As an agency nurse practicing in beautiful Idaho, you made a good choice of professional practices. Idaho not only has varied, rugged, and attractive natural settings to enjoy. It also has stable, economically strong, friendly, safe, and sizable population centers in and around Boise City, Meridian, Nampa, Idaho Falls, Caldwell, Montpelier, Coeur d'Alene, Twin Falls, and other locations, offering substantial professional employment for agency nurses. Staffing agencies like Medical Staffing Network, AMN Healthcare, Aureus Medical Group, TravelMax Nursing, CompHealth, American Staffing, and Express Employment Professionals make that employment all the more attractive and accessible. Misconduct allegations, though, can destroy everything you have invested in Idaho agency nursing. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team. We have the skills and experience you need to protect your Idaho agency nursing.
Idaho Staffing Agency Nurse Investment
Don't undervalue the investment you have made in your Idaho agency nurse employment when evaluating the risk of Idaho Board of Nursing disciplinary charges. You doubtless put a tremendous amount of effort into your nursing education, the clinical training and experience you have gained since completing your education, and the examination and other process through which you went to gain your Idaho nursing license. You may also have built a strong relationship with your staffing agency, the facilities it serves, and the patients for whom you care. Idaho Board of Nursing disciplinary charges put those investments at risk of loss. Don't lose your investment to those charges. Get our defense help now.
Idaho Staffing Agency Nurse Employment Benefits
When weighing the risk of Idaho Board of Nursing disciplinary charges, also appreciate all that you've earned, enjoyed, and may in the future enjoy from your Idaho agency nurse employment and career. As an Idaho agency nurse, you may choose the Idaho city, town, or other community you serve. You have the opportunity to explore different regions of the beautiful state, the qualities of their communities, and the character of their residents. As a staffing agency nurse, you may also get to choose the nursing facilities in which you work, the nursing supervisors under whom you work, and the nurse aides and other healthcare workers with whom you work. You also have abundant work opportunities, providing you with a remarkable degree of job security and financial and other benefits that may serve you and your family very well. Don't overlook those great benefits when deciding how to defend your Idaho Board of Nursing disciplinary charges. Get our attorneys' skilled and experienced help.
Idaho Staffing Agency Facility Challenges
As attractive and rewarding as Idaho staffing agency nursing can be, agency nursing is not always a figurative walk in the park. When it comes to the potential for nursing disciplinary charges, you can find yourself at distinct disadvantages as an agency nurse. The healthcare or assisted living facility in which you work may regard you as only a temporary worker, affording you less respect and fewer protections than the facility's so-called permanent nurses. You may find that physicians, nurse supervisors, and even nursing colleagues or subordinate staff do not treat you with the value, worth, and respect that they treat employee nurses. You may even find that when it comes to misconduct allegations and patient complaints, they protect the employee nurses whose recruitment, training, and retention the facility has invested in while failing or refusing to provide you with the same protection. Let us help if you find that personality conflicts and poor attitudes toward agency nurses are contributing to your disciplinary charges and risks.
Idaho Agency Nurse Disparate Facility Treatment
Don't let the Idaho nursing or assisted living facility in which you work and its management and other personnel treat you as a second-class citizen, depriving you of procedural safeguards that you are clearly due against misconduct allegations. The facility in which you work may have its own procedural safeguards and grievance procedures that it regularly affords its own employees. However, it may deny you access to those facility procedural safeguards, believing instead that you are an expendable resource, easily replaced with another agency nurse. Let us help you if your facility is denying you the chance to defend yourself against misconduct allegations.
Idaho Nurse Staffing Agency Challenges
For some of the same reasons, you likely face greater risks of having your nurse staffing agency terminate your employment than a permanent employee nurse would face in termination risks. You may not just lose your facility assignment to false, exaggerated, or unfair misconduct allegations. You may also lose your staffing agency employment if your agency believes that it is better not to risk reassigning you to another facility and better instead to terminate your employment. Don't let your Idaho nurse staffing agency deprive you of procedural safeguards that it promised you in its employment agreement or practices, and you are clearly due. Your Idaho nurse staffing agency may have a grievance or other dispute-resolution procedure specifically to give you the chance to contest false or damaging misconduct allegations. Just because your agency may value its facility client more than it values your work, don't let it deny you access to its due process and contractual procedures. Let us help you if your agency is denying you the chance to defend yourself against misconduct charges.
Idaho Board of Nursing Disciplinary Charges
For some of the same reasons, as an Idaho staffing agency nurse, you probably face greater risks of misconduct allegations and disciplinary charges than a permanent employee nurse would face. If your facility and staffing agency won't help you turn back the misconduct allegations, then you may more likely face formal Idaho Board of Nursing disciplinary charges. Let us help you contest misconduct allegations with your facility or agency. But beware of formal Idaho Board of Nursing disciplinary charges. Get our attorney's skilled and experienced representation the moment you hear of any such charges. Don't lose your Idaho nursing license because you'll lose your Idaho staff agency nursing employment along with it.
