As a nurse, your license is the key to your career and your livelihood. When you learn that a complaint has been filed against you with your state's licensing body and that you're under investigation, you need the help of an experienced professional license defense attorney.
The Lento Law Firm Professional License Defense Team understands how important your nursing license is to you and how difficult it can be to find yourself the focus of a disciplinary investigation or a misconduct proceeding. Our professional license defense attorneys are ready to fight for your rights and for your license. We understand the nursing disciplinary process and have helped nurses all across the country protect their licenses, their livelihoods, and their futures in the face of serious misconduct allegations.
Some of the disciplinary issues we regularly help our nursing clients with include the following:
- Background Check Issues. Nursing boards expect that nursing license applicants will provide complete and accurate information about their background when they apply for their nursing license. If the nurse's application is missing important information, such as previous criminal charges, disciplinary sanctions, or other information, the nurse can be accused of misconduct simply for failing to make a complete disclosure. This can happen even when the nurse didn't intend to hide their past from the nursing board and simply forgot to include the required information.
- Continuing Education Issues. Most states have continuing education requirements for nurses. Many of these states rely on nurses to keep track of their continuing education progress and to accurately confirm that they've satisfied the state requirements. This is typically part of the license renewal process. A nurse who has not satisfied the continuing education requirements but mistakenly states that they have done so can face discipline for the false statement.
- Criminal Accusations. Nurses who have been arrested, even for crimes unrelated to their role as nurses, may still have an obligation to report the arrest to their board of nursing, and the arrest may have an effect on their license. There are two issues here: nurses who do report an arrest may face discipline as a result of the arrest, and nurses who fail to report an arrest may be disciplined for failing to do so.
- Documentation Errors. Keeping a record of the care provided to a patient and the patient's health status is a vital part of effective medical practice. Without an accurate record, the patient's health care can suffer. When a nurse fails to properly or completely document information about one or more patients in their care, they can be subject to discipline.
- Exceeding Scope of Nursing License. Nursing licenses define the scope of the care that a nurse is allowed to provide to patients. A licensed practical nurse, for example, cannot provide the same level of care as a registered nurse can. When a nurse exceeds the scope of their license, they can be disciplined for doing so.
- Malpractice and Negligence. As care providers, nurses have an obligation to meet certain standards when they provide care to patients. Failing to meet those standards can result in disciplinary action that can place the nurse's license at risk, even in situations where the patient was not harmed as a result of the nurse's mistakes.
- Medication Errors. Care facilities of all types rely on nurses to accurately dispense the types and amounts of medication that have been prescribed by doctors and other prescribing caregivers. When a nurse fails to properly follow those instructions, it can have serious consequences for the patient. As a result, nurses who make medication errors can be disciplined for doing so.
- Patient Abandonment. Nurses are expected to be there for their patients. When that doesn't happen – whether because the nurse failed to make sure at the end of their shift that the nurse taking over for them had actually arrived, or because the nurse failed to respond to an emergency situation involving their patient, or the nurse refused an assignment that their job required them to accept – the nurse can face serious discipline.
- Professional Boundaries and Inappropriate Relationships. Nurses and patients often form emotional bonds, which, up to a point, can help the healing process. However, if those bonds are improperly exploited, the nurse can be disciplined. This can happen if the nurse and patient enter into a physical relationship, if the nurse accepts significant gifts from the patient, or even when the nurse begins to provide the patient with favors that other patients don't receive.
- Substance Abuse Issues. This is a significant problem for many nurses and is one of the major reasons for nurse disciplinary actions. In any situation where a nurse's use of alcohol, marijuana, or any type of drugs (prescribed, over-the-counter, or illegal) affects their ability to provide professional and competent care to their patients, there is a risk that the nurse will be disciplined and their license placed at risk.
- Other Violations. The above are just some of the reasons nurses can face discipline from their state's boards of nursing. Other common reasons include:
- diverting drugs from their care facility, whether for their own use or for other purposes
- stealing supplies or equipment from their care facility or stealing from patients
- committing fraud by falsely describing the care provided to a patient so that the patient or their insurer is charged more than what should have been charged
- failing to report another state's disciplinary actions against the nurse to every state where the nurse holds a license
The Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team regularly defends nurses accused of all types of misconduct. Our experienced attorneys understand the standards that nurses are held to by their state nursing boards, the process used by licensing boards to investigate and discipline nurses who are accused of failing to meet those standards and the various types of discipline that can be imposed on nurses as a result of a finding that the nurse is responsible for misconduct.
Most importantly, we know how stressful it can be to learn that someone has filed a complaint against you and that you're facing what can be a long and stressful disciplinary proceeding that can place your license, your reputation, and your livelihood at risk. At the Lento Law Firm, our experienced professional license defense attorneys will fight for your rights throughout the entire disciplinary process and will vigorously defend you against misconduct allegations.
To learn more about how the Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team can help protect and defend you when you've been accused of nursing misconduct, call us at 888.535.3686, or use our contact form to schedule a confidential consultation with one of our experienced attorneys. Your nursing license is important to you; let us help you protect it!
