Three disclosure gaps are described in My Story, but here’s one more.
Loophole in the law:
I inadvertently learned another unsettling secret about UMHS’s public commitment to transparency and patient safety. By Michigan law, all settlements over $200,000 against a licensed health professional must be reported to the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA). But, when I spoke with an investigator there, I learned that my settlement against Dr. William Chandler had not been reported. Although I noticed that his name was not mentioned in the proposed settlement agreement, I did not realize the implications: rather than naming Dr. Chandler, Rick Boothman listed the defendant as, “The Regents of the University of Michigan.”
According to the LARA investigator, UMHS has found a loophole in the law enabling them to avoid naming the physician. As a result, even doctors who transgress far beyond the limits for which Michigan law requires an investigation may never be investigated.
This is especially important because, while Boothman maintains that UMHS’s priority is patient safety, the hospital has found a way to shield its doctors from investigations into their fitness to practice. This prevents investigators from considering license revocation even in extreme cases of negligence and incompetence. Rather than increasing patient safety, UMHS is putting patients at greater risk.
Furthermore, when I contacted the AMA’s National Practitioners Data Bank (NPDB), they confirmed that federal law also requires any settlement paid by a hospital on behalf of a physician to be reported to them. In turn, NPDB makes this information available to hospitals, state licensure boards, some professional societies, and other health care entities. However, the way the federal regulations are written, once again, unless the individual physician is specifically named, it’s not reportable to them.
Also noteworthy is that in drafting the settlement agreement, Boothman stipulated that I could not report Chandler to the state licensing board. When I complained, he agreed to make the necessary changes. Instead, he changed the wording but retained the meaning. In the end, I refused to sign the final settlement agreement (which included the non-disclosure agreement).