Public Citizen's Health Research Group: Questionable Doctors: North Carolina

NORTH CAROLINA

1999 serious action rate: 3.16/1000 doctors
1999 ranking: 26th

In North Carolina, there were disciplinary actions reported against 374 doctors including 46 who were disciplined for substance abuse, 5 for misprescribing or overprescribing drugs, 17 for sexual abuse of or sexual misconduct with a patient, 1 for substandard care, incompetence or negligence and 11 who were convicted of a crime.

This web site provides aggregate national and state data on doctor discipline. Names of those doctors and their offenses are NOT included on the site. Web sites with such information need to be frequently updated and we cannot do this because of limited staff and resources available to continually monitor the information that we receive from the 51 MD and 14 DO licensing boards and the federal government. This website does provide direct links to the web sites of those boards that have information available on the internet.

Detailed information on specific doctors who have been disciplined is included in the book which can be purchased in regional editions for $20. The book includes disciplinary actions taken against doctors from 1990 through December 1999.

The North Carolina State Board of Medical Examiner's annual newsletter lists all formal disciplinary actions against physicians from the previous year. The Board sent newsletters containing disciplinary actions from January 1990 through November 1994. These include the physician's name, degree, city and state of residence, and date and type of action taken. The details of consent orders are not specified. The newsletters contain no listing of modifications and terminations of board actions nor court decisions regarding board actions. From November 1994 through December 1999, North Carolina sent more detailed quarterly listings which include the physician's name, degree, license number, and date and type of action taken. These listings did contain information on modifications and terminations of board orders but not on court decisons affecting board actions. North Carolina stated that court decisions would be included in the information we received. The Board also publishes a directory of the names, addresses, and specialties of all registered North Carolina physicians.

The North Carolina Board issues temporary and/or dated licenses for short periods of time. Due to this practice, some of the orders listed as 'unspecified,' may actually be an extension of a temporary license previously issued rather than a new order. In further communication with the board, we also learned that in some cases, the termination dates on consent orders may be later than they actually occurred as the board was delayed in formally issuing some terminations due to paperwork difficulties.

The information provided covers disciplinary actions taken against allopathic physicians (MDs) and osteopathic physicians (DOs).

Besides disciplinary actions taken by the State Medical Board, this listing also includes actions taken by the Medicare/Medicaid programs, the FDA, and the DEA against physicians located in this state. Disciplinary actions taken by other states against physicians located in North Carolina or that match to physician disciplined by North Carolina are also included.

North Carolina Board Internet Address: http://www.docboard.org/nc

This state has a web site which we have graded B on a scale of A (best) to X (worst) as part of our February 2000 Survey of Doctor Disciplinary Information on State Medical Board Web Sites. This grade is a measure of the completeness of the information on disciplined doctors. Those state licensing boards with web sites make independent choices about the type of information to be included on their site and how often it is updated.

According to the Federation of State Medical Boards, North Carolina took 62 serious disciplinary actions against MDs and DOs in 1999. Compared to the 19,615 MDs licensed in the state, North Carolina had a serious disciplinary action rate of 3.16 serious actions per 1,000 MDs and a ranking of 26th on that list (see Table A).

The tables below summarize the data Public Citizen received from North Carolina.

Table 1. Disciplinary Actions Against MDs and DOs 1990 through 1999*
Action	Number	Percent**
Revocation	43	8.2%
Surrender	150	28.7%
Suspension	33	6.3%
Probation	5	1.0%
Practice Restriction	58	11.1%
Action Taken Against Controlled Substance License	17	3.3%
Other Actions	217	41.5%
Total Actions	523	100.0%

* This table lists only the two most serious disciplinary actions taken against a physician.
** Percentages may not total 100% due to rounding.

Table 2. Offenses for which MDs and DOs were Disciplined 1990 through 1999*
Offense	Number	Percent
Criminal Conviction	12	5.8%
Sexual Abuse of or Sexual Misconduct with a Patient	17	8.3%
Substandard Care, Incompetence or Negligence	1	0.5%
Misprescribing or Overprescribing Drugs	5	2.4%
Substance Abuse	57	27.7%
Disciplinary Action Taken Against License by Another State or Agency	70	34.0%
Other Offenses	44	21.4%
Total Records With Offense Listed	206	100.0%

* Includes only those actions for which an offense was listed and for which we had a corresponding term in our database.

Table 3. Disciplinary Actions Taken for Sexual Abuse of or Sexual Misconduct with a Patient
Action	Number	Percent
Revocation	2	7.1%
Surrender	2	7.1%
Suspension	9	32.1%
Probation	1	3.6%
Other Actions	14	50.0%
Total Actions	28	100.0%

Table 4. Disciplinary Actions Taken for Criminal Conviction
Action	Number	Percent
Revocation	6	54.5%
Surrender	1	9.1%
Suspension	1	9.1%
Other Actions	3	27.3%
Total Actions	11	100.0%

Table 5. Disciplinary Actions Taken for Substance Abuse
Action	Number	Percent
Surrender	15	18.5%
Suspension	3	3.7%
Emergency Suspension	3	3.7%
Restriction of Controlled Substance License	5	6.2%
Other Actions	72	71.6%
Total Actions	98	100.0%

If you feel that your doctor has not given you proper medical care or has mistreated you in any way--whether or not he or she is listed in this report--it is important that you let your state medical board know. Even if they do not immediately act on your complaint, it is important that the information be recorded in their files because it is possible that other people may have filed or will file complaints about the same doctor. Send a brief written description of what occurred to the addresses below or call the phone numbers listed for more information on how to file a complaint.

Address
North Carolina Medical Board
Bryant Paris Jr., Executive Director
PO Box 20007
Raleigh, NC 27619-0007
(919) 828-1212
(919) 326-1100/1109
(800) 253-9653
Fax: (919) 326-1130/ 1131

Internet Address: http://www.docboard.org/nc