What We Do
Our office provides medical license defense. We represent medical professionals before a diverse number of boards incuding the Dental Board (Dental Board of California), Osteopathic Board (Osteopathic Medical Board of California, Pharmacy Board (California State Board of Pharmacy), Nursing board (California Board of Registered Nursing) and many others.
Structure of Professional Boards – DCA on Top
Other than the Chiropractic Board, the 36 professional boards are directly supervised by the Department of Consumer Affairs. The DCA is a branch of the Attorney General so the supervisorial boards while staffed by the public and professionals in your field are legally advised by the Attorney General and for most purposes controlled by the AG’s office.
DCA is Law Enforcement at its Core
As the Attorney General is the Chief law enforcement officer in California, there is a tendency for board supervision to place practitioners in the role of criminal suspects even when the complaints are practice related.
Physician Investigations are “Triggered”
Investigations by the particular board are triggered. There are few if any routine reviews.
If you are a doctor with a DUI (drunk driving) you are going to be looked at to see why you put yourself in a situation of excessive drinking. While you may view your DUI as situational, the investigator will presume that the arrest is emblematic of a broader problem. In selecting a disciplinary defense attorney consider retaining counsel at an early stage, even before your DUI case is final. A fact that applies to any of the medical boards is that prompt and proper mitigation is best initiated before conviction and before the investigation is formally commenced.
Other triggers include angry ex-employees, patients who do not want to pay bills and competitors who question your advertising or billing practices.
When Do You Need a License Lawyer ?
If you have already experienced a level of board interaction including public reproval, peer review discipline or even peer review investigation, it is wise to consult a medical license attorney before you report the discipline to credentialing entities and certainly before you initiate any new applications.
During peer review negotiations the language of any referral to the medical board, nursing board, dental board (etc) can help determine the scope of the investigation.
Avoid these Obvious Errors
Some common errors that we see when medical board or peer review investigations and during healthcare audits is the correction or supplementation of medical records without the proper notations of changes. An innocent supplementation of records can be viewed as “falsifying medical records”. Patient disagreements on records and rules regarding patient annotations are not well known but also must be followed in contentious situations. Our general advice is that a physician must be 100% compliant with the professional rules even if a patient or patient lawyer are wielding these rules to gain an unfair advantage.