Public Citizen, an advocacy group, has submitted a petition to HHS seeking to publish a proposed rule requiring that all reports of medical malpractice payments be submitted to the federal government's National Practitioner Data Bank, according to a Bloomberg report.
Under the proposed rule, if a medical malpractice payment is made on behalf of a healthcare provider, the providers name would have to be submitted to the NPDB, even if they are never named as defendants in the medical malpractice lawsuit.
The group claims under the current rule, healthcare providers are protected by a "corporate shield" loophole. The loophole allows providers' names to go unreported when healthcare organizations make medical malpractice payments on their behalf.
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