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I’ve been reporting on the Statehouse for over 16 years, and I can’t recall such a long string of negative audits as we’ve seen in the past three years. I really don’t enjoy writing all these stories about the governor. I have a lot of friends who work for him and/or support him and, personally, I like the guy. I truly wish he’d get his act together and focus more on clean and effective governance than generating an endless stream of PR pops.
A new audit has found serious problems in the way Illinois handles doctors accused of possible misconduct, from investigations being closed improperly to sloppy paperwork to a lack of public information.Auditor General William Holland reported Tuesday the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation is supposed to investigate accusations of misconduct. But some accusations were shelved by the staff who took the complaints, while others were sent to investigators but were closed without approval from the department’s disciplinary board.
Auditors say 15 percent of cases were closed without evidence the disciplinary board had signed off.
Investigators did not always have access to past reports on accusations against doctors when looking into new allegations, auditors found, and half of investigations lasted longer than the five-month goal the department has set.
The full audit can be found here. The AP has a summary here.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 8:22 am
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Isn’t the DFPR kind of a pork farm for Dems right now.
Presumably, given the complexity of medical malpractice, the investigators and their managers should have some skills beyond being good Democrats and campaigning for Blago.
At least some say that this is not the case.
Comment by Cassandra Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 8:29 am
It’s not a good thing for sure, but the failure of DFPR and its predecessors to discipline docs isn’t exactly recent history and for sure isn’t limited to this administration.
Comment by Still Anon Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 8:35 am
I am shocked and appalled that the $14 million in annual savings due to the DFPR agency consolidation is not being used to properly staff the agency so that they can actually perform their job. I’m glad there is no public safety issue in letting doctors go undisciplined. YIKES!
Comment by Dean Martin Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 8:37 am
The Division of Professional Regulation has only two Probation Compliance investigators for the entire State for over 100 professions regulated by the Division.
Think there might be a problem with those numbers? How many investigators did previous administrations have?
Comment by Shallow Pharnyx Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 9:01 am
After three years in office, this administration still doesn’t have a clue how to govern. They needed help after 20 odd years of being out of power, but they didn’t either get it or heed it. How many times can voters allow them to fail?
Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 9:14 am
This is a widespread situation under this administration. How do you think they achieved the dramatic cutback in employees “without a reduction in services”? The cutbacks are disproportionately on the “back end”. You make the grants - you’re in. You check on the grants for compliance - you’re out. You make the loans - you’re in. You check on the loans for compliance - you’re out. Checking for compliance is a “soft function” - until something goes wrong, who ever sees/knows it’s not being done. It’s the personnel equivalent to pushing today’s costs into the future - the borrow and spend financial policy of the administration.
Comment by Anon Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 9:17 am
If you could see how big of a mess IDFPR is after the Governor so-called consolidation. You can see how things like this happen. He messed up a couple good agencies with his cronies. IDFPR is full of in competance.
Comment by Wireless Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 9:25 am
Has anyone checked to se if the Docs’ with the lost paperwork or dismissed cases donated to Blago????
Comment by Doc Bucks Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 10:20 am
If anyone, other than reporters and political junkies, really cared about audit findings, there is no way Blagojevich could be ahead in the polls.
Audit after audit point out major problems and maybe illegal acts. Where is the outrage? These reports simply validate what the public expects, government incompetence and corruption. Big deal.
Now let the Cards or Cubs lose several in a row. Talk about outrage. We’ll march on the ballpark and demand the manager be run out of town on a rail.
Comment by anon62701 Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 10:43 am
The average voter in Illinois is either too stupid or too disinterested to care about an audit, and Blago knows that well.
His success is based upon meeting a different voter concern: “Don’t I get a handout, how much, and where is it?”
Comment by Bubs Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 11:15 am
Doc Bucks - if you get those numbers, can you compare them to ISMS contributions to R’s in the past?
Comment by Still Anon Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 12:12 pm
How much money has been transferred from the dedicated Medical Disciplinary Fund to GRF in recent years that could have been used to hire adequate personnel to avoid these audit findings? I’ll bet it’s in the tens of millions. Anybody know?
Comment by Anon Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 12:24 pm
Let’s see, license fees increase, number of investigators decreases, number of diciplinary actions decrease - What’s happening to the money?
Comment by I Got My License Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 12:31 pm
Anon 12:24,
You can check the bills that passed at the end of each session. There is usually a list of funds to be swept as of June 30. The amounts in the bill may not correspond to the amounts swept because the bill is prepared before fiscal year end.
Comment by Shallow Pharnyx Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 12:52 pm
Rich — you might have put this in your Shorts. It is an OpEd from the Chicago Tribune by a non-partisan group and evaluates the Illinois budget.
It should provide fodder for a enlightened as opposed to a heated discussion of Illinois finance.
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_opinion_letters/2006/08/stopping_the_bu.html
It emanated from the Institute for Truth in Accounting.
It is scary — not only what was reported but the failure to report.
For instance…
“…At a bare minimum, the prior year’s financial report should be available during the budget process. The legislature approved a budget on May 5, 2006, yet the June 30, 2005 financial report was not available to the public until June 30, 2006. The Treasury Department issues the federal government’s financial report two and half months after its fiscal year end. Why did it take the Illinois comptroller a full 12 months to issue the state’s financial report?…”
Comment by Truthful James Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 12:56 pm
Still Anon - There is nothing illegal about a group making political contributions. There is something illegal about the Gov’s folks looking the other way when Blago gets a big check from the guys they’re supposed to be investigating. Check with Fitzgerald.