Idaho Board of Nursing Disciplinary Authority
Do not doubt the Idaho Board of Nursing's statutory authority to discipline your Idaho nursing license up to suspension and revocation. Idaho Code Section 54-1413 authorizes the Idaho Board of Nursing to impose discipline against any of its licensed nurses who violate the Board's rules and standards. Yet you must retain your Idaho nursing license in good standing if you intend to practice nursing in the state. Idaho Code Section 54-1414 makes it a misdemeanor crime punishable by a fine of $300 and up to six months in jail to practice nursing in the state without a license or with a suspended or revoked license. The same statute makes it a criminal offense to misrepresent your nursing license status. You won't be able to continue nursing if you suffer license suspension or revocation. Get our help to defend your disciplinary charges.
Idaho Board of Nursing Disciplinary Impacts
Beware any form of discipline against your Idaho nursing license. You've just seen that losing your license to misconduct charges means losing your nursing practice. Your nurse staffing agency won't continue your nursing employment if you lose your license. You also won't get another nursing job in Idaho through a different staffing agency or direct nursing employment with a facility. Losing your nursing job means losing your nursing income and benefits, risking your loss of health insurance, housing, transportation, and other life essentials, not only for you but also for your dependent family members. If you lose your Idaho nursing license, you may lose nursing licenses you hold in other states and may not be able to get a new nursing license elsewhere. Face the charges with the strategic and effective defense of our skilled attorneys.
Idaho Agency Nurse Disciplinary Sanctions
The Idaho Board of Nursing has the discretion to impose a range of sanctions against your license. Idaho Code Section 54-1413 authorizes the Idaho Board of Nursing to “revoke, suspend, place on probation, reprimand, limit, restrict, condition, or take other disciplinary action” against your nursing license. The Board of Nursing has adopted administrative regulations further articulating and arguably expanding those options. Our attorneys may be able to turn this discretion in your favor. Your worst outcome would be to lose your license to suspension or revocation, losing your nursing practice and employment along with that discipline. However, by authorizing the Board of Nursing to otherwise condition your license, the Idaho legislature has given us the opportunity to advocate on your behalf with disciplinary officials for remedial relief rather than punitive discipline. We may, for instance, be able to show that further nursing education or training can satisfy the Board of Nursing's duty to protect patients and the public without the need to suspend or revoke your license.
Idaho Board of Nursing Disciplinary Actions
Don't assume that you can keep your Idaho Board of Nursing discipline secret from your staffing agency employer, facility workplace, professional colleagues, or friends and family members. The Idaho Nurse Practice Act and the Idaho Board of Nursing regulations permit the Board of Nursing to share disciplinary actions with the national nurse license database. Healthcare providers, professionals, and licensing bodies can search the database to discover your discipline. Patients, their family members, and other members of the public may also have access to your disciplinary records through the database and FOIA request. You can't effectively run and hide from disciplinary charges or conceal your discipline if you intend to continue your nursing practice. School applications, job applications, and professional license applications and renewal forms routinely require disclosure of prior discipline.
Grounds for Idaho Agency Nurse Discipline
Disciplinary officials must generally have statutory grounds on which to revoke or suspend a nursing license, limiting to some degree the discretion of those officials. You should have fair warning of the conduct that could subject you to nursing license discipline. Idaho Code Section 54-1413 includes the grounds on which Idaho's Board of Nursing may impose discipline against you. Those grounds are quite broad and leave their application open to interpretation. Consider the following common grounds Idaho's Nurse Practice Act authorizes for discipline, along with how we may be able to help you defend and defeat those charges.
Credential Fraud as Grounds for Idaho Agency Nurse Discipline
Idaho Code Section 54-1413 authorizes the Idaho Board of Nursing to discipline your nursing license if you made or attempted “a false, fraudulent or forged statement or representation in procuring or attempting to procure a license to practice nursing.” Cheating on the NCLEX, misrepresenting your nursing education on your license application, or concealing criminal convictions or other disqualifying information from your renewal form may constitute credential fraud. Agency nurses can more easily face credential fraud charges when making errors in disclosing their complex work history. We may be able to help defend credential fraud charges by showing that you did not cheat, your applications were accurate, and that any inaccuracies or omissions were immaterial and unintentional rather than fraudulent.
Criminal Conviction as Grounds for Idaho Agency Nurse Discipline
Idaho Code Section 54-1413 further authorizes the Idaho Board of Nursing to discipline your nursing license if you commit certain criminal convictions defined under another statute, Idaho Code Section 679411, as “currently relevant to the person's fitness to engage in such profession or occupation as determined by the licensing authority.” Common disqualifying convictions may include violent crimes like homicide or assault with a deadly weapon, crimes of dishonesty like criminal fraud, or crimes of moral turpitude like indecent exposure. We may be able to help defend these charges by showing that you did not suffer such a conviction, your trial or appellate court reversed the conviction, or the conviction was not related to your fitness to practice nursing.
