North Carolina doctors fight malpractice Web site

Raleigh News & Observer, May 29, 2008

The North Carolina Medical Board wants to post doctors' malpractice information on its Web site, but the state's private physicians association says the information could be misleading. The medical board proposes to disclose malpractice payments going back seven years as part of a broader effort to strengthen its protection of patients. The board had been criticized in the past for failing to protect people from troubled doctors. The North Carolina Medical Society, a private association that represents about 11,000 of the state's doctors, says the medical board should disclose only payments going forward. The Society argues that it's not fair to disclose past settlements that doctors might not have agreed to if they had known they would become public.