What to Do If Your Health License Is Challenged

Do you have a health license? Has it been challenged by a licensing board? Well, it’s about time you learn how to defend against this indiscretion.

In premise, a license is challenged for good reason. However, that’s not always the case, and many good clinicians lose their practice because of it.

In this article, we will cover what you need to do if your health license is in jeopardy.

So keep reading to secure your future livelihood.

Of the Health License and the Defense

In the field of medical science and healthcare, there are certain protocols in place. Patient expectations are continuing to grow, as well as the scrutiny towards “inadequate” clinics. With this increase in standardization and judgment, the most common causes of a malpractice lawsuit are:

• Failure to detect
• Failure to diagnose
• Failure to treat
• Failure to provide follow-up care

With that being said, license and asset defense for healthcare providers are as impeccably critical. First and foremost, the license is the very heart of every provider.

To protect the heart, the value of a corporate shield is indispensable. Once a medical provider has been brought to suit, it means that their license is at serious risk of being abolished. Depositions are tough to go through. If the lawsuit is not resolved, the allegations against the clinic can and will get reported to the licensing boards, even settlements will get recorded.

These reports against licensure can hinder the ability of practitioners to provide services inside of reputable hospitals and medical networks. In a typical case, the goal of a defense attorney is to resolve the case, not to protect the medical license. That’s when the personal defense is a top priority.

Assets At Risk

A physician needs personal advice on how to deal with legal defense, negotiation of the case, and discover process optimization so that their license remains untarnished. Beyond that, the assets of the business and personal property can also be placed under risk.

That’s why a physician should consider asset protection, such as:

• Title as tenancy through entireties
• Assets in 401K or IRA
• Homesteading residence
• Life insurance products to insulate cash flow
• Using estate planning and trusts to protect assets

These are just some of the potential asset defenses. However, your attorney will be able to recommend other black-box methods of getting the sinking ship under control.

Get Involved Early

The best strategy when protecting your DEA registration or medical license is to get involved as early as possible. Too many physicians, pharmacists, nurses wait to get legal support until after they have been interviewed by the Board of Pharmacy, Board of Nursing, or other Medical Boards.

This is very important. A recorded interview done by an investigator is not a great way to learn about the case. It’s not where you go to see what’s going on. If your interview goes poorly, the damage has already been done. This interview will be a permanent scar on your record.

Even worse, some practitioners wait until after getting their proposed sanctions and findings from the boards. By this time, the conclusions have already been made, and the ability to influence the sanctions have been severely depleted. Help is still possible, but it’s less-than-optimal and quite rare to succeed upon.

Common Sanctions Imposed by the Board

If you are a nurse, physician, or pharmacist who is being investigated by the medical boards, you will most likely face disciplinary action. These actions through sanctions can include, but are not limited to:

• Temporary/indefinite/permanent suspension of medical license
• Financial fines
• Reprimand
• Recurrent learning
• Continued training
• Probation
• Imposition of monitoring
• Permanent revoking of medical practice

One or more of these sanctions in synergy can be proposed by the medical board. An experienced attorney will always know if a case is potentially defensible. If your goal is to settle, it might not mean that the sanctions will be eliminated. An experienced health licensing lawyer with a good relationship with the board can help you settle and diminish the sanctions proposed against you.

Fitness to Practice

If you have involved substance abuse, you must expect to perform both a drug and alcohol examination, and the necessary treatment to recover your well-being and health license. If your fitness to practice as a practitioner is an issue, these assessments will be expensive and comprehensive (requiring you to travel to approved institutions).

Once again, if this is the case, a lawyer who is experienced with your state medical boards will know the exact steps that must be taken to facilitate your treatment. This is vividly critical to your future because early action is invaluable. If you wait too long, you will cede all control over these decisions, and your defensible position will be insignificant for any change.

Also, if your substance abuse involves any type of criminal activating, the board will be required to report these actions to the State of Federal enforcement of the law. You will need a lawyer who is sensitive to this kind of thing, so make sure to explain your situation from the ground-up.

Your Health License, Your Choice

Now that you know what you need to do to protect your health license, you are well on your way to ensure that you do it the proper way. And that means employing legal support early, collecting all of the supporting information, and being transparent and open to change.

In any case, it’s your license and your choice, so do what you must. If you’re interested in similar topics, feel free to check out our legal-related articles on the sidebar or filtered categories.