Checking out Legal History on a Doctor

Although today’s insurance plans give patients a range of doctors to choose from, they don’t give patients information to help them decide between doctors.

Patients who want to dig around — especially when it comes to a doctor’s legal past involving patient malpractice lawsuits — can try the National Practitioner Data Bank, which state medical boards and hospitals use to do background checks.  This database includes information on disciplinary actions and malpractice payments.

Unfortunately, to get a comprehensive picture of lawsuits against a particular doctor, you would have to visit the local courthouse.  If your doc have moved around, you’ll only get part of the picture.

Perhaps the best research tool is one used by state medical boards.  Pay a modest fee and obtain a report from a site called DocInfo.org, which is run by the Federation of State Medical Boards.