The United States National Practitioner Data Bank was established to create a system to protect the public through a central reporting system for providers who provide negligent care. It is operated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”). While settlements are commonly subject to confidentiality agreements, the settlements, by law, must still be disclosed to the national data bank. You may be aware that the data, however, is not available to the public. And, apparently, HHS has for decades been failing to report its own providers to the national databank.

You see, the HHS does far more than manage information and public health campaigns, it employs thousands of doctors and mid-level providers throughout the country. There are HHS funded clinics in every state and every significant metropolitan area in the US. There are [dozens](https://findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov/) in the Seattle area, for example. Some of these providers are, unfortunately, involved in negligent patient care that results in settlements. And, it turns out that from 1994 to 2016, 63% of the 3,352 medical malpractice payments made by HHS, (2,113 payments) were not reported to the databank.

This is a long running issue, and one that inspires concern on a number of levels. First, if HHS is underreporting these bad actors, who else is underreporting? On the other hand, though, how many of the settlements are from individual malpractice rather than the failure of a system, and thus without a provider to report? We will likely never know the answer to these questions due to the databank’s strict confidentiality, but it should concern patients and lawmakers alike. [One particularly egregious example](http://cmglaw.com/Blog/2018/10/Dr-Death-podcast-illustrates-many-t) springs to mind of what happened when a surgeon was not reported to the databank.

So, what does this mean for consumers? Well, it’s a further erosion of faith in the systems meant to protect us, and a particularly frustrating one that it is the HHS itself.

Read the article here: [HHS Has Failed to Report Nearly Two-Thirds of Its Medical Malpractice Payments to National Data Bank, New Analysis Shows](https://www.citizen.org/news/hhs-has-failed-to-report-nearly-two-thirds-of-its-medical-malpractice-payments-to-national-data-bank-new-analysis-shows/)

Read our prior coverage of confidentiality [here](http://cmglaw.com/Blog/2019/09/On-confidentiality) and [here](http://cmglaw.com/Search?q=confidentiality).