Ohio is one of only two states to continue 'confidential' physician complaints, and the only state to accept anonymous physician complaints. All other states do not do this because, without disclosure of the issues, complaints, and the complainers - to validate the complaint & credentials of the signers - the professional insurances can not bear any of the costs of the Medical Board's actions - even to repay the Medical Board costs for a legitimate complaint. Professional medical insurances exist for this and other reasons - to pay the cost of an impaired physician. It's not the job of the Ohio taxpayers to do this.
Governor Kasich is paying a carte blanche bill for the State Medical Board at this time - while complainers of false complaints are not liable in any way - so the Executive Director of the State Medical Board has to worry about the statute of limitations for the terrible negligences of physicians that the Board has decided to allow - Dr. Nice, Dr. Keith, Dr. Suppes, fracture care at Hillcrest Hospital in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, etc.
Once the Ohio Court of Appeals throws out a Medical Board case, then the Medical Board is entirely liable for all the investigations, evaluations, rehab, and the legitimacy of continuing the case. There's at least a handful of cases that the State Medical Board of Ohio has continued without the support of the Ohio Court of Appeals - all at great cost to the taxpayers of Ohio - who helped pay to educate the falsely accused physicians.
Carla O'Day MD - during 1990-3 - started a pile of false cases against colleagues - at least one of which the State Court of Appeals threw out telling the Medical Board to 'solve the case in another way.' The Medical Board did not take that advice, because Carla O'Day MD hated the other woman physician, and the Medical Board under Rick Whitehouse, Esq. Is still looking for a case - while Carla O'Day MD is nowhere to be found for the money involved.
There are a stack of false physician cases, that the Ohio Medical Board is now entirely liable for damages for, as the complaints were not disclosed to the professional insurances before any suspension or disciplinary action was taken - and the complaints were probably false. There was no due process in these cases. Once the Medical Board acts, no matter how unjustly, the professional insurances are gone and the Medical Board has to pay all the costs - no matter how they were misinformed.
Governor Kasich needs to do reforms at the State Medical Board to allow the professional insurances to know the cases and bear the costs if the complaints are justified. If the complaints can be disproven by the professional insurances, then the Medical Board should have to pay damages for falsely injuring that physician's reputation with a frivolous unverified complaint and actions. This is as it is in 48 other states, where the State Representative & Senators know about medical mistake laws and the problems with 'confidential' physician complaints - the black hole for money on the costs of these cases.
All cases of Carla O'Day MD need to be reviewed externally - internal review has only been able to say that there were problems but not enough evidence. Governor Taft asked for this in 2005. External review will allow other witnesses in these cases to come forward - and this should have been done 20 years ago as Carla O'Day MD got rid of her colleague competition this way - like the Past President of the Texas Medical Board.
Governor Kasich is a bit impaired that he can't see what the Governors of 48 other states see as a no-brainer.
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