Confidential Medical Board information, including a complaint against an Arizona physician, was sent anonymously to Arizona Capitol Times, resulting in a request the state look into whether criminal charges should be filed against the mailer.
The information, received in mid-September, also included allegations regarding personnel and management at the board, was mailed on a compact disk, printouts of which were made available to Medical Board Executive Director Tim Miller.
“These are false and mean-spirited innuendos,” he said. “There’s no truth to the actual allegations.”
Mr. Miller said he believes the mailing was done by a former “disgruntled” employee and, based on the information that was provided, someone who left the agency within the past several months.
“I’d hate to think a current employee would be doing this to us,” he said. “The person wasn’t that familiar with all of our processes and some of the facts because they’re stated incorrectly,” he said.
Mr. Miller said current employees have not been questioned about the incident. The agency has 48 employees and licenses and regulates the state’s medical doctors and physician assistants.
An internal investigation could not determine from which computer the information came or when, he said, adding that there is a warning that appears on the screen that it is a violation of state confidentiality laws if the information is misused.
“What was sent to you was taken illegally from us,” Mr. Miller said.
“There are confidentially laws regarding our investigations [of physicians], and those documents you were provided were copied directly from our investigation database.”
“This is just throwing mud at the wall and seeing if something sticks,”
board spokesman Roger Downey said.
Andrea Esquer, spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office, said she could not comment on whether an investigation will be conducted.
Mr. Miller was hired two years ago when the Medical Board was in the midst of troubled times with high employee turnover, poor morale, criticism from physicians and a backlog of 1,200 complaints against doctors.
“It was a large challenge when I stepped in,” he said.
Mr. Miller says the backlog has been reduced to a manageable 400 complaints, which are taking an average 167 days to resolve, compared with 200 days previously.
“It looks like we’ve hit the plateau,” he said.
Complaints against physicians come to the board at a rate of four to five a day, and 80 percent are dismissed.
Mr. Miller said the number of complaints and the rate of impaired physicians have remained about the same.
Physician licensing has gone from 40 days to 14 days, he said.
Another problem the board faced two years ago was a degree of distrust from legislators, but Mr. Miller said communications with the Legislature have greatly improved, citing passage of an omnibus medical bill that helped the board better deal with patient complaints and impaired physicians.
Arizona Capitol Times has chosen not to investigate the complaints.