TAKE ACTION

Fax your Member of Congress a personalized letter directly to his/her DC office.
Let them know where YOU stand on this issue.

Write and Call Your Member of Congress

1. Patients need a full range of data in order to make informed decisions in choosing health care providers. This is especially important in the current reform climate that emphasizes the consumers' role in the "marketplace" under all types of national health insurance proposals. Consumers currently have more information when choosing cars than doctors.

2. Physicians and others acting as "agents" of patients need a full range of data to make conscientious referrals to other providers. Such information would protect hospitals and other corporate entities by enabling them to screen out negligent colleagues whose actions could expose the entity to liability. Thus, the NPDB should be viewed as a resource by the medical community rather than as a threat.

3. The importance of the ability to "shop around" is more than academic. Harvard studies estimate one percent of all hospitalized patients are injured or killed each year due to physician negligence. Yet only a fraction of substandard doctors are penalized by state medical boards. By combining state board actions with other data, the NPDB offers the best information available.

4. While some of the disciplinary information in the NPDB is available through other sources, it is very difficult for most people to obtain. The NPDB is the only resource that presents the whole spectrum of a provider's record, which is crucial to understanding the value of any individual action. In fact, the opportunity to view each action in context argues against claims that malpractice settlements will be inappropriately weighed by consumers or that the data will be otherwise misunderstood.

5. Public scrutiny increases accountability of the system, eg, revealing incidents that should have been but were not reported to the NPDB.