March 15, 2007 - Sacramento, Calif. - The Council for Refractive
Surgery Quality Assurance (USAEyes),
a nonprofit patient advocacy that certifies Lasik doctors, has been
selected to participate in the a new US Health and Human Services
(HHS) Proactive Disclosure Service (PDS) program to more quickly
retrieve malpractice claim and physician sanction information.
“The new system will automatically notify us of new malpractice
or sanction activity regarding a doctor we have certified, rather
than requiring a periodic query,” says Glenn Hagele, Executive Director
and founder of USAEyes. “Instead of waiting six months or
a year for the next scheduled report, we will know of new activity
almost immediately.”
The National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) is a congressionally
mandated alert system intended to facilitate a comprehensive review
of health care practitioners' professional credentials. The information
contained in the NPDB is intended to direct discrete inquiry into,
and scrutiny of, specific areas of a practitioner's licensure, professional
society memberships, medical malpractice payment history, and record
of clinical privileges. Access to NPDB information is limited primarily
to hospitals, licensing agencies, and recognized certification organizations.
The Council for Refractive Surgery Quality Assurance is a nonprofit
nongovernmental patient advocacy organization that evaluates and
certifies doctors who perform Lasik and similar surgery to reduce
the need for corrective lenses.
