Working as a pharmacist in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area – whether it’s in either of those cities, or nearby towns such as Hamburg, Cheektowaga, Amherst, or another – can be difficult but rewarding. You’ve spent years earning your advanced degree, thousands of hours interning, and who knows how much time preparing for and taking the NAPLEX and MPJE. On top of all of this, even once the New York State Education Department has granted you your pharmacist license, you need to take a certain amount of continuing education if you want to be able to renew it.
With all of this time, effort, and expense invested in your pharmacist license, it’s important that you take steps to protect it if you learn that you are being investigated for alleged misconduct. The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is here to help you do that. Our experienced attorneys know what it takes to protect your rights and defend your pharmacist license in disciplinary investigations and proceedings in New York. Call us at 888.535.3686 or fill out our contact form, and we will schedule a confidential consultation to learn more about your case.
Pharmacists in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Area
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) counts New York as one of the states with the highest number of working pharmacists. In the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area, there are more than 1,400 pharmacists working, with the “annual mean wage” of more than $120,000 per year, roughly double the annual mean wage for all other occupations in the area that the BLS tracks.
Along with major chain pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens, the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area is home to many other pharmacies, such as Wegmans, Walmart, and small chains, as well as independent pharmacies. What this means in terms of any single pharmacist’s reputation is that customers have choices. They can decide where they want their prescriptions filled, and if you are disciplined by New York’s Office of Professions (OP), the public disclosure of your discipline could hurt more than your reputation. Customers who learn of it may decide to take their business to one of the area’s many other pharmacies. This can be the case even where your pharmacist license is not suspended; for example, where the OP issues a public censure or reprimand against you.
This is why it is so important to take active steps to protect yourself as soon as you learn that someone has filed a misconduct complaint against you, or that you are being investigated for possible misconduct. Contacting the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is one of the best ways to make sure you are doing everything you can to protect your valuable pharmacist license as well as your reputation.
Whether you work in Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Amherst, Cheektowaga, or Hamburg, or one of the smaller towns in the area like Williamsville, Pendleton, or East Aurora, the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is ready to help. A misconduct investigation can go on for weeks or months, and it can be very stressful to find yourself the focus of an OP investigator. Working with an experienced attorney who has been through this before with other professionals can make a significant difference in a number of ways. You’ll have someone with you who can explain what is happening; who can anticipate what is going to happen next; who can make sure you meet your obligation to cooperate with the investigation while at the same time protecting your rights; and who is there to look out for your rights through the entire process.
Disciplinary Actions Against Pharmacists in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Area
New York’s Office of Professions can discipline pharmacists for dozens of different reasons. Some of the reasons include:
- Failing to properly record prescriptions as required by law
- Improperly processing refill prescriptions
- Substituting one drug for another prescribed drug without proper authorization
- Not identifying a generic drug dispensed on a prescription by writing the manufacturer’s or distributor’s name on the label as required
- Failing to package a prescription in a child-proof container where required by law
- Improperly supervising the pharmacy where the pharmacist is working
- Failing to make prescription price information available upon request
- Returning to stock any prescribed medication returned by a customer, except in certain limited situations involving health care facilities and single-dose packaged drugs
- Selling adulterated or misbranded drugs
- Selling drugs past their labeled expiration date
- Helping an unlicensed person to distribute drugs
- Improperly disclosing patient confidential information
- Willfully violating federal, state, or local laws related to the practice of pharmacy
- Splitting fees with anyone in exchange for referring a patient
- Acting in a way that “evidences moral unfitness” to practice pharmacy
- Failing to respond to the requests for information from the OP, the Department of Education, or the Department of Health in a timely manner, typically within 30 days of when the pharmacist received the request
- Being convicted of a crime
- Engaging in sexual or physical abuse
- Practicing under the influence of alcohol or drugs
A misconduct complaint can come from anybody. In the case of pharmacists, complaints are likely to come from patients, families of patients, co-workers, and insurers. The Education Department maintains a webpage that allows anyone to file a complaint against a pharmacist. Complaints against pharmacists can be filed with the Office of Professional Discipline at any one of its regional offices, including one located in Buffalo. Not every matter will be investigated; the complaint form notes that the department does not have the power to get involved in fee disputes, for example.
Assuming the complaint received by the Education Department is one that appears to cover conduct that the Office of Professions regulates and otherwise appears to be credible, the matter will be investigated. The OP will assign an investigator who is likely to interview the pharmacist as well as the person filing the complaint. The investigator may also interview co-workers and others who may have information relative to the issues raised in the complaint.
