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Nebraska

State report card

The report card for each state contains the scores it received when we evaluated it for how well it protects patients against sexually abusive doctors. The overall rating is the average of the score the state received in each category. In states with two medical boards, one for osteopathic physicians and the other for medical doctors, the overall rating is based on an average of each board’s scores.

Click on the boxes below to read how Nebraska did on each category — and how we calculated the score for the categories.

61

State rating (out of 100)

  • Board composition: 80
    Are consumer members included to balance physicians’ tendency to identify with their colleagues? More...
    A blueprint developed by The Federation of State Medical Boards recognized the importance of having independent public members on physician-dominated medical regulatory agencies. To assess the composition of disciplinary agencies, the AJC used three measures, with the most weight given to consumer representation. Top grades went to states where public members make up at least 40 percent of the board; where those members represent consumers and where neither they nor their family members have professional or financial ties to health care; and where women hold at least 40 percent of the board seats.

More from Nebraska

Highlighted case

Dr. Tahir Ali Javed

The oncologist was accused of a host of violations. Among them, a board order describes a case where he manipulated a patient into continuing a sexual relationship with him. The order says he intentionally gave the patient a false diagnosis that she had a fatal disease and told her not to seek treatment with anyone else because she’d lose insurance coverage.

Javed even impersonated another doctor to cancel lab tests that might have shown his diagnosis was false. In 2003, his license was revoked. News reports indicated he left the United States for Pakistan.

Read more in this series

Researching a doctor

  • Accurate records of sexual abuse accusations against doctors are not always easily accessible. In Nebraska, the best chance of finding problems is to search the records offered by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. Please note that license search results typically include all public disciplinary actions, not just those involving sexual misconduct, and can sometimes include vague language. Also, some states deal with some disciplinary issues privately; private board orders are not included.

Complaint process

Online information could discourage anyone from filing a complaint. An overview of the complaint process says state law requires careful review of complaints, considering whether they have been delayed too long to justify investigation, whether the complainant is willing to be a witness and come forward to testify, and whether the information provided in the complaint is sufficient to provide a reasonable basis to believe that the allegation, if substantiated by clear and convincing evidence, would result in discipline against the doctor. It goes on to say that a thorough investigation will take considerable time and effort. After that, it says, the attorney general will review the case to determine if there is clear and convincing evidence of a violation. It also advises that the identity of the person filing the complaint may be made public in any contested cases. However, anonymous complaints are investigated if there is sufficient evidence, state officials said.

Where to file a complaint

Quoted

“In lieu of suspension of the Defendant’s license, all medical care provided to patients by the Defendant or physician assistants supervised by the Defendant shall be free of charge during the initial six months of probation.”

— 2000 board order for a family practitioner who was found to have had sexual relations with two patients who he knew were having marital problems. He had diagnosed them as depressed. He was placed on probation, which was lifted in 2003.

Key fact

Nebraska allows some doctors to sign “assurance of compliance” documents, which are not disciplinary. These documents are for doctors accused of various misdeeds, including sexual misconduct. William Heisel, a contributing editor at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, called the use of such documents a “fig leaf.” Heisel noted the case of one Nebraska doctor who had signed such a document in 2006 for having “intimate relations” with a patient then ended up back in front of the board less than a year later for prescribing a drug he was not authorized to prescribe.

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