Press Releases

The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico issued a qualified opinion on the operations of the Board of Medical Licensing and Discipline (Board) of the Department of Health. A qualified opinion is issued when the instances of noncompliance, individually or together, are significant but not pervasive.

The Report reveals deficiencies in the processes of investigating the complaints for unprofessional conduct or medical malpractice filed with the Board. For the audited period, 236 cases remained pending resolution, some since 2007; and 85 complaints pending investigative hearings and reports of the investigating officer. The law establishes that every case submitted to an adjudicative proceeding should be resolved within a term of six months.

The audit, with two findings, points out that neither the investigative hearings nor the formal hearings were filed under the custody of the secretary. The digital recording of the hearings was stored on a memory card that the legal secretary transferred to her laptop computer. At the end of the year, the secretary made a backup of these files on an external memory, usb or pendrive. This situation, contrary to the regulations in force, does not guarantee the protection or conservation of the recorded hearings in case of loss or theft of the computer.

Our auditors identified that, as of October 31, 2018, the Board had not appointed a records administrator as established by the Public Records Administration Program of the Executive Branch attached to the General Archive of Puerto Rico. This situation may cause the processes of planning, control, and organization of the use and conservation of public documents not to be effectively carried out. The report includes the results of the specific-scope compliance audit and covers the period from June 1, 2017, to October 31, 2018

See the Audit Report DA-19-24.

To see other published reports, visit our Audit Reports section.