Where pharmacists are concerned, the investigator will often seek to review pharmacy records in detail to determine whether a misconduct claim has support, as well as other records such as emails and text messages. The scope of the investigation will, of course, vary depending on the allegations.
The investigation process can last for weeks or months. It can be a stressful time for you if you are the focus of an ongoing misconduct investigation. It can help tremendously to be working with one of the experienced attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team. We understand how OP investigations work and can be there to answer your questions as well as to protect your rights throughout the process.
Help During Disciplinary Investigations
Sitting across the table from someone who has been assigned to investigate you for possible misconduct and is asking you questions about those allegations can be one of the most stressful experiences you will ever have. Fortunately, it is possible to prepare for what is, for most of us, a very unusual situation.
When you work with one of the attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team, we can help you plan for your interview with the investigator. We can go over the types of questions you can expect, and can explain how to focus on the question you’ve been asked, take a moment to consider your response, and provide a clear and accurate answer.
We can also be with you during the interview to help make sure the questions the investigator asks you are fair and clear, and that you understand them before you respond. If the investigator has asked for documents, records, or communications, we can help you prepare the materials while also protecting your rights in the process. In some cases, we may conduct our own investigation into the allegations, because it is not unusual for the investigator to focus only on evidence that can be used against you and to discount or disregard evidence that could be used in your defense.
Another way that the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help you is by acting as a sort of buffer between you and the investigator, as well as the OP. Communications concerning your case can come to us, so that we can review them with you and explain what they mean while also making sure you meet your obligation to cooperate with the investigation process.
After the Investigation
In some cases, the OP investigator may not uncover evidence supporting the misconduct allegations made against you. In those cases, the OP will likely drop the matter.
Where the investigator believes that there is enough evidence to support bringing disciplinary charges against you, the OP may agree and will issue a Notice. That Notice will detail the charges that the OP is bringing against you, and will provide you with advance notice of a date for a formal hearing.
As a practical matter, the majority of disciplinary cases are settled before there is a formal hearing. Settling disciplinary matters has several benefits, including the certainty of what any penalties will be as well as the reduced cost compared to a full hearing. The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team understands how to negotiate consent orders with the OP. Our overriding goal in these situations is to protect your ability to practice as a pharmacist, and we keep that in mind during all negotiations with the OP. Because we regularly negotiate consent orders in these kinds of cases, we also know what types of issues the OP considers important, and we can address those in our negotiations.
If your case does not resolve itself with a consent order, it will proceed to a formal hearing. This will operate very much like a trial, with witnesses sworn in to testify, cross-examination allowed, and documents and records introduced into evidence. But unlike a criminal trial, the burden of proof is similar to the lower one in civil cases – a preponderance of the evidence (or “more likely than not”). This is why it is so important to have an experienced professional license defense attorney from the LLF National Law Firm working on your behalf at your hearing. We know what it takes to effectively defend professional clients such as pharmacists in disciplinary hearings, and we will use our experience and understanding to help protect your license, your reputation, and your livelihood during your formal disciplinary hearing.
Potential Outcomes
Whether by way of a consent order or after a formal hearing, there are a number of ways that the OP can discipline a pharmacist for misconduct. These include:
- Censure or reprimand
- License suspension; sometimes the suspension is stayed, provided the pharmacist meets certain conditions such as taking continuing education
- Probation, sometimes with a requirement that the pharmacist report to the OP or take a particular continuing education course
- Fines, often for more than $1000
- Revocation or surrender of the pharmacist’s license
The range of potential sanctions means that the OP has a lot of options when it comes to disciplining pharmacists. As your attorneys, our goal is to fight for you to resolve your matter in a way that allows you to continue to practice pharmacy.
The LLF National Law Firm Can Defend Your Pharmacist License in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Area
No matter where you are working as a pharmacist in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area, the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is here to help you protect your pharmacist license against disciplinary actions brought by the New York State Education Department’s Office of Professions. If you are a pharmacist in Buffalo, Amherst, Hamburg, Pendleton, Cheektowaga, Niagara Falls, or another town in the area, the LLF National Law Firm is here for you.
We understand the laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that apply in pharmacist misconduct investigations and disciplinary proceedings. Our practice is focused on helping professional license holders, including pharmacists, defend and protect their licenses in disciplinary proceedings all across the country, including in New York. We will be there for you from day one, protecting your rights and fighting for your license, taking much of the day-to-day burden of being under investigation off of your shoulders so that you can focus on your work while we focus on your defense.
Call the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team today at 888.535.3686 or fill out our contact form to schedule a confidential consultation about your case. Let us tell you how we can help.