This is Part 2 of a series on the state auditor’s blocked performance audit of the NC Medical Board (NCMB). The fact of a state professional licensing agency actually BLOCKING the elected state auditor from evaluating their investigations department and its internal protocols and assurances of compliance with state and federal laws has profound implications for all professionals who require some form of state licensure. Because without assurance that a state agency (or an organization that’s been given a state function) is performing in a fully fair, accountable, and non-self-serving manner, there is no guarantee that that agency has not in some way veered towards self-interest and potential weaponization of its powers. This is especially true of any state agency or designated function such as NCMB that operates with utterly no governmental oversight and complete immunity from suit.
In this piece, we explore NCMB’s pushback against State Auditor Beth Wood via a cluster of hollow objections, the purpose of which seems none other than to delay scrutiny (with the potential for spoliation of evidence) and likely also to stir up legislative and governor support for not supporting the Auditor’s investigation and preventing the audit from proceeding behind a pseudo-valiant campaign to protect physician and patient privacy.
We see the preliminary observations and findings she was able to make from the very limited data (less than 5% of the records, at that most unusable) she could access. And we explore the overall rationale of the auditor’s duty, and why this particular performance audit is so critically important with profound implications not only for NCMB and the physicians it regulates, but for every medical board, so-called physician health program (PHP), and every licensed physician in the country. Even more broadly, it potentially has as much significance as the FTC v. NC Dental Board decision in which the US Supreme Court determined that the NC Dental Board was guilty of an anti-trust violation and, even though an alleged state agency supposedly protected from suit, was in fact NOT so protected. It likewise has major implications for the mandatory role of active state oversight (as articulated by FTC Guidance to all occupational licensing boards in 2016) and whether - and what - federal laws apply to a state medical board. Whether it proceeds or is blocked, it has profound importance. If blocked, it is likely that federal intervention would ensue.
NCMB Blocked Audit - Part 2