Data bank removes negative mark on former VA doctor

Review determined issues didn’t warrant action against Knitter

A federal repository for adverse reports about medical practitioners has retracted a 2018 report filed against a former anesthesiologist by the Van Zandt VA Medical Center for issues that led to findings against the anesthesiologist by the VA Office of Inspector General.

The National Practitioner Data Bank withdrew Van Zandt's adverse report about Michael Knitter, currently a board certified anesthesiologist in Chippewa Falls, Wisc., after Van Zandt conducted a second review of the matter and determined the issues involved didn't rise to a level that justified forwarding them to the data bank.

The NPDB notified Knitter of its retraction of the report filed by the hospital in a "Void Report Confirmation," with a "process date" of Sept. 17, 2018, stating "This … is to inform you that a report was removed from the National Practitioner Data Bank…for the following reason: The action was reversed because the original action should never have been taken."

There followed a letter dated June 4, 2020, from Van Zandt Chief of Staff Dr. Sam Magee, informing the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services that the data bank had deleted the hospital's "adverse action report" on Knitter, "based on a thorough review of the document file, Dr. Knitter's responses and recommendation by reviewing physicians; in short, the totality of the evidence."

Any subsequent licensing decision was made by the state of Wisconsin, according to Van Zandt spokesman Shaun Shenk, the Van Zandt spokesman.

Knitter appealed to the OIG for "corrections" to the report that agency generated, but the OIG denied the appeal in June 2020, according to a letter copied by Knitter to the Mirror.

No evidence was found that patients were harmed in connection with the issues discussed in the OIG report, according to the OIG report.

Knitter is licensed to practice medicine in Wisconsin, North Dakota and Arizona, according to doximity.com, an online networking service for medical professionals.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.