By Ronald L. Scott
Rscott@central.uh.edu

A previous article examined the increased availability of physician profiles on the Internet. See Checking Out Your Doctor’s Credentials on the Internet. Information currently available in the Texas database includes license status, number, and type (e.g. MD), address, date of birth, original license date, license expiration date, education, and specialty, and whether information is on file as to any disciplinary actions.

A recently passed Texas statute significantly increases the types of physician profile information and the level of detail that must be made available to the public. House Bill 110 amends the Texas Medical Practice Act (Article 4495b, Vernon’s Texas Civil Statutes) to require that the Texas Board of Medical Examiners ("Board") create a profile of each physician licensed in Texas. The statute specifically provides that the physician profiles must be made available on the Internet. Each profile must include the following:

• the name of each medical school attended and the dates of graduation;
• a description of all graduate medical education in the United States or Canada;
• any specialty certification held by the physician;
• the number of years the physician has actively practiced medicine in the United States or Canada, and in Texas;
• the name of each hospital in Texas in which the physician has privileges;
• the physician's primary practice location;
• the type of language translating services, including translating services for a person with impairment of hearing, that the physician provides at the physician's primary practice location;
• whether the physician participates in the Medicaid program;
• a description of any criminal conviction involving moral turpitude during the 10-year period preceding the date of the profile;
• a description of any charges reported to the Board during the 10-year period preceding the date of the profile to which the physician has pleaded no contest, for which the physician is the subject of deferred adjudication or pretrial diversion, or in which sufficient facts of guilt were found and the matter was continued by a court of competent jurisdiction;
• a description of any disciplinary action against the physician by the Board during the 10-year period preceding the date of the profile;
• a description of any disciplinary action against the physician by a medical licensing board of another state during the 10-year period preceding the date of the profile;
• a description of the final resolution taken by the Board on medical malpractice claims or complaints required to be reviewed by the Board under the Medical Practice Act;
• whether the physician's patient service areas are accessible to disabled persons, as defined by federal law; and
• a description of any formal complaint against the physician initiated and filed under the Medical Practice Act and the status of the complaint.

Although not required by Texas law, some states have mandated that additional information be disclosed in physician profiles. For example, Indiana requires disclosure of percentage of ownership in certain health care facilities. Florida, Maine, Rhode Island and Tennessee list publications by physicians, and Tennessee and Virginia require profiles to list those managed care organizations that are accepted by a physician.

07/20/99