I recently wrote about the consequences of stipulating to a temporary restriction on your medical license. One such consequence is a report to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB). A data bank report, like professional discipline on your license, will complicate your professional life. All too often, however, the focus is on avoiding or mitigating professional discipline while the likelihood of a data bank report and its impact is forgotten. Whether you are a physician, pharmacist or nurse, the preferred resolution to a Board investigation is both non-disciplinary and not report-able to the NPDB.
The National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) guidebooks
Whether an incident must be reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank is well beyond the scope of this writing. The point of this writing is simply to raise awareness and to provide two NPDB resources, the 200-plus page “guidebook” for the National Practitioner Data Bank and a short summary of NPDB reporting “triggers.“