Patient's Right to Know Act – Illinois Doctors' Detailed Histories To Go On Website
August 11, 2011
Patient’s Right To Know Act was long over due-There are no reasons why the consumer should not be made aware of the negative points contained in the records of the doctor to whom the consumer is entrusting his or her life. Information is consumer’s friend and more information makes for better decision making process by the consumer.
Patients will have access to detailed histories of Illinois doctors — including whether the physician has been fired, convicted of a crime or has made a medical malpractice payment in the last five years — under a new law that takes effect this week.
The Patients’ Right to Know Act, blocked by the doctors’ lobby for more than a decade, passed this year as a stand-alone bill after a Tribune series found that state regulators allowed dangerous doctors, even those convicted of sex crimes, to continue practicing. Patients were often unaware of the physicians’ criminal convictions, malpractice payments or terminations.
In signing the law Tuesday, Gov. Pat Quinn called it the “No. 1 consumer bill.”
via Illinois doctors’ detailed histories to go on website – chicagotribune.com.
