Dental hygienist practice in Florida can be extremely rewarding, with the state's favorable employment, tax, economic, and natural environment. No one has to convince you of the benefits of dental hygiene practice in Florida. Yet beware of the great risk that dental hygienist license disciplinary charges present to all those benefits and rewards. If you lose your Florida dental hygiene license due to disciplinary charges, you'll lose your dental hygiene employment, income, and lifestyle right along with it. Don't fool around with license disciplinary charges. Instead, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team for your best possible disciplinary outcome. Our highly qualified attorneys are available in Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Hialeah, Port St. Lucie, Cape Coral, Tallahassee, Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines, and across the rest of Florida. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for our highly qualified defense services.
Florida Dental Hygienist License Requirement
To practice dental hygiene in Florida, you must hold a current and valid dental hygiene license from the Florida Board of Dentistry. Section 466.007 of the Florida Dental Practice Act requires dental hygienists to apply for a Board license to practice in the state. Section 466.007 also enumerates the dental hygienist license requirements. You know what it took to gain your license, including the education, examination, supervised practice, and application requirements. Section 466.023 details the permitted scope of dental hygiene practice, with which you are also doubtless fully familiar. You must not practice without a valid license or outside the scope of that license. Section 466.026 defines unlicensed dental hygiene practice and related misconduct as a third-degree felony crime in Florida. Florida punishes third-degree felonies, like the crime of grand theft and other lower-level but still-serious felonies, by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Don't risk both loss of your dental hygiene license and felony charges for practicing without a license. Let us help you defend and defeat your disciplinary charges.
Florida Dental Hygienist Licensing Authority
Respect the authority of Florida state regulators to pursue disciplinary charges against your dental hygienist license. The Florida Board of Dentistry holds the state's authority to issue dental hygienist licenses. Section 466.004 of the Florida Dental Practice Act establishes the Florida Board of Dentistry to regulate the practice of dentistry and dental hygiene in the state. Section 466.004 further requires the Board of Dentistry, on which dental hygienists sit, to appoint a separate Council on Dental Hygiene to recommend rules and regulations for the Board of Dentistry to adopt for licensure of dental hygienists. Together, the Florida Board of Dentistry and its Council on Dental Hygiene hold the licensing authority over your practice of dental hygiene in the state. Don't doubt that authority. Instead, let our highly qualified attorneys help you show that you meet all of their licensure requirements.
Florida Dental Hygienist License Discipline
Qualifying for your Florida dental hygienist license was only your first licensing challenge. You must also demonstrate that you continually meet the Florida Board of Dentistry's licensing requirements. Section 466.028 of the Florida Dental Practice Act expressly authorizes the Board to discipline licenses that it issues. Section 466.028 refers to and incorporates Section 456.072 of the state's Health Professions and Occupations Act for the forms of discipline that the Board of Dentistry may impose. Those sanctions include a letter of concern or reprimand, license probation, remedial education, license suspension, permanent license revocation, license restriction by service, location, or supervision, or a fine of up to $10,000 for each disciplinary count. The risks that license disciplinary charges raise are far too great for you to minimize or ignore them. Retain us for your best possible disciplinary outcome.
Florida Dental Hygienist Disciplinary Misconduct
Both Florida's Dental Practice Act and its Health Professions and Occupations Act list extensive disciplinary grounds on which the Florida Board of Dentistry may discipline your dental hygienist license. Our attorneys are prepared to help you defend any ground that Board officials allege. Section 466.028 of the Dental Practice Act includes the following common grounds for your dental hygiene disciplinary charges, among many other grounds:
- gaining or attempting to gain your license through bribery or credential fraud, such as cheating on a licensing exam or misrepresenting your qualifications, including concealing disqualifying convictions;
- having a dental hygiene license you hold in another state, disciplined for misconduct;
- suffering conviction of any crime, whether felony or misdemeanor, related to the practice of dental hygiene;
- your fraudulent, false, or deceptive advertising of dental hygiene services;
- practicing dental hygiene under someone else's name;
- failing to report to the Board of Dentistry a fellow licensee whom you know to have violated Board rules or to be unfit for practice with reasonable skill;
- aiding or abetting another in procuring a dental hygiene license without qualifications;
- practicing for an employer owned by persons other than dentists;
- making false reports related to your dental hygiene practice;
- sexual contact with a dental hygiene patient in the course of practice;
- failure to keep accurate records of dental hygiene practice;
- performing services without patient authorization and informed consent;
- procuring, dispensing, or administering a legend drug outside the course of authorized dental hygiene practice;
- inability to practice dental hygiene with reasonable skill and safety due to abuse of or addiction to drugs, alcohol, narcotics, chemicals, or other materials;
- inability to practice dental hygiene with reasonable skill and safety due to mental or physical impairment;
- incompetence in dental hygiene practice against prevailing standards;
- practicing beyond the scope of the dental hygiene license;
- delegating dental hygiene practices to unauthorized individuals.
