2008 Investigation Stats for the TMB

The end of the fiscal year for the State of Texas was August 31st. The Texas Medical Board had a record year in the number of complaints, the number of investigations, the number of hearings against doctors and the number of physicians in the TMB’s compliance program.

The TMB exceed 6300 initial complaint letters to physicians this year. Of that, the TMB opened more than 3000 active investigations against Texas physicians. This represents more than 150 more investigations than in Fiscal Year 2007. What is interesting is that “non-jurisdictional” complaints are down to the levels seen in Fiscal Year 2006. Non-jurisdictional mean that TMN staff evaluated the complaint and felt it does have legal authority of the nature of the complaint. The majority of the cases opened to full investigations are allegations regarding a violation of the standard of care.

In the litigation area the TMB has 651 active cases. At the end of 2007, there were 452. The Board has conducted approximately 550 ISCs for fiscal year, which is a record. As a result of this increase, it is taking longer to resolve cases in the litigation area. Moreover, the ability to schedule hearings is getting bogged down. For example, the TMB is already setting Informal Settlement Conferences for February 2009. As these numbers continue, I do not see a resolution to problem in the near future.

For SOAH, there are currently 56 cases pending and staff was planning to file between fifteen and twenty more by August 31st. It is not clear to me at this time whether that occurred.

There are approximately 730 licenses of the TMB within the Board’s compliance (probation) system.

I'll provide my opinion on these stats in a few days.