Top reason for physician license action: substance abuse.
The most common reason for license action against physicians is related to substance abuse. Although there was a strong upward trend in 2011, the good news is that these rates have steadily declined over the last 17 years.
A recent study published in JAMA found that more than three-quarters of the license actions were related to substance abuse, followed by psychological and physical impairment. This article in MDedge reported on the JAMA study and interviewed the lead author, Lisa Rotenstein, MD. Dr. Rotenstein stated, "While there has been increased attention [on] the mental health of physicians, we wanted to understand the extent to which changes and practices were reflected in actions taken by hospitals or licensing boards which were reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB)."