Complaint Review: Governor John Kasich

Governor Kasich:  You are allowing that State Medical Board Members misuse the 'confidential' physician complaint system for their own interest, and in the interests of 'friend' physicians.  It has been going on for 20 plus years actually.  Reason:  the allowing of 'confidential' physician complaints at the State Medical Board of Ohio - when almost every other state has done away with this policy.  Do you not speak with other Governors? 

Patients have nothing to benefit from any review of their situation that is 'confidential,' and just because things are not confidential does not mean that things go into public records.  The Medical Board Members in Ohio are not legally trained, not well medically trained & without residencies many times, and not with good judgment in their personal lives - yet they are the standard for other physicians without any external review. 

With confidential' physician complaints, the real facts can never come out.  Other witnesses that the patient doesn't know about cannot come forward at the 'confidential' State Medical Board of Ohio, or wont because of their license even to help the physician.  If there is no negligence found - taking this to a court of law, or trying for a settlement, will go nowhere even with the 'unconfidential' facts that might be in the patient's favor. 

Standards of care can't be 'fixed,' or reviewed, as everything is 'confidential.'  The Medical Board is really for the fixing of standards not damages; discipline should be for breaking standards of patient care, not personal hatreds.  'Confidential' limits the facts of a case to what the Medical Board wants to see as findings of fact.

Friend physicians of State Medical Board Members will always 'win' at the State Medical Board of Ohio.  Their complaints will be thrown out before they are investigated, and the worst physicians have the 'best' friends.  The Medical Board in Ohio does not investigate every case - and friend cases can be put at the bottom of the endless file or conveniently lost no one knows they exist.  Certain Members put certain cases ahead for money. 

Trying to get an outdated care standard, or new procedural guidelines, reviewed usually leads to the loss of licensure of the physician 'making too much of admittedly bad medical care.'  The boys can continue to behave as boys in Ohio, as Dr. Steinbergh thinks that women physicians just need to have more 'aequanimitas' for this, ie for sexual harassments and comments.  The term was not meant to excuse the Dragon Tattoo kind of abuse of women colleagues.  At the time that Osler coined the word, the first classes of women were just going through Hopkins - and these women were treated quite well as women entrepreneurs in the Baltimore community were funding the Medical School at Johns Hopkins - with the condition that the women got in and got through ie that they practiced. 

The medical mistakes in Ohio can continue to happen, as there is no improvement in the paradigms, or medical care that caused the problem.  Other physicians will continue to make the mistake with a bad standard of care or no OR checklist about the care = why the New England Journal of Medicine recently published at least one orthopedic surgical mistake case where damages were paid. 

At the Ohio State Medical Board, there's cheating that never comes to light in every aspect of

the case and investigation; physicians are told to lie up front (by Board Members & their respective legislators) to end their cases.  No damages are ever paid in Ohio to falsely accused physicians - unlike in other states.  Ohio is one of the few states without some form of MEDICAL MISTAKE laws.

The Medical Board can change the 'confidential' complaint many times unbeknownst to the complainer, or the physician, trying to defend themselves.  At least several ongoing cases have been changed multiple times which is a legislative joke.  Jim Trakas is probably using this maneuver at the State Board of Cosmetology - he covered up the practice at the State Medical Board as a legislator.  Ask Jim Trakas about what goes on.

Most states refuse to accept 'confidential' physician complaints anymore (RI), because of the cost of false investigations and the LIABILITY damages to the state.  No one has the money for these

colleague-colleague fist fights - and the women MDs get beaten up in offices.  When male physicians can't try something on anyone else, they do it on women colleagues - who can't complain or the boys will see that they never practice again.

Neither you, or Brad Reynolds, have figured things out, i.e. how cases go at the State Medical Board. Neither of you can even get an estimate of what one false physician investigation costs the state - but someone knows this at the State Medical Board of Ohio - it's just confidential - the cost even.