Gross Negligence as Grounds for Idaho Agency Nurse Discipline
Idaho Code Section 54-1413 further authorizes the Idaho Board of Nursing to discipline your nursing license if you commit gross negligence in the practice of nursing. Common forms of gross negligence might include obvious departures from safe and customary nursing practice, like deliberately ignoring physician orders for bed rails up, resulting in serious patient injury, or administering fatal or injurious doses of the wrong medication. Agency nurses can more easily face these charges when facility personnel falsely blame them for others' wrongs. We may be able to help defend gross negligence charges by showing that you were not the one who committed the alleged wrong, your conduct met nursing standards, or you reasonably acted under the instructions of a responsible superior in a safe harbor defense.
Substance Abuse as Grounds for Idaho Agency Nurse Discipline
Idaho Code Section 54-1413 further authorizes the Idaho Board of Nursing to discipline a nursing license if a nurse “habitually uses alcoholic beverages or drugs” affecting nursing practice. Agency nurses can more easily face substance abuse charges when unfamiliar facility personnel misconstrue their demeanor as if they were under the influence and otherwise do not know their good character. We may be able to help defend substance abuse charges by showing that others mistakenly identified your condition, that you were not misusing substances, that you had a medication reaction, or that you have corrected any substance issue in a way that ensures the Board of Nursing of your safe nursing practice.
Unfitness as Grounds for Idaho Agency Nurse Discipline
Idaho Code Section 54-1413 further authorizes the Idaho Board of Nursing to discipline your nursing license if you are “physically or mentally unfit to practice nursing.” Common forms of unfitness may include a mental impairment such as dementia or severe depression, a physical injury or impairment keeping the nurse from lifting, turning, or assisting patients, or an infectious illness endangering patients. Agency nurses can more easily face unfitness charges when facility personnel are unacquainted with the agency nurse's typical presentation and capabilities. Misunderstandings can also arise from temporary illnesses or events briefly affecting nurse's demeanor but not indicating long-term unfitness. We may be able to help defend unfitness charges by showing that others misidentified you or misconstrued your demeanor or condition, that you were always fit, and that you have recovered from any temporary condition, giving an appearance of unfitness.
Sexual Misconduct as Grounds for Idaho Agency Nurse Discipline
Idaho Code Section 54-1413 further authorizes the Idaho Board of Nursing to discipline your nursing license if you commit sexual misconduct or exploitation involving a patient. Agency nurses can more easily face these charges when misidentified by unfamiliar or deluded patients or scapegoated for the misconduct of others. We may be able to help defend sexual misconduct charges by showing that the patient was indeed deluded as to your conduct or mistaken as to your identity and that you did not engage in any sexual misconduct or exploitation.
Idaho Agency Nurse Discipline Procedures
Idaho law gives our attorneys substantial opportunities to come to the defense of your Idaho nursing license, in opposition to disciplinary charges. Idaho's Nurse Practice Act recognizes your constitutional due process rights to fair notice and a fair hearing on disciplinary charges before an independent decision maker. Idaho Code Section 54-1413 includes the protective procedures the Board of Nursing must follow to suspend or revoke your Idaho nursing license. That section refers to and incorporates the Idaho Administrative Procedure Act protections for contested cases. Together, the Nurse Practice Act and Administrative Procedure Act ensure that your disciplinary matter offers you these protections as long as you properly invoke them with our skilled representation:
- Idaho Board of Nursing staff investigation in which you may have the opportunity to present exonerating evidence and mitigating information;
- written notice of any formal disciplinary charges, including sufficient detail for you to answer the charges with contrary evidence and legal defenses;
- pre-hearing conferences in which you may enter into consent agreements for alternative remedial relief such as education and evaluation, which our attorneys may help you negotiate to ensure that you do not lose your license;
- if necessary, a formal hearing before an administrative law judge, at which we may present your exonerating evidence and mitigating information while cross-examining adverse witnesses and challenging the Board's other allegedly incriminating evidence; and
- If you have already lost your hearing, an appeal to a higher authority for review of legal or factual error, or decision maker bias or conflict of interest in the decision.
Idaho Board of Nursing Alternative Discipline Program
Idaho's Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses offers nurses and other healthcare professionals with a treatable substance abuse issue a Health Professionals Recovery Program. A Board of Nursing statement on discipline further indicates the Board's commitment to helping nurses avoid discipline through a Practice Remediation Program or Program for Recovering Nurses. These programs and the Board's commitment to them are laudable. They may provide you with remedial relief from the Idaho Board of Nursing disciplinary charges. But beware of agreeing to program referral on terms that require you to relinquish your nursing license, or that imposes arduous conditions that you cannot readily fulfill. You could lose your license long term or permanently under such a program. You may be far better off undertaking your own program, which we can help you design, and the evidence we can help you use to advocate with the Board for dismissal of your disciplinary charges. Don't enter a consent agreement for program referral without our review and advice.
Idaho Agency Nurse Misconduct Defense
The Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team is available in Boise City, Meridian, Nampa, Idaho Falls, Caldwell, Montpelier, Coeur d'Alene, Twin Falls, or any other Idaho location to help you defend your Idaho Board of Nursing disciplinary charges. We have successfully helped hundreds of nurses and other professionals retain their professional license. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now.
