medical Board should repay the physicians the costs of the false case, and the loss of income for the number of years that the case went on.in many cases the damage to each physician is several million to double-digit millions in one unjust case - Senator Patton is sitting on that case.
Any action by the State Medical Board of Ohio costs from $100,000-$300,000 to defend - which most physicians don't have. When the Board takes your license first based on 'hypothetical' reasons, the insurances won't pay the investigation costs. Physicians with student loans quickly run out of cash, and can't always settle with the Medical Board by signing a pile of punitive lies. The number of physicians involved is probably thousands/42,000. Tom Patton could get the list and publish the stats, but so far has chosen to ignore the problem.
The Executive Director of the State Medical Board until Tom Dilling, had a list of these probably 'innocent' physicians, and would try to make deals or threaten some before his resignation in 2005. Executive Director Dilling would threaten the falsely accused physicians to admit the Board's case, or such-and-such would be done to their families to make them pay.
Governor Taft finally got rid of him after this happened one too many times. But Tom Patton can get that 'Dilling' list and he hasn't made any attempt to (1) get it, (2) have the Medical Board be externally reviewed for those cases from 1998 (which will be a huge State cost because of the lies, fabrications, and length of time of these cases 1998), or (3) get these physicians cleared and back to work with no-fault agreements.
Tom Dilling has the list, and it needs to be published before any rate increase by the Ohio State Medical Board. Then the Rick Whitehouse list of false actions needs to be published - how much has the State of Ohio wasted on frivolous investigations over the last 15 years? Tom Dilling,
Rick Whitehouse, Kimberly Anderson and Members of the Medical Board should have to pay damages & fines. The estimate is $8.5 million; there is no surplus at the State Medical Board because of these false cases and legal actions - and the State of Ohio will have to pay damages on some of these cases eventually. The State of Ohio, and Senator Tom Patton, are sitting on a time bomb.
Mr. Whitehouse, who resigned in October has long known of the false suspension list, and just not answered the phone for 8 years to any of these physician's lawyers. Governor Kasich has known of the possibility that hundreds to thousands of physicians have had their medical licenses suspended over the last 20 years unjustly, from the first day of his Governorship. The state stats are very wrong, and everyone in Columbus knows this - including Senator Tom Patton who makes a promise of being able to spot-a-con. Senator Tom Patton just can't admit-a-con; can't get even the women MDs reporting real molestations back to work in another area of the state. What would his daughters think? He'd do something if one of his daughters was similarly molested.
This is well-acknowledged problem - of Lance Armstrong type behaviors - by the State Medical Board of Ohio - hiding gross abuses of physician due process, and leaving many physicians unable to get even medical care while the investigative process continues. There are never any admitted false cases at the State Medical Board of Ohio, and every other State Medical Board knows from looking at some of these physician files that there are really probably thousands of false cases needing external review, and an entire new Medical Board needs to be appointed. Lance Talmadge MD, and Anita Steinbergh DO, need to resign - they have perpetuated many of these false cases with unreasonable demands of the physicians involved.
Other Medical Boards would have been impeached, but this is not possible with the 'confidential' complaint system in Ohio - where the complaints can be changed, and no one can get at what is really going on at the State Medical Board of Ohio. Tom Patton knows of the problem, and his office is 'sitting on the pot' on it - he's getting heavier and the list is growing longer by the day.
There have been hundreds of false cases since the early 1990s when the physician 'confidential' complaint system was put into practice. Many physicians can never get the complaint against themselves, but certain 'friend' physicians are handed their complaints against Ohio state law so that they can defend themselves - often by countercomplaints of other physicians who then can't defend themselves. The Ohio State Medical Board breaks Ohio law every day in giving verbatim complaints to 'friend' physicians for 'favors' of appointments, contract jobs, and hospital privileges. Carla O'Day MD collected millions in ER contract jobs for her Rocky River ER group that way, before she resigned under a 'cloud' in 1993. The practice still continues. No one can trace the paybacks.
These false State Medical Board cases then continue for decades. One case, involving a constituent of Tom Patton, has continued for 2 decades and cost the State of Ohio $500,000. The woman MD had no patient complaints, she complained of molestation & harassment by a colleague male MD who left her fractures to 'ripen, ' wanted her to 'understand' him, and who threatened her license if she did not lie about what happened. Despite 2 decades, 2 Hearings, and 3 national experts standing up for her - she still does not have her medical license returned. Tom Patton's office is sitting on the situation; because he does not know medical terminology the Board can pull anything on him with a medical term.
PA is 29th (or AVERAGE for Physician Prosecutions) and spends only $7 million a year. Pennsylvania has amassed a $30 million surplus at their State Medical Board. The PA Board is so flush that 50,000 licensed physicians are getting a pass this year on license fees, they pay every other year.
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