If you are a psychiatrist living and working in the Denver area, you know better than anyone else how much time, effort, and money you have invested into getting you where you are today. Decades of study, years of work in your field, and all the time spent preparing for and taking exams for your medical license and psychiatry certification mean you have probably invested much more in yourself than in anything else in your life. Because of your medical license and any certification you have earned are such vital assets to you and your future, it is important that you take every step you can to protect them when they are threatened.
That is why when someone files a misconduct complaint against you, you need to take steps to protect yourself from the moment you learn of the allegations. This includes both during any Colorado Medical Board investigation as well as during any disciplinary proceeding that may follow. The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is ready to help you when your livelihood and future are threatened by a misconduct complaint. Our attorneys know how important your license is to you, and we are ready to step in, work with you, and protect your rights and defend your license. Call us today at 888.535.3686, or fill out our online contact form, and we will schedule a confidential consultation to discuss your case.
Psychiatrists in the Denver Area
There are, of course, hundreds of psychiatrists working in the Denver area, including in the central Colorado cities of Aurora, Greeley, Boulder, Centennial, Lakewood, and Westminster. It is a profession that pays quite well; the Bureau of Labor Statistics determined that the annual mean wage of psychiatrists working in the area was more than $250,000 in 2024, well above the average of all other professions. Having earned a license that allows you to practice as a psychiatrist in the Denver area means that you have a very strong incentive to protect that license – and your livelihood – if your license is under threat because of a misconduct complaint.
If you think about it, your medical license and any board certification you may hold are probably your most valuable personal assets. If you lose either of them, you risk your reputation, your career, and your livelihood. Psychiatry is a reputation that depends on trust, and if you have been publicly disciplined by the Colorado Medical Board or the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, even if your license is not suspended or revoked, you could still lose the trust of both current and prospective patients simply because of the disciplinary sanctions imposed on you.
This is why it is so important that you take active steps to protect yourself as soon as you learn that someone has filed a misconduct complaint against you. It can take months for a misconduct investigation to be completed, and during that time, a lot can happen that, if you are not staying on top of the process, you will know nothing about. You need someone on your side who knows how misconduct investigations work, who is familiar with the policies and procedures that apply, and who knows how to protect you from day one.
That is where the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help. Our experienced attorneys regularly represent professional license holders all over the country, including in Colorado, who are under investigation for possible misconduct, or who have been accused by their state licensing bodies of professional misconduct. We know what it takes to protect your rights from the day you learn you’re under investigation. When we are involved, you will know that we are doing everything we can to help you through what can be a very long, draining process, and to defend your reputation and your license.
Disciplinary Actions Against Psychiatrists in the Denver Area
The Colorado Medical Board has a responsibility to the citizens of the state to enforce the state’s laws and regulations that apply to the medical profession, including, of course, psychiatrists, as well as a number of other specialists. The Board has broad authority to both define misconduct and discipline psychiatrists and other medical doctors for misconduct. That said, Colorado law does set forth a number of specific types of misconduct that the Board is expected to protect the public against. Some of these are as follows:
- Making any fraudulent statement in connection with applying for or renewing their medical license
- A conviction of “an offense of moral turpitude,” any felony, or any crime that would be a violation of Colorado’s Medical Practice Act
- Providing anyone with any “habit-forming drug” or a controlled substance other than in the course of their “legitimate professional practice”
- A conviction of a federal or state law prohibiting the “possession, distribution, or use of any controlled substance”
- “Habitual or excessive” use of alcohol or drugs
- Helping someone who is not licensed to practice medicine in Colorado to do so
- Failing to notify the Board of any physical or mental disorder that would adversely impact the psychiatrist’s ability “to perform a medical service with reasonable skill and safety to patients”
- Having sex with a patient while the patient is in their care, or within six months after the doctor-patient relationship has ended
- Engaging in the business practice of not requiring patients to pay required insurance copayments or deductibles
- Violating any order of the Board
- Failing to report to the Board any disciplinary action taken against the psychiatrist by the licensing board of another state or country, or the psychiatrist’s surrender of their license in another state or country while being investigated for misconduct
- Not providing accurate answers to questions asked on the Board’s license renewal form
- Falsifying or making repeated incorrect entries in patient records
- Committing insurance fraud
- Failing to respond in “an honest, materially responsive, and timely manner” to a misconduct complaint
- Engaging in false or misleading advertising
- Failing to meet the Board’s continuing education requirements
Despite this long list of the types of misconduct that the Board has the power to discipline psychiatrists for, it does not have unlimited power to discipline them. For example, the Board will typically not get involved in an ordinary billing dispute between a patient and their psychiatrist. Nor will the Board likely investigate claims that someone in the psychiatrist’s office was rude to the complaining patient.
In cases where the Board decides to accept and investigate a misconduct complaint, that investigation may result in the Board dismissing it if there is not enough evidence to proceed against the psychiatrist. But one way to almost guarantee that the Board will proceed with some sort of misconduct complaint against you is to fail to cooperate in a Board investigation. Even in cases where there is not enough evidence gathered to support the initial misconduct complaint against you, if you fail to cooperate during that initial investigation, the Board can bring a misconduct proceeding against you based on your failure to cooperate.