In Ohio there's very little change in Board Membership - Anita Steinbergh DO has been there for 20 years (4 terms), Lance Talmadge MD for about 3 terms, and Mr. Whitehouse for 5 years - despite who's in the Governor's Office.  And they will probably all be continued, or re-appointed, by the Health Committee in the Ohio Senate. 

Physicians with friends get their 'confidential' complaints against state law - so that they can counter-complain instead of solving the problems.  Then the counter-complaint is acted on, not the original problem.  And the confidential complaint law never gets changed, as the physicians who would need to change it, get the law broken for them for privileges, contracts and hospital appointments hard to track in any ethical sense.   

The State of Texas had to recently stop doing this as the President of the State Medical Board was having her husband complain 'confidentially' about certain colleague competitors - and the state taxpayers were paying for these fights.  The Executive Director let it go on.  Patients were then getting the 'worse' end of this medical competition battle for services - patients need to be able to get different options on care, e.g. seek different options for cancer treatments.

Second, Medical Board Members are using their powers to misuse psychiatric evaluations and testing - to order Medical School classmates - or complainers - to these exams to see what they will show. 

These are exams without the usual indications, ordered on physician colleagues without criteria for these exams = fishing expeditions = the physicians health insurance wont pay as the reason is confidential.

They are tests administered by Ohio-proclaimed 'Board experts.'  There isn't a Board expert that looks 'normal' in Ohio. 

Psychiatric testing & evaluations are then admittedly fudged, and cheated on, to take MD licenses on a provisional basis - and there's no return from 'provisional' to 'clearance' anytime soon.  Repeat testing is

expensive, emotionally damaging, and very hard to get anyone to do objectively even out-of-state.  Even when repeat testing shows the cheating, the Ohio Medical Board refuses to accept the findings of the 'outside' expert they publish the facts of the opinions that they paid for.  Only evaluations fudged in Ohio, done by experts approved by the Ohio State Medical Board (talking heads), are accepted = kangaroo court. 

Complaints signed by State Medical Board Members possibly banking on, or benefiting, from cases need to all be reviewed from 1990 onward - there have been a quite a few of these - some of which cases are still unresolved after a decade or more of the goaround cheating and appeals process.  The Ohio State Court of Appeals cant get confidential files to hear cases and recommend reforms.

The Medical Board Members, and Board caseworkers, just urge that the physician with no patient complaints admit the false confidential case to get 'back to the good care of patients.  When the cheating, and fixing of evaluations, is brought up, the Medical Board just wants another 'go' at the physician the Medical Board never admits that they cheat, but the legislators do.

In a court of law, if the court could get the files, the case would be dismissed - so the out-of-money physician is then told to 'sue the state.'  There's no way to dismiss a false case at the State Medical Board of Ohio - the cheating can go on for decades and Ohio legislators vote for the monies to do this.

This wastes physician careers and lots of money; each false case costs the State Medical Board of Ohio anywhere from $250,000 to $500,000 or more.  Most states have gotten rid of 'confidential' complaints because of the COST of false investigations - especially those investigations of physicians where colleagues with conflicts-of-interest have complained.

In the 'confidential' system, the 'confidential' person does not have to prove anything or testify for questioning or to see if what they are saying sounds 'right;' the unconfidential physician has their whole life & career laid bare because the case is not limited to the complaint - so dating histories are discussed at taxpayer expense.  Most real judges want the person testifying in court for them to 'see' and question.

Present state legislators (Grendell, Husted, Hollington), and former ones (Trakas, Dolan), know of this misuse of the 'confidential' complaint system in Ohio, and the falsified physician psychiatry (diagnoses that don't exist used to take the licenses of physicians with no patient complaints).  The problem is that the taxpayers are paying for these false cases, for the testing that is 'cheated' on, and for the loss of good physicians.  There's a stack of these physician cases at the State Medical Board of Ohio that were supposed to be opened in 1998 for reforms.  

The problem: is that you are ignoring the problem, and it's much worse corruption than was going on in Cuyahoga County - where the payoffs weren't killing anyone with bad medical care.