Comment by Doc Bucks Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 1:36 pm
Average Joe Blow could care less about this stuff. All that counts is what’s in it for me/family/friends and how little do I have to pay. Does my local doc keep me healthy? Regular paycheck? Life is good. When something hits home (my doc’s mistake hurt my kid) suddenly these Departments and these audits become important for my lawsuit. Until then….who is that!?
Comment by zatoichi Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 3:08 pm
I was a victim of the “dramatic cutback in employees” and still have many friends that work there…and not one of them that I’ve talked to is happy about it. Start with the “streamlining” (I’ve forgotten the exact number of layoffs, but it was somewhere around 10%, and it stung…and that doesn’t count the personnel that was lost for other reasons.) Then there were obvious things which should have been dealt with before the merger took place (for example, return address envelopes, and incoming date stamps with the new agency’s name on it), and more. Morale is in the toilet and sinking fast, the feeling is that management (a.k.a. Gov. Goodhair’s people) can’t make a decision (it’s been 2 years and I don’t think they’ve figured out how to assign parking spaces yet), there’s too much work and too few people (and getting fewer all the time…except for loyal Democrats of course.) And all the while, there is an apparent lack of understanding or complete disinterest at the top in the actual goals of the previously individual agencies. “But a license is a license, isn’t it?” Add it all together and you get yet another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Ollie…um I mean Roddie. In short, the audit findings don’t surprise me at all. There are a lot of really good people at IDFPR who *want* to do a good job, but due to bureaucratic bungling and general incompetence, they either can’t, or have just given up beating their heads against a wall.
Comment by FormerDFPREmployee Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 3:43 pm
Doc Bucks - I hear you, and I don’t disagree. I just think the whole medical profession has gotten too much of a pass for too long, and the fact that they have a well-heeled lobby is part of it.
Comment by Still Anon Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 4:09 pm
I can relate to what Former..Employee is saying, and it’s the same in many areas of State government. The current recipe for disaster is to add many new layers of administration (the politically correct but inexperienced /incompetent), reduce / eliminate front line staffing (and declare a victory for improving efficiency), and put reserves in agency budgets (so you have money to play with for pet projects). This is all going to come back to haunt us.
Comment by Just Wonderin' Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 4:25 pm
For all the architects in the state (those responsible for safety in the buildings we inhabit), there is only one investigator - assigned north of I-80 of course. There are no investigations of those claiming to be architects, just the standard attitude of this administration that education, qualifications and experience don’t matter - only the D behind your name. This is the same for all professions - no investigation, only collecting the fees.
Comment by Peaches Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 5:08 pm
ISMS is the top lobbying organization in this state and has been for several years. ’nuff said.
Comment by Little Egypt Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 6:11 pm
From 6/03 to 6/05 staff at DPR went from 275 to 174 from the figures in a prior audit, and it’s gone down since then. There are currently four attorneys, a chief and one-part time law clerk prosecuting all cases against docs, physicians assistants and medical corporations. There is no attorney prosecuting the design professions (architects, engineers) even though the statute requires DPR to have at least one attorney who primarily handles those professions. There is currently one investigator to handle all security guards, private detectives, alarm contractors abd collection agencies for the entire state. There are fewer medical investigators than the statute requires. Further, the last audit found that more money was transferred out the the medical fund to General Revune than law allows. I could go on but you get the pictures. Those people there are working their butts off, but are only human.
Comment by fed up dem Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 8:13 pm
Illinois state government isn’t being run like Goldman Sachs or Microsoft. Wow, stop the presses. I’m sure Topinka, the journalist by training, will fix that in no time.
Comment by Anon Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 8:19 pm
Anon 8:19,
Maybe she will hire back competent people and not come up with any initiatives that cannot be funded. Just a thought!
Comment by Shallow Pharnyx Wednesday, Aug 9, 06 @ 8:54 pm
First, MDs have never been properly regulated, regardless of the Governor. Never. ISMS sees to that … . In the 1980s under Thompson, the department was harassing nurse practioners in medically underserved areaa who were participating in a federally funded program - the Illinois Times ran a series of stories on it. Not excusing what was in the audit, but it is a fact of life - if they are “properly” staffed, they still don’t regulate MDs.
Truthful James - the state will NEVER budget in GAAP, because the state would need $3 BILLION in cash and no new spending. There is no way the GA, regardless of party, will raise revenues / cut spending by $3 Billion on an ongoing basis just for cash flow and accounting niceties … .
Comment by Smitty Irving Thursday, Aug 10, 06 @ 10:38 pm
Anon & Smitty Irving –
It is good that you can slough off a $3 Billion deficit. No small business can. The heck with Goldman. They can make up $3B in curency tradingin a year.
It is there, it has been built up not in one year but over a period of years. It has been concealed from the taxpayers thanks to the culture of irresponsibility in Springfield and in people like you.
When the basis for budgeting is built on muck the cover ups start and grow. Money is swept and spent. Payments of claims are delayed.
It is time to come clean for the piper is not far from the door.
Comment by Truthful James Friday, Aug 11, 06 @ 8:20 am