The number of malpractice payments made is not a good way to indicate competence or incompetence.

All malpractice payments, including settlements, must be reported to the data bank.

About 82 percent of the reports concerned malpractice payments.

Excluding single malpractice payments from disclosure keeps almost three-quarters of all practitioners in the data bank secret from the public.

Insurers are required to report malpractice payments to the databank.

In at least 19 states, consumers can obtain information about malpractice payments made by or on behalf of doctors.

Federal agencies told the inspector general that they had failed to report some malpractice payments because they could not find the case files.

The newspaper reported that an analysis of the data showed that malpractice payments in New Jersey had declined by 21 percent from 2001 to 2003.

The average malpractice payment by the city last year was $445,000.

This means that the "medical malpractice crisis" is not necessarily fueled by the growth in malpractice payments.