An advocacy group is aiming to close a loophole that enables providers to evade reporting requirements in the National Practitioner Data Base.
Public Citizen has filed suit to close a "corporate shield loophole" that it says undermines the accountability of physicians and the safety of patients.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., asks a federal judge to order the Department of Health and Human Services and the Health Resources and Services Administration to act on a May 2014 citizen petition to close the loophole.
Currently, physicians and other providers are able to evade medical malpractice reporting requirements in the National Practitioner Data Bank, Public Citizen said Tuesday.
Michael Carome, MD, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, said NPDB rules are not consistent with the federal statute that established the NPDB, and create the "corporate shield loophole."
The loophole allows a physician to avoid being reported to the NPDB if a malpractice plaintiff agrees to dismiss the practitioner from a lawsuit or claim, leaving a hospital or other corporate entity as the sole defendant.
"It is well past time for HHS to issue a rule slamming the door on this loophole, as it should have done when it first acknowledged the problem more than 15 years ago when the agency issued a proposed rule to close the loophole," Carome said in a press release. "The agency later withdrew the proposal, leaving the loophole open."
The NPDB is used by state licensing boards, hospitals and health maintenance organizations to conduct background checks to learn if a physician or other healthcare providers have been sanctioned for misconduct by a hospital, have had their licenses to practice curtailed, or had malpractice payments made on their behalf.
"The NPDB was created to ensure patient safety by providing a comprehensive, reliable information center concerning the malpractice payment and disciplinary history of physicians and other health care practitioners," Carome said.
"The corporate shield loophole makes the NPDB's information less complete, less reliable and less useful."
Organizations must be authorized to access NPDB's reports. Individuals and organizations who are subjects of the reports may access their own information. Otherwise, the reports are not available to the public.