If you are one of the thousands of physicians working in the Greater Cleveland area, you know exactly how much hard work it took for you to get to where you are now. Decades of schooling, years of practical training, and who knows how many hours of studying for and taking the exams you’ve had to take just to you could apply for your medical license and any board certification you may have. And it’s your license that is the key to your career, your livelihood, and your future.
That is why it is so important to take immediate steps to protect yourself if you learn that someone has filed a misconduct complaint against you with the State Medical Board of Ohio. Waiting to get experienced help to protect your rights during the investigation process, or to defend yourself against formal misconduct allegations, could result in you losing the right to practice or being publicly sanctioned by the Board. Contact the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team and let us tell you what we can do to help protect your license. Call 888.535.3686, or fill out our contact form to reach out to us.
Physicians in the Greater Cleveland Area
Thousands of physicians work in the Greater Cleveland area, in cities such as Cleveland, Akron, and Canton, and in smaller municipalities such as Cuyahoga Falls, Lorain, Shaker Heights, and Lakewood. Working as a physician can be financially rewarding; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, physicians in the area make well over $200,000 per year, and many make more than $300,000 annually. This is considerably more than the average annual income of all professions in the area that the BLS tracks. The challenge of finding another line of work that would pay as well if your license were to be taken away from you is, by itself, a strong incentive to take active steps to defend your license if you are accused of misconduct.
Don’t ignore any notice you receive from the State Medical Board of Ohio or any medical board that has certified you as a specialist about misconduct allegations that someone has made against you. Similarly, you need to pay close attention if the Board opens an investigation into misconduct allegations. Taking steps now to protect your rights during a misconduct investigation can pay off down the road. That is where the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help. The sooner we get involved, the more help we can offer. We can be there at every step of the process, protecting your rights and defending you against the allegations that you’re facing.
Disciplinary Actions Against Physicians in the Greater Cleveland Area
It is the State Medical Board of Ohio that will enforce the state’s laws and regulations applicable to physicians in the Greater Cleveland Area (as well as all across the state). Physicians can be disciplined for a number of different reasons by the Board, including:
- Failing to follow required standards of patient care
- Lying or committing fraud in any number of ways, such as in connection with applying for or renewing their medical licenses, advertising their practices, including making false promises about the results of certain types of treatment, and in other areas that are related to their medical practice
- Engaging in sexual misconduct in connection with their practice, whether it is misconduct against a fellow physician or employee, or sexual assault against a patient or co-worker
- Practicing medicine while intoxicated or under the influence of drugs
- Prescribing or dispensing drugs improperly
- Being convicted of certain crimes, especially those related to their medical practice
- Failing to stay current with the Board’s continuing education requirements
- Having another state’s medical board discipline them
- Not following an order of the Board, including one placing limits on the physician’s practice
- Failing to cooperate with a Board investigation or disciplinary proceeding
The Board will accept misconduct complaints from any member of the public, including patients, families of patients, co-workers, and anyone else. But not every complaint filed with the Board results in an investigation. The Board’s legal authority to investigate and discipline physicians is limited, and if a complaint alleges conduct that is outside of that authority, the Board will dismiss the matter (though it may refer the complaint to another agency).
For example, billing disputes that do not involve allegations of physician fraud will normally not be investigated. Nor will claims that the physician or one of their staff was rude to a patient. In other cases, where the complaint seems to allege violation of something the Board does regulate, it will open an investigation into the matter.
Investigations can be lengthy and stressful. The idea is for the Board’s investigator to examine the allegations and look for facts that may relate to those allegations. If the investigator is not able to uncover evidence that supports the allegations, the matter may be dropped. But if the investigation uncovers facts that appear to show the physician committed misconduct, the Board will likely move forward with formal misconduct allegations against the doctor.
Because the results of the investigation can be the key to whether the Board makes formal misconduct allegations against the physician, this can be one of the most important parts of the entire case. The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help you during the investigation as well as after. It makes sense to have one of our experienced attorneys by your side as soon as possible once you learn that someone has filed a complaint against you, that the Board has opened an investigation against you, or that it has decided to file formal charges against you.
Help During Disciplinary Investigations
All of your education and training have prepared you to practice medicine. But it most likely has not prepared you for a situation where someone whose job it is to uncover evidence about misconduct allegations made against you is sitting across a conference room table from you and asking you one question after another about those allegations. It can be an extremely stressful experience – but one you can prepare for.
