The National Practitioner Databank says its mission is "to improve health care quality, protect the public, and reduce health care fraud and abuse in the U.S." It contains information "on medical malpractice payments and certain adverse actions related to health care practitioners, providers, and suppliers" that could be crucial to patients selecting a healthcare provider. Yet this databank prohibits access to the very patients it claims to protect.

There is no other public resource this expansive available to patients. State medical boards only publish select actions that they are required to and often don't take action when complaints come in. The malpractice of doctors who practice in multiple states is not consistently reported across the states they practice in, making it difficult for patients to piece together disparate information across outdated websites that are missing their own info sometimes. Several of the entities that report to the NPDB don't have any responsibility to the public and would therefore never release their findings on doctors publicly for the benefit of patients.

We demand Congress finish what they started in 1986 and make this databank accessible to all to protect patients. If you'd like an idea of how state medical boards are letting down patients and why the federal piece is so important to changing things, please watch the following.