Provide names of other journalists involved.
Kristina Doytchinova, Chris Cuomo
List date(s) this work was published or aired.
14-Jul-12
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
This was an in-depth, 11-month long ABC News investigation into the very popular “top doctor” awards. We learned that doctors can simply buy their way on to “top doctor” lists (at a cost of up to $10,000 for some) and that for some companies there is absolutely no screening process (we had a dentist get a top dentist plaque who NEVER practiced a day of dentistry in his life)…and even for the so-called big players in the “top doctor” award industry, many of the awards are nothing more than a popularity contest and hospitals pay big bucks to make sure their doctors’ profiles are “public.” Hospital systems earn bragging rights for how many of their doctors make the “top doctor” lists– we discovered proof of a hospital system bribing their doctors (with $300 AmEx gift cards) to nominate as many of their “top doctor colleagues” as they can to stuff the ballot boxes for the company that uses a peer-nomination process as the basis for their selection. We also cross-referenced state disciplinary records from 7 different states with one particular top-doctor database and found that 1/3 of doctors with serious state disciplinary records were also “top doctors.” And infamous doctors are top doctors according to one company…Dr. Earl Bradley, the serial rapist pediatrician from Delaware serving 14 consecutive life sentences for raping/molesting more than 100 children– yep, he’s a “top pediatrician.”
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
1. Mailings from “top doctor” companies seeking “top doctor” nominations 2. State Medical Board Disciplinary Records (online access; 7 states). These searches solidified just how far away from the “top” some of these “top doctors” were– rape, sexual assault, professional misconduct. Also eye-opening given how light some of the sanctions were for some of the physicians (separate story!) 3. Thorough searches of online “top doctor” databases
Explain types of human sources used.
1. Fake Top Dentist: We found a man in the Chicago area who graduated from dental school, but never went on to practice dentistry and eventually went on to medical school. He was sought out by one of the “top doctor” companies (Consumers’ Research Council of America) to buy a top dentist award. As part of the ABC News investigation we had him send away for the plaque and without absolutely any verification of his credentials, he was awarded a shiny “top dentist” plaque. 2) On-site investigation: At the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) annual meeting in San Diego, I met the owners of the website “TopDocs.com”- they had a booth in the exhibit hall selling membership to any dermatologist who was willing to pay to be on the “topdocs.com” site ($1600 annual fee $1500-$10,000 membership fee depending on how many websites the doc wanted to buy). I later interviewed the CEO of the company for the article who in the end said, “We are not inferring in any way that the doctors in the site are top doctors,” in response to my question about the misleading nature of the name of their website “topdocs.com” 3) We sent a producer to the headquarters of one of the top doctor companies (Consumers Research Council of America)-the DC headquarters listed as 4 blocks from the White House turned out to be a UPS mail drop.
Results:
We had a variety of responses from the companies we confronted: When we asked the Consumers’ Research Council of America how they could award doctors with criminal records and severe sanctions by their state medical board top doctor awards, we were shocked by their response. In an anonymous email statement to ABC they said, “We do not police the medical industry and do not know who is late on their taxes, has past due child support or has criminal records.” Castle Connolly, the biggest and arguably the most legitimate of the “top doctor” companies were shocked by some of our findings. In fact, when we brought to their attention the names of doctors with state disciplinary records, they acknowledged the oversight and within 24 hours removed the doctor’s name from their “top doctor” databases and listings.
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
No corrections/clarifications were necessary. After the report, we only heard back from one of the companies mentioned in the report- Castle Connolly. They defended their practices and alerted me to several other “top doctor” companies that I should investigate which they said were very “misleading.”
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
This story started out as a consumer investigation story– follow the money to the victims (past and potential) would be the biggest piece of advice I’d give to other journalists planning a similar story. Shady business practices turned out to be just the surface — some of these “top doctors” were luring vulnerable patients in…with bad, very bad, patient outcomes. We ended up pursuing the ‘victim’ angle and quickly found several patients who became victims of top doctors– many of these victims we discovered in state medical databases. We interviewed a family whose matriarch died in the hands of a top doctor.