That is one of the areas where the experienced attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help you. There are ways to prepare for interviews in disciplinary investigations. We may go over the kinds of questions you can expect to be asked about your case. We may practice having you listen carefully to the question you’re asked, then taking time to make sure the question was clear before you focus your answer on just that question. The goal in these cases is to make sure you only answer the question you were asked, and that you understand it before you respond.
We can also be there while the interview is taking place, making sure that the questions the investigator is asking are fair, and helping you clarify any that are unclear or unfair. With so much at stake, it is important that your rights are protected throughout the interview – and throughout the entire investigation.
Our experienced attorneys can help in other ways during the investigation. We can sometimes conduct our own investigation where it appears that the Board’s investigator is missing or disregarding evidence that could be used to defend you against the misconduct allegations you’re facing. We can also help in more ordinary ways; reviewing investigator requests for documents and other information and helping you locate and produce it; making sure you don’t miss any deadlines that the Board may set during the process; and acting as your point of contact with the investigator and the Board, so that you can focus on practicing medicine instead of fielding phone calls or emails.
After the Investigation
The investigator will prepare a report for the Board when the investigation is over that sets forth the evidence the investigator has collected relating to the allegations made against you. The Board will use this to decide how to proceed. In some cases, the evidence will not be sufficient, and the Board will dismiss the matter. In other cases, the Board may decide to bring formal charges against you.
The vast majority of cases where the Board has charged a physician with misconduct are resolved by way of a negotiation that ends with a written agreement between the physician and the Board. It can be enormously helpful at this point to be working with an attorney who has negotiated similar settlements in similar situations. This is what the experienced attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team do on a regular basis.
Our attorneys understand the concerns that the State Medical Board of Ohio will have if it believes the physician has committed some kind of misconduct. Because we negotiate so many of these types of cases, we can focus our negotiations on addressing the Board’s concerns, while also focusing on protecting your ability to continue to practice medicine in Greater Cleveland.
The Formal Hearing
When a disciplinary case is not resolved through negotiations, it will proceed to a formal hearing. The Board will issue a formal citation against you, which you can accept (along with the proposed sanction). Alternatively, you have two other options: to proceed on paper or to proceed via a formal “live” hearing. You will want the advice of an experienced professional license defense attorney when it comes to this point; the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Attorneys can help.
If the matter is going forward on paper, a set of proposed findings of fact and a proposed order will be prepared for the Board. It can accept this proposal or revise it. In either case, it will issue an order against the physician. If matters are proceeding by way of a formal hearing, both sides can present witnesses and evidence, and cross-examine the other side’s witnesses and contest the other side’s evidence. At the close of the hearing, the Hearing Examiner will prepare a report and recommendation. The Board will review this and can accept it or revise it.
Potential Outcomes
The best outcome of any disciplinary proceeding, of course, is when the Board dismisses the matter. The other outcomes that can result are less favorable. They include:
- A formal reprimand issued against the physician
- The physician is placed on probation for a period of time, sometimes with reporting requirements
- The physician’s license is suspended for a certain time period, or in some cases until the physician has met certain conditions set by the Board (for example, completion of one or more continuing education courses)
- The physician’s license is revoked permanently
- The physician is fined, from $1000 to $20,000
Because most disciplinary outcomes are public, even a minor one can have an impact on your reputation, particularly if local news media become aware of it.
At the LLF National Law Firm, our main goal when we represent a physician accused of misconduct is always to protect their license and their ability to practice medicine. That focus and our experience can make a big difference when it comes to the outcome of your case.
The LLF National Law Firm Can Defend Your Medical License in Greater Cleveland
Whether you practice medicine in one of Greater Cleveland’s larger cities or in nearby towns such as Green, Tallmadge, Berea, or Parma, you need a strong defense if you are a physician who has been accused of misconduct. Our attorneys regularly defend physicians and other licensed professionals accused of misconduct all across the US, including Ohio and the Greater Cleveland area. We understand the laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that apply in these stressful situations, and we are ready to defend you and protect your rights from start to finish.
Don’t wait if you’ve been accused of misconduct. Reach out to us using our online contact form, or by calling us at 888.535.3686. We will schedule a confidential consultation to go over your case in detail, answer your questions, and explain how we can help. At the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team, we are here to protect your rights and defend you against misconduct allegations that could derail your career.