In the mid-1980s, it became clear to Congress that some of the worst doctors in the country were able to commit shocking malpractice in one state after another, with relative impunity. State health departments and medical boards weren’t sharing their records, and negligent or incompetent doctors went undetected for years.
To combat this, in 1986 Congress authorized the National Practitioner Databank. It compiled state disciplinary records against doctors and collected medical malpractice verdicts and settlements. A decade later, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) created the Healthcare Databank to collect records of judgments and punishments for medical fraud and abuse.
