If you don’t ask about malpractice, Board of Medical Examiners won’t tell

Seven months ago, I wrote that the board removed malpractice settlement and judgment information about doctors from its Web site in 2005, even though the information had been on the board’s site for three years.

Gently, I suggested this was wrong-headed foolishness from a board more interested in protecting doctors’ reputations than giving patients information they can use to decide which doctor to see.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley agreed that if the information is public, and it is, it should be on the board’s Web site. She was her usual no-nonsense self.

"The Legislature shouldn’t have to tell boards and commissions how to design their Web sites," she said last year. "There’s no sense not to make it available electronically if you can call up and get it."

Some boards might have taken that as a clear message from a leading legislator.

Not this one.

Board President Javaid Anwar, who voted to remove the information from the Web site, said after my column ran that he hadn’t heard from anyone who thought the malpractice information, readily available in other states, should be returned to Nevada’s Web site.

None of the nine board members suggested the malpractice information should be reconsidered.

"The subject had not come up, and there was no interest in bringing it up," Anwar said.

He said no one from the public asked and he received no communication from Buckley.

Times change.

I’m renewing my plea for easier access to public information at a time when doctors are testifying about greed and incompetence in federal court in the conspiracy case against personal injury attorney Noel Gage.

The board has someone at the trial taking notes for possible future action against the doctors involved. Any disciplinary action would have to come after the trial.

Over in state court, Dr. Harriston Bass is facing trial for second-degree murder, selling a controlled substance and possession with intent to sell. One of his patients died from an overdose.

If you look on the Medical Examiners’ Web site, you can see the board has yanked Bass’ license, but you don’t see his malpractice history.

Once you did. Now it’s gone.

Even though Dr. Anwar supported removing the malpractice information from the Web site, on Wednesday he said, "I’ll be happy to put it on an agenda."

That doesn’t mean the policy will change. Apparently, if you want easier access to malpractice information as part of your decision-making process, you need to let the board know. The toll free number is 888-890-8210.

Currently, if you want to find out about a doctor’s malpractice insurance settlements and court judgments, you call that number and the information is quickly rattled off to you. But you may check no more than two doctors a day.

Nevada law makes it public information. Board policy makes it difficult to obtain.

Nevada isn’t the only state that doesn’t have malpractice information on its Web site. But the trend is to put it out there, and more states do than don’t — over the protests of doctors who say the public may not understand the information and it makes them look bad.

Arizona and Oregon both put resolved malpractice cases on their medical board Web sites. California provides a boatload of information. All three have Web sites with more details than Nevada’s has.

Nevada’s Web site tells you whether your doctor has a license, the status of the license, the specialty, the address and phone number and whether the board has disciplined the doctor.

Information on the doctor’s education is also something you have to call for in Nevada. How silly is that?

Education and resolved malpractice cases are something patients and their families deserve to see. And they can discern between a $5,000 nuisance case where the insurance pays because it’s easier and cheaper, and a $1 million judgment.

I can’t say this too often: I know outstanding doctors in Las Vegas who are caring and competent.

But the public deserves to be able to check out their doctors. Right now, the board is stymieing that.

Where in the Hippocratic oath does it say: I will make it harder for the public to know about malpractice by doctors.

It doesn’t.

Jane Ann Morrison’s column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275.