Physician Reporting Requirements in the US

Physicians come in contact with medically impaired older drivers and can assess a person's physical and mental health on a more detailed level than motor vehicle offices, family members, and law enforcement. However, physician reporting laws vary from state to state with three types: Mandatory, Permissive, and None. The purpose of this study was to characterize current reporting requirements across states and to quantify physician reporting for states with reporting laws in place. The 50 states and the District of Columbia’s departments of motor vehicles were queried by email and phone, requesting their reporting law status and data on numbers of physician reports and types of diseases. The majority of states (34) are permission reporting states, followed by none (10), and mandated (7). The trend over the last decade has been from none to permissive. Of the 15 states who submitted their data (all mandated or permissive), reporting numbers per year varied from 161 (New Hampshire) to 64,257 (California). Only four states submitted data by condition. The most frequent conditions were loss of consciousness, diabetes, vision problems, and dementia. There was little change in reporting across the three years. Despite the aging driving population, with associated driving-impairing medical conditions, there remains wide variation across states in quantity and quality of physician reporting. Further studies are needed to confirm the need to strengthen reporting requirements across the country, and should focus on the value of universal physician reporting requirements, such as mandated reporting, with standardized data collection.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ANB10 Standing Committee on Transportation Safety Management. Alternative Title: Physician Reporting Requirements in the United States
• Authors:
  • Hill, Linda
  • Rajasekar, Ganesh
  • Parsons, Sandra
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: 10p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Aged drivers; Dementia; Fitness to drive; Health; High risk drivers; Laws and legislation; Physicians; Reports
• Subject Areas: Highways; Law; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01660893
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-03549
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 22 2018 9:16AM