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A letter from Cynthia Grubbs, director of the division of Practitioner Data Banks, to Kansas City Star reporter Alan Bavley threatens him with financial penalties if he printed a story based on confidential information from the National Practitioner Data Bank.
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The Public Use File of the National Practitioner Data Bank is removed from a public website.
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Despite the letter from HRSA, the newspaper runs Bavley's investigation of a local neurosurgeon and the lack of action against doctors with multiple malpractice payouts.
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The Association of Health Care Journalists, joined by the Society of Professional Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors, send a letter to the Obama administration protesting its decision to pull offline a public database of physician discipline and malpractice payments.
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Investigative Reporters and Editors, working with the Association of Health Care Journalists and the Society of Professional Journalists, posted the most recent public use file on its website, available to download for free.
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Six journalism groups, representing 15,000 members, send letters to key members of Congress requesting their help in restoring access to a public version of the National Practitioner Data Bank.
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In letters to the Association of Health Care Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists, HRSA Administrator Mary Wakefield said her agency regretted having to remove the Public Use File from its website and hopes to bring it back in some form "as quickly as is possible." She did not provide a date.
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Twenty-three academics and researchers sent a letter to HRSA Administrator Mary Wakefield and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, condemning the decision to remove the Public Use File of the National Practitioner Data Bank.
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The Association of Health Care Journalists and five other journalism groups appealed to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to intervene in the dispute over the Public Use File of the National Practitioner Data Bank and restore access to this important data tool.
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Robert Oshel, who created the Public Use File in the mid-1990s and managed it until his retirement in 2008, said in a <a href="http://www.healthjournalism.org/uploads/NPDB-Oshel.pdf" target='_blank'>statement released to the Association of Health Care Journalists</a> that HRSA is "erroneously interpreting the law" governing the data bank.
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Sen. Charles Grassley sends a letter to HRSA Administrator Mary Wakefield, saying that “Shutting down public access to the data bank undermines the critical mission of identifying inefficiencies within our health care system – particularly at the expense of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.” He also wrote, “A journalist’s shoe-leather reporting is no justification for such threats or for HRSA to shut down public access to information that Congress intended to be public.”
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Public radio's “On The Media” show featured AHCJ President Charles Ornstein discussing the public use file of the National Practitioner Data Bank.
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Participate in a call with HRSA officials on Oct. 13, 1-2 p.m. ET. Register in advance.
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Senator says HRSA made a hasty decision to remove the file from its website based on complaints from one doctor without doing independent research.
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HRSA republished the public version of the National Practitioner Data Bank, following pressure from journalism groups, researchers and members of Congress. However, users will have to agree to certain restrictions that were not in place before and could potentially impede reporting on physician oversight.
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In a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, seven groups said the new restrictions “are ill-advised, unenforceable and probably unconstitutional. Restricting how reporters use public data is an attempt at prior restraint.”
