Maryland Board of Physicians: operated and managed by lawyers

Maryland Board of Physicians: operated and managed by lawyers

Recent information has become available which may turn the meaning of the words “Board of Physicians” on its head. Sources suggest that legal entities working and or attached to the Maryland Board of Physicians may be creating charges against physicians without the knowledge and or consent of Board members. Additionally, lawyers attached to the Board may be entering judicial settings without coordinating their presentations with Board members. In more dynamic terms lawyers not physicians are managing day to day Medical Board activities including but not limited to their oversight functions. In the event there is any credence to the latter statements physicians should be put on notice that this rogue administrative authority may be charging them illicitly. The Board of Physicians name is a misnomer because 40% of this entity’s membership is non-physician political appointees. Therefore approximately 13 members have a Medical Degree that would even put them in the literal ballpark to review charges to be laid at the doorstep of a target physician. Worse, with the diverse number of specialties embodied in these 13 members there may not be anyone who is in the field of the charged physician. Maryland has allowed its Board of Physicians to act outside mandates and laws established to protect the public yet simultaneously provide due process for physicians. Physicians have a right to know who their accusers are. Board of Physician members must sign off on civil charges levied at them. In the event they are non-physician members those signatures should be challenged. Maryland Board of Physicians’ Attorneys are of two types: one set works directly for this authority, the other is assigned by the Attorney General’s Office. Any physician who is presently under the intensity of a review by the Board should immediately request who signed off on their charges. You may be very surprised at the “answers.” Evasive techniques are part of the panoply of tools used by the Board to leave those charged in the dark concerning who created the civil charging instrument. Full disclosure is not one of the Maryland Board of Physicians strong points. Procedures, practices and policies should be revamped making this administrative entity proactive not reactive. Perhaps someone in authority may understand that legal assaults on physicians do not improve the practice of medicine, education and cooperation does. The Board should be reconstituted giving authority back to physicians, especially those who do not have a political bent. Finally, stop your autocratic methodologies against doctors. It makes good press but harms the very people the government is trying to protect. Mark Davis MD, President of Healthnets Review Services. Platomd@gmail.com

Maryland Board of Physicians: entrapment 101

Maryland Board of Physicians: entrapment 101

Physicians in Maryland are left dimensionless when they seek to understand the boundaries medical licensure imposes on them. Over the last fifteen years the Maryland Board of Physicians has failed to promulgate guidelines and regulatory structure that licensees can view to know the limits of their practice endeavors.  Medical Practice is a complex activity guided by an extraordinary knowledge base, a keen intellect and a profound ability to make appropriate decisions. The latter may explain why there are so many more lawyers. For nearly a decade the Maryland Board of Physicians has engaged private medical organizations to perform medical chart review. The hired guns from these concerns use their own rules to review medical records, not those the medical board was mandated to create. Many of these medical experts have specious credentials, some do not have “any” training in the specific field they are reviewing. As a result a physician can lose his medical license never knowing the playbook or the actors forcibly taking his license from him. Forget due process that is a word that law students learn, but a forgotten concept by Maryland’s physician board. As a result before a physician has been able to review charges against him/her, hire an attorney (you would probably do better defending yourself) and managed a response the Medical Board has leaked their attack strategy on you to the media. Your reputation is quickly diminished to zero, the little money you have saved is now in the pocket of your personal Perry Mason and your colleagues want nothing to do with you. The circumstances surrounding the loss of Dr. Mark Medei’s medical license exemplifies the actions of a rogue medical board that made this physician a cause celebre before he could utter one word of defense. Details released to the public concerning his practice pattern, patient population and surgical proclivities are sketchy. We have been left in the void how his own colleagues approached the review of each of his cases at the Hospital level. Innocent until proven guilty is still a precept even under the Obama administration and it should apply equally in Maryland. Yet the Medical Board manipulated their media releases to make themselves look like the good guys when they are far from it. In other articles I have discussed how medical license administrative reviews, at the Office of Administrative Hearings, are skewed in favor of the medical board. Maryland’s Attorney General’s representatives not only have rapports with these politically appointed judges, they have outright lied and manipulated evidence/testimony to obtain outcomes positive to the Board. Dr. Medei was victimized by a system that is ripe for abuse by those who are looking to move up the food chain. He is entitled to a full hearing outside the politics of a medical board that has had a torrent of its own problems, as recently noted in scathing report by the Maryland legislature. Before the Maryland Board of Physicians points any more fingers at physicians; its entire staff should be overturned, it should seek appropriate counsel from outside the Attorney General’s Office, find specialists whose knowledge base is compatible with the medical records they are reviewing and similar to the State Bar keep proceeding confidential until they are absolutely certain the physician in question is guilty of the charges laid at his/her door. In the event Dr. Medei’s former patients can prove they were harmed, they may be entitled to some compensation. On the other side, if the suits against Dr. Medei are frivolous he should sue the plaintiff and counsel for double the amount he is being sued. My question is: how many lives have Dr. Medei saved, Hundreds or may be thousands? Perhaps the Baltimore Sun should expend a little more energy looking for positive actions by physicians instead of seeking anything that would debase the medical profession. Mark Davis MD, President of Healthnets Review Services, advisor to the media and others on health related issues. platomd@gmail.com, http//:www.markdavismd.com

