Among its many duties, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is supposed to protect public health.

How odd that it developed and defends a bizarre policy by which it grants news reporters and researchers partial information about incompetent physicians, so long as they promise to never identify the physicians.

In his reports this year, Kansas City Star reporter Alan Bavley has brought into focus the absurdity of the Obama administration's policy regarding the National Practitioner Data Bank, which has long provided the public with information about the malpractice and disciplinary histories of thousands of physicians.

Earlier this month, he wrote about "Practitioner No. 222117, perhaps the most frequently disciplined doctor in America." In order to obtain information about 222117, Bavley had to promise that he would not attempt to identify him or her.

Bavley isn't about to break his promise. But his story illustrates how the policy places journalists in an untenable position.

He wrote that 222117 has been accused of violating drug laws, prescribing unauthorized medications, and of providing substandard care and obtaining licenses through fraud.

Twenty states have revoked or suspended his or her license, and the Department of Health and Human Services has banned 222117 from billing Medicare and Medicaid.

But because of that same department's wrongheaded regulation, Bavley would be violating his agreement if he were to attempt to use other public documents and interviews to attempt to identify 222117 and report his or her name.

Bavley cited several other miscreant doctors, including one in California who lost or settled 247 malpractice cases during the 1990s for more than $6 million.

The National Practitioner Data Bank is a repository of reports about malpractice suits and disciplinary actions involving doctors, dentists and other health care providers. The database was created in the 1980s to help states track bad doctors who move from state to state.

Past attempts to lift the cloak from the database and identify the bad doctors have failed. Physician groups including the American Medical Association have objected. The AMA should rethink and reverse that stand.

Closer to home, the California Medical Association, which represents 35,000 doctors, should stand in favor of public information about bad doctors.

At a minimum, the Obama administration needs to scrap the Orwellian policy by which researchers, reporters and patients can obtain and disclose key information that is in the public interest, but only if they withhold other key information.

The policy protects no one other than health care providers – who don't deserve it.

The Bee's past stands

"The Obama administration came into office promising openness. Now, the administration has positioned itself on the side of protecting the privacy of doctors who maim patients. It also seeks to act as a Nixonian monitor, watching how reporters go about their business. President Obama once taught constitutional law. He ought to reread the First Amendment."

– Nov. 12, 2011

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