Governor Kasich does not seem to realize that anonymous, or confidential, complaints about physicians at the State Medical Board of Ohio do not work they allow the wastage of huge amounts of investigative monies, the invasion of all parts of a physicians life looking for a case, and the ruin of physician careers & health. This happens many times for colleague personal issues, ie the malpractices involved in bad care of a physician-patient, or the patient referrals & physical 'understandings' that a woman physician could not give to male colleagues with needs.
In Texas, a law that took effect in September that bars the Texas Medical Board from considering complaints against doctors if they come from anonymous sources. Could Governor Kasich check with the Governor of Texas? The legislation was a victory for a physicians group that sued the Medical Board in December over allegations that it was abusing the anonymous complaint process. The suit also accused a former President of the Board of using her husband to file anonymous complaints against her competitors to get those physicians disciplined.in Ohio a Board Member in 1992 profited from the discipline of a competitor physician in exchange for hospital contracts and the discipline was for complaining about her own care at that hospital which was admittedly bad care. The Board Member was running the Emergency Room at that hospital - where the woman physician tried to get care initially.
You cant fight a black box of accusations, or disprove a legal case, when you dont know the case or what you are accused of this is medieval, French Revolution guillotine justice, and Hitlers Germany rolled into one legal disaster in the making. The Medical Board can still safeguard the complainant name (s), depending on the case and the relationship (s) between the complainer (s) and the physician complained about. Colleagues usually complain about colleagues for something personal - bad care of the colleague (to get out of liability), unfulfilled needs, get rid of the competition, etc. And anonymous complaints are only 4% of the complaints in Texas (no stats on the situation in Ohio).
Ohio is the only state, and John Kasich the only Governor, that/who doesnt realize the problems with anonymous confidential complaint system against physicians at the State Medical Board. Jobs of physicians are important too - not just the job packages for American Greetings, Chiquita Brands International, and Eastman Kodak.
Anonymous complaints of physicians a trial by fire of sorts are allowed in no other state because of the liabilities and ruination of careers that have come from this practice. Its a modern day witch-hunt, with the women MDs more accused than the men because thats the way colleagues go after you when you threaten them professionally (by being good), or personally (by saying NO and threatening
to inform the wife). When the confidential does not pan out, it leads to the all-out investigation of every other aspect personal and professional of a physicians life a fishing expedition that can last decades looking for justification of a Board emergency suspension of a medical license - based on information supplied by a Board Member who supposedly 'knew' the physician from Medical School.
The Medical Boards go after your dates, your sex life, your exercise routine, your rubbing your fractured wrist after a day in the office, if you had drink at a wine tasting, etc. The Medical Board of Ohio makes mistakes and has no provision (s) within its rules for undoing them, and paying the damages for re-certifications & re-training. Once you stop practice, to start up again is a monumental undertaking as Governor Kasich knows about businesses leaving Ohio they cant undo it. Before 1990, the Medical Board of Ohio only took medical licenses when they had a case, now they do it for 'confidential' hearsay provisionally and provisionally stretches to decades of threats, lies, etc. To admit the Boards case. The Medical Board of Ohios only concern is their liability not physician careers or the truth.
The Ohio State Medical Board has a stack of such cases admitted by legislators & Medical Board Executives and they need to open the cases still unresolved, and allow the physicians to defend themselves against who or what started the case = the anonymous. If the initial complaint was bogus, then the whole investigative process was unnecessary, cruel, and the Ohio State Medical Board owes damages to the physicians and their families it was a search without cause.
And as far as jobs go, once accused confidentially by the State Medical Board of Ohio, you cant get a job thats decent unless you produce that 'confidential' complaint and the explanation even if it did not involve patient complaints because NO OTHER STATE DOES THIS. And insurance companies cant make a malpractice provision for one state and confidential. The problem is malpractice insurance and the job taking a risk with the physician.
In the last 20 years, the Ohio Medical Board has gone after physicians for all sorts of personal agendas to save hospital systems from very bad care fines, to excuse their friend physicians, and to cover-up negligence that should have merited warnings and some restrictions on practice privileges anything goes at the State Medical Board of Ohio. Transparency is not a word that Mr. Whitehouse understands, and Governor Kasichs point-man on this is completely clueless Brad Reynolds. With medical mistakes the Medical Board has to come up with guidelines & practice standards to allow referrals for 'unanticipated' results - like 40-plus other states have done. It's not the victim's fault or a psychiatric diagnosis.
Governor Kasich, and the state legislature, needs to address this problem. Many physicians want to leave Ohio under this system and other states want to know what is going on at the State Medical Board of Ohio where nothing is true. The Board has admitted bending the rules, cheating outright, and serial changing of the confidential files this is what Governor Kasich stands for? The legislators admit that this happens. And cases where Board cheating has been admitted are not dismissed the Board gets another try and it never ends... And the taxpayers pay for it.
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