Florida Dental Hygienist Disciplinary Investigation
Don't doubt the authority of the Florida Board of Dentistry to conduct a thorough investigation of any allegation against you from a dental hygiene patient, family member, colleague, health official, law enforcement official, or member of the public. Section 466.028 of the Florida Dental Practice Act refers to the state's Health Professions and Occupations Act for the Board of Dentistry's disciplinary powers. Section 456.073 of the Health Professions and Occupations Act authorizes the Board of Dentistry to investigate any signed and written complaint against you. The same provision further permits the Board of Dentistry to investigate unsigned and anonymous complaints that the Board deems sufficiently substantial. The Board may also proceed on its own when believing that probable cause exists to initiate an investigation. Section 456.073 expressly requires the Board of Dentistry to allocate sufficient personnel to investigations to complete them thoroughly and expeditiously, with an investigation report. The investigator need not notify you of an ongoing investigation if the allegations include criminal misconduct. But the Board of Dentistry must share with you the investigation report, permitting you to comment on it and correct or supplement it. Don't doubt the authority and responsibility of the Board of Dentistry to investigate allegations against you.
Responding to the Florida Dental Hygienist Investigation
Retain us the moment you receive notice of a disciplinary investigation. Our highly qualified attorneys can help ensure that your response to the investigation is timely, cooperative, accurate, complete, and truthful. We can help you identify, gather, preserve, and present your exonerating and mitigating evidence. Do not destroy material evidence potentially related to misconduct allegations, including deleting electronically stored information. Any destruction of evidence may result in presumptions and sanctions against you, whether or not you committed any misconduct. We can also help you review, correct, and supplement the investigation report. Especially retain us if the investigator requests to interview you. We can help you ensure that the interview conditions and questions are fair, that you understand the charges, that you have reviewed the appropriate records before speaking to refresh your recollection, and that your statement is accurate, truthful, and complete. The Board of Dentistry may otherwise use against you any errors you make in your statement. In the best case, our assistance during the course of the investigation may result in such a favorable investigation report as to warrant abandonment of the investigation and dismissal of any charges or allegations.
Florida Dental Hygienist Disciplinary Hearing
You have a constitutional right to protective procedures when facing Florida Board of Dentistry disciplinary charges. Section 466.073 of the Florida Health Professions and Occupations Act authorizes the Florida Board of Dentistry to pursue a formal administrative hearing on any disciplinary charge involving a fact issue. The formal hearing must satisfy due process requirements of fair notice and a fair opportunity to present your defense before an impartial decision maker. Section 466.073 provides that your formal hearing must occur before one of the state's administrative law judges, who makes a written recommendation to the Board of Dentistry. The Board of Dentistry makes the final determination, subject to review by a civil court for procedural or legal error.
How We Defend Florida Dental Hygienist Charges
If your disciplinary investigation results in the Board of Dentistry pursuing formal disciplinary charges at a formal hearing, we stand ready to help you defend and defeat those charges. Our skilled and experienced attorneys can help you identify, prepare, and secure the attendance of your defense witnesses. We can conduct a direct examination of those witnesses and a cross-examination of any adverse witnesses. We will also help you gather, organize, prepare, and present your documentary and physical evidence, insofar as patient and practice records can be critical in certain disciplinary cases. We can also research, draft, and present hearing briefs, make hearing arguments for dismissal of your charges, and raise objections to inadmissible or unduly prejudicial evidence. Even before the formal hearing commences, we may be able to arrange a conciliation conference at which to advocate for voluntary dismissal of the charges in favor of remedial measures, like additional training, education, supervision, evaluation, treatment, or mentoring, that you have already undertaken and completed or can readily complete.
Mitigating Florida Dental Hygienist Sanctions
Some disciplinary cases involve clear wrongs to which the dental hygienist has no exonerating evidence or other factual defense. But just because you feel that the disciplinary charges are substantially true does not mean that you must suffer a crippling sanction. The primary duty and concern of the Florida Board of Dentistry is to protect patients and the public against incompetent and unsafe dental hygiene practice, while preserving respect and trust in the dental hygiene profession. Our attorneys are often able to show that after remedial measures, the professional facing the disciplinary charge presents no such risk of unsafe or incompetent practice. Let us make your best case to mitigate any disciplinary charges that we cannot together defend with credible exonerating evidence. Your best outcome is always to avoid any disciplinary sanction.
Florida Dental Hygienist Post-Hearing Relief
You may have already lost your formal hearing before the administrative law judge and suffered a Board of Dentistry sanction. Do not give up without retaining us to exhaust all potential avenues for relief. We may be able to request a rehearing or make a supplemental submission to the Board of Dentistry, obtain its appeal review, or obtain civil court review, reversal, and relief based on procedural or legal errors.
Florida Dental Hygienist Disciplinary Consequences
You do well to keep in mind the potential consequences you may face, even beyond the suspension or revocation of your Florida dental hygienist license. Because you cannot practice dental hygiene in the state without that license, you will lose your dental hygiene practice, employment, and income, along with the loss of your license. Even a license reprimand could cost you a job, patients, practice reputation, and opportunities. You could also lose licenses you hold in other states or the opportunity to obtain them. Don't underestimate your potential losses. Instead, get our skilled defense representation.
Premier Florida Dental Hygienist License Defense
Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team for your best possible disciplinary outcome to the Florida Board of Dentistry disciplinary charges. We help hundreds of dental hygienists, dentists, and other health professionals successfully defend license disciplinary charges in Florida and nationwide. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now.
