North Carolina Medical Board has expanded its Web site to include the data for its 35,000 licensed physicians and physician assistants, The News amp; Observer of Raleigh reported Tuesday. Fewer than 1 percent, or 221, have reported malpractice payments since May 2008, the starting date for the reporting requirement. Since 2000, 2,618 have had at least one medical malpractice payment. About two dozen licensing boards in several states already publish malpractice information, medical board lawyer Thomas Mansfield said. All public disciplinary documents from the North Carolina board's files were already online. But the regulatory board's disclosure of more information about the background of health providers has been sought and resisted for years. Critics said the medical board had not done enough to protect people from bad doctors. The regulators pushed for a change in state law allowing it to share more information. The General Assembly in 2007 decided to require the board to publish malpractice payments, misdemeanor and felony convictions, hospital suspensions and discipline by medical boards in other states. The medical board then planned to publish all malpractice settlements and judgments going back seven years. But doctors, hospitals and their insurers and defense lawyers objected to posting older malpractice data, saying legal settlements often include legally binding secrecy clauses that would be violated. Many medical malpractice payments are made for reasons unrelated to poor medical care, said Mike Edwards, a spokesman for the North Carolina Medical Society, a trade group for 11,000 physician members. It can be cheaper for a doctor to settle a malpractice claim than fight it in court, physicians' advocates say, so only payments that stem from poor medical care should be published. "Consumers should know that," Edwards said. This summer, the General Assembly directed the medical board to start publicizing settlements of more than $75,000 reached since May 1, 2008. Judgments, which are decided by judges or juries after a trial, going back seven years will be posted. Payment amounts and information that identifies patients will not be published on the medical board's Web site. /span> />