Baltimore Sun: Reporting with a spin

Baltimore Sun: reporting with a spin

Maryland’s major newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, has a long and noble reputation since its inception 175 years ago. History was painted across its pages as time moved into the future. The Sun’s present incarnation is a shadow of its former self. Looking for in depth reporting and well researched articles one must look elsewhere. Journalism cannot be defined by the abbreviated news pieces that are spun to give the reader vertigo. Technological advances do not excuse the Sun for their inaccurate, distorted and biased reporting. Readers of the Sun are treated to filtered news replete with omissions, deletions and or outright distortions that presently defines this once great lady. Crime has especially been cleansed from its pages or diminished to present a picture of Baltimore City and its environs as a place at peace with itself. Government entities are placed on pedestals irregardless of the harm they inflict on the population. A murder in Harford County where a blind man was stabbed to death by an intruder who entered the victim’s apartment was cleansed from its pages quickly. Why, because of the racial overtones of the murder. A recent scandal at the Board of Physicians brought to the surface by a negative Maryland Legislative audit was suppressed. The Baltimore Examiner was the major source for this report and the subsequent firings and sudden retirements in this administrative entity. Sun’s use of photos has the majority of the people presented as gleeful and all smiles when the news is anything but pleasant. When third graders were finally able to read at second grade level the Sun proclaimed the excellent education Maryland is providing its youth. Crime, entitlements, bloated government bureaucracies, deficient education, a state government lauded for its bad decisions, a judicial system that legislates from the bench, reverse discrimination, egregious  misuse of tax dollars and much more fail to have any analysis from Sun or acknowledgement these problems exist. Newspapers are failing in many jurisdictions around the country. People do not trust intentional distortions of the news that emanate from these media sources. Baltimore Sun is propped up by a larger corporate entity that has not allowed the bottom to fall out yet. The Sun would be wise to veer away from its obvious agenda and to accurately report Maryland news, because that is not occurring presently. For a great alternative read the Baltimore Examiner, learn what you are not getting from its sibling. Mark Davis MD, President of Healthnets Review Services, advisor to the media and others on health related issues. platomd@gmail.com

Maryland Board of Medicine: abusive peer review 101

Maryland Board of Physicians: abusive peer review 101

Maryland Board of Physicians former executive director publically stated that this administrative entity was not sanctioning enough physicians. Indeed a political statement with a more profound meaning, the Board of Physicians was commanded to generate more cases to make their sanction numbers look better on the national scene. To carry out this directive, fake standards of care were generated to bring more physicians under the legal hammer of the Board. Many borderline physicians found they could make a good living rubberstamping whatever Board of Physician attorneys put to paper in the form of charges against their colleagues. These rogue medical reviewers were given immunity from prosecution to sweeten the pot. With the stage set and the actors in play physicians found themselves being lambasted by a medical board that did not have the best interests of Marylanders in mind. Circumventing established laws, mandates and legal covenants Medical Board lawyers employed by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office levied unsubstantiated charges at the physician populace. Cooperating at the highest levels with Medical Board personnel, Maryland Courts vigorously supported any muck they threw at physicians. This author has extensive examples where facts of a case do not justify the negative opinions Maryland Courts have dispensed in medical licensing cases.   In the event an administrative judge found for a physician, the Medical Board is allowed under the law to reverse that decision, without hearing the case. Physicians have been kept in the dark about Medical Board procedures, because rules of medical chart review are either created on a whim or may not have been promulgate at all. The recent Maryland Legislative Audit of the Board of Physicians emphasizes that this administrative entity has been derelict in its duties to act ethically and responsibly when carrying out its functions, the Board has done neither. One point that glaringly arises on the many reviews that this former doctor has come across, physicians in the ivory towers have been minimally stung by the political entity that licenses them. Several blatant examples of physicians who were sued numerous times and lost, were deliberately overlooked for review until the media became aware of this dichotomy.  Politically connected medical doctors, especially those associated with the two main university hospitals, would have to outright murder a patient before the Board of Physicians opens its eyes and blinks. Physicians most apt to be victimized by this rogue agency and the cretins who represent them are those in private practices who are not political dynamos. Maryland should have an independent agency that has the power to perform a deeper review of the Board of Physicians. They may find that medical board has committed acts that would be criminal under other circumstances. Mark Davis MD, author of Demons of Democracy. President of Healthnets Review Services, Advisor to the media, government, industry and the legal profession on health care issues.