Though physicians’ groups have said they support tougher discipline of wayward doctors, the organizations are fighting proposed changes they say go too far.

“If they don’t make changes here, we will be at the Legislature,” said Sally Rogers, a Columbia attorney who presented the doctors’ concerns Sunday to the state medical board.

The S.C. Medical Association, the state Academy of Family Physicians and other groups who claim 6,600 members presented a 14-page list of objections.

The licensing board heard their complaints for about four hours Sunday and agreed to work toward legislation they could all support. The board’s final vote on a bill is slated for Tuesday.

In the wake of some high-profile disciplinary disputes with doctors, the board is seeking to overhaul licensing and disciplinary procedures and open some of the otherwise secret proceedings to public scrutiny.

In one case, a West Columbia alternative medicine physician, James Shortt, has been locked in a licensing fight with the board. In August the board ordered Shortt to stop all intravenous infusions after one of his patients died.

Shortt appealed to the Administrative Law Court and won. He remains listed as a physician in good standing while a criminal investigation of his practice proceeds.

Shortt also did not disclose a felony conviction when he was a teenager in his native Michigan.

The major provisions of the board’s plan include:

• Criminal background checks on all new physicians or those who are targets of board investigations. But no criminal conviction would automatically disqualify an applicant and the language does not say the checks are mandatory.

• The board, known as the S.C. Board of Medical Examiners, could publicly disclose a complaint, investigation or public reprimand of a doctor. In some cases that would include details of the allegations.

• Tougher fines of up to $25,000

• The identities of whistle-blowers would be protected.

• Only final actions of the board could be appealed to the Administrative Law Court.

• More non-physicians would serve on the medical board and would be added for the first time to its internal disciplinary panels.

The doctors’ groups said their objections to some of those provisions are “substantial” and “major.”

Primarily, they are concerned the new law would deny physicians their constitutional rights to present their sides or to have the board’s actions reviewed independently, largely by the Administrative Law Court.

The board and the court have tangled in recent years over who has final say over physicians and when disciplinary actions may be made public. A case against a Hilton Head Island doctor is pending before the state Supreme Court.

Doctors are especially worried about disclosure of temporary suspensions.

The board’s proposal, according to the doctors, would make any order suspending, denying or restricting a license available to the public even if later the complaint is found invalid.

“We think it is fundamentally unfair to make this information public before the physician has a fair opportunity to defend himself or herself,” they wrote to the board.

Board vice president Dr. Louis Costa of Charleston said the licensing agency is trying to strike a balance between protecting the public from bad doctors and protecting physician privacy rights.

“Therein lies the problem,” Costa said. “The public is perceiving the regulatory agency as not doing its job.”

Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664 or cleblanc@thestate.com.