When you work with the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team, you will have an experienced attorney on your side who will make sure you provide the level of cooperation that the Board requires during any misconduct investigation that happens in your case. We can also be the point of contact between you and the Board so that you can focus on caring for your patients while we focus on protecting your rights.
In some cases, we can also conduct our own investigation of the matter to uncover helpful evidence that the Board’s investigator either missed or disregarded. Bringing that evidence to the investigator’s or Board’s attention can sometimes help the Board decide not to move forward with a disciplinary proceeding.
In cases where the Board decides to move forward with disciplinary proceedings against you after the investigation, if we have been involved in the process from the beginning, it will be much easier for us to defend you in that proceeding, or to negotiate a favorable resolution. The best way to know that you’ve done everything you can to protect your license and your future is to contact the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team as soon as you learn that a misconduct complaint has been brought against you.
Help During Disciplinary Investigations
You might think that, given your profession, you would automatically do well in an interview with the Board’s investigator who is looking into allegations that you committed misconduct. That is far from the case. Investigative interviews are very different than normal conversations or even psychiatrist-patient interactions. Sitting across the table from you is someone who likely has some training in asking questions and getting specific answers. The goal of any investigative interview is to extract as much information from the subject as possible.
There is nothing wrong with that, of course – except when the questions you’re asked are unclear or unfair, or when the answers you provide don’t address the question or provide irrelevant information. There is a skill involved when it comes to listening carefully to the investigator’s question; making sure you understand exactly what you’re being asked; clarifying the question if you’re not sure; then answering only that question. That is a skill that can be practiced, and when you are working with one of the experienced attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team, we can help you practice that skill before your interview.
We can also be there by your side during the interview, helping out by asking the investigator to clarify questions we don’t understand, and by making sure you provide clear answers so that the Board cannot accuse you of failing to cooperate with the investigative process. And through the entire interview process, we will be protecting your rights.
Investigations usually involve more than interviews. If the Board’s investigator asks you for documents or patient records, we can make sure that the request is clear, that you have the legal ability to disclose the information to the investigator, and that, where you are able, you provide the information in a timely way. If there are deadlines the Board expects you to meet for certain parts of the process, we will make sure you meet them. And the Board’s communications to you about the disciplinary proceeding can flow through us, so that we make sure we are on top of things for you, and so you don’t have to worry about communicating directly with the Board.
After the Investigation
In cases where a misconduct complaint has been investigated, the investigator will prepare a report that the Board will review. The Board will decide whether to move forward with a disciplinary action against you, or to dismiss the matter, based on the information in that report. While the investigator is supposed to be impartial and is not supposed to make a recommendation one way or another about whether the Board should move forward or not, if the investigator has focused too heavily on evidence that supports the misconduct claims against you and disregarded evidence in your favor, the report can still be factually biased against you.
If the Board decides to move forward with discipline against you, it will notify you of the discipline it is imposing and the reasons for it. You can accept the discipline proposed by the Board, negotiate with the Board for a different result, or contest the discipline and move towards a formal hearing.
Even in cases that are moving towards a formal hearing – which is conducted by the Attorney General’s office – disciplinary matters can be resolved through negotiation. In fact, the majority of disciplinary matters brought against physicians and other licensed professionals end up with negotiated outcomes. This is where the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can be particularly helpful. We regularly negotiate outcomes for our professional license clients that are focused on helping them keep their licenses and their ability to practice wherever possible.
Potential Outcomes
Misconduct cases that are not dismissed can be resolved in a number of different ways. In more minor matters, the Board may issue a private letter of concern to the psychiatrist. But in cases where the Board believes some kind of public discipline should be issued, it has a number of options:
- A letter of admonition
- Probation, typically with conditions that must be met before the probation will be lifted
- Suspension of the license for either a definite or an indefinite period
- Revocation of the license
- A fine of up to $5000 per violation
The suspension may also come with conditions that the psychiatrist is required to meet, such as completing certain continuing education or a substance abuse rehabilitation program. The Board has broad discretion to impose a wide range of conditions on a psychiatrist; these can also be negotiated as part of an agreed resolution of disciplinary allegations.
There are two main places where the Board makes its disciplinary actions available for public review. The first is its summary of its monthly “Board Actions.” The second is together with the online information about an individual license holder. In either case, if you are publicly disciplined, that information can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection.
The LLF National Law Firm Can Defend Your License in the Denver Metro Area
If you are a psychiatrist in the Denver area, the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is here for you. Our experienced attorneys understand the laws, regulations, and procedures that apply in disciplinary investigations and proceedings involving psychiatrists and other licensed medical professionals. We will fight for your rights and defend you against any allegations that the Colorado Medical Board elects to bring against you.
When you are the focus of a misconduct investigation or are facing misconduct charges, your reputation, your future, and your livelihood are on the line. This is not the time to learn how to defend yourself; it is the time to retain an experienced license defense attorney who has helped others through these kinds of difficult proceedings. We understand that you may have many questions if you are in this position; we are here to answer them. Call the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team today at 888.535.3686, or fill out our online contact form, and we will schedule a confidential consultation where you can tell us about the allegations made against you, and we can explain how we can help.