The Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986: reporting practitioner malpractice and discipline.

This article discusses requirements imposed under the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 for reporting actions involving malpractice claims and disciplinary proceedings against physicians and other individual health care practitioners. The article also summarizes the implications of companion provisions of the Act which specify mandatory and permissive requirements for obtaining such information in credentialing and quality assurance activities involving those practitioners.