If you are working in the greater St. Louis area as a dentist, you know exactly how much work it has taken for you to earn your dental license so that you can practice dentistry. You’ve spent decades in school earning your undergraduate and dental degrees, and may have completed a residency program. You’ve worked hard to study for and pass the National Board Dental Examination and one or more other exams, depending on whether you are licensed in Missouri or Illinois.
In other words, you’ve invested a lot of your life and probably a lot of your money into securing your dental license. That’s why it is vital that you take serious steps to protect yourself and your dental license if you have been accused of misconduct relating to your dental practice. The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is ready to help you do that. Fill out our online contact form or call us at 888.535.3686, and we will schedule a confidential consultation. Tell us about your case, and let us tell you how we can help defend your license and your future.
Dentists in Greater St. Louis
With well over a thousand dentists in the greater St. Louis area, which extends across the Mississippi River into neighboring Illinois, there are many dental care providers that patients can choose from. With that in mind, and the understanding that dentists tend to make a good living compared to the general population, it is clear that when your dental license is threatened by a misconduct complaint, there is the real possibility that your livelihood will suffer as a result.
Of course, patients have options when it comes to choosing their dental care provider. Even if your license is not suspended or revoked as a result of a disciplinary investigation by the Missouri Dental Board or the Illinois Division of Professional Regulation (depending on where you are licensed), if you are publicly disciplined, that will go on your record. In addition to the information being available through a license search, local online news outlets are increasingly on the lookout for stories about area professionals that they can use to boost readership.
With this kind of information being so easily available, it is all the more important that you take affirmative steps to defend yourself if you have been accused of misconduct. Don’t rely on the dental board’s investigator to “do the right thing” and find that the allegations against you are unfounded. Don’t hope for the best but do nothing to protect your rights. Instead, contact the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team.
We know how to protect your rights and how to defend your license when you’ve been accused of misconduct. Let us be the ones to communicate with your licensing board during the disciplinary process. We will make sure you meet any deadlines that arise. We’ll help you gather and produce relevant information that the board’s investigator asks for. We can prepare you for your interview with the investigator (which will almost certainly happen). And through it all, we will defend your rights and your best interests so that you can focus on your dental practice.
Disciplinary Actions Against Dentists in Greater St. Louis
Whether you work in St. Louis itself, a nearby Missouri suburb such as Saint Charles, Clayton, Chesterfield, or Creve Coeur, or in one of the nearby Illinois towns such as Collinsville, Belleville, Edwardsville, or Alton, you can be disciplined by the licensing board that regulates dentists in your area. As noted above, in Missouri it’s the Missouri Dental Board, and in Illinois it’s the state’s Division of Professional Regulation. While each state has its own laws and regulations that govern dentist discipline, both states will sanction dentists who are found to have committed similar types of misconduct.
Some of the typical types of misconduct for which dentists in the greater St. Louis area can be disciplined include:
- Practicing dentistry while under the influence of drugs or alcohol
- Conviction of a crime that relates to the qualifications, functions, or duties of practicing dentistry
- Deception in connection with securing their license
- Fraudulent billing practices of various types
- Negligence or incompetence in the practice of dentistry
- Violating any law relating to the practice of dentistry
- Violating any order of the licensing board
- Being disciplined by any licensing body in another state
- Disclosing patient confidential information when not authorized to do so
- False advertising in any of a number of forms
- Violating any state or federal drug laws
- Failing to properly protect patients from infection or disease
- Splitting fees in exchange for a referral
- Being unable to practice dentistry competently for any of a number of reasons
That said, dental licensing boards have limited jurisdiction to pursue discipline against dentists. That means that they do not have the power to investigate every complaint that they receive. A complaint about a billing dispute that does not allege the dentist committed fraud, for example, is one type of case that licensing boards will typically not pursue. Similarly, if a patient complains that a receptionist treated them rudely, the relevant board is not likely to move forward with the matter.
On the other hand, a complaint about conduct that appears to fall into any of the categories listed above will likely result in the board assigning the matter to an investigator. The investigator will be responsible for reviewing the allegations and gathering evidence about those allegations that the board can use to decide whether to discipline the dentist. In almost every case, the investigator will want to interview you about the issues raised in the complaint, and may also want patient or office records from you.
It is not an enjoyable experience to find yourself the focus of the investigator’s attention. But if you don’t cooperate, you could face another misconduct claim from your licensing board – for failing to cooperate with the investigation. The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help you avoid sanctions for failing to cooperate. We can take care of much of the communication and effort involved in providing relevant documents, and while we can’t sit in your place at your interview, we can help you prepare for it so that you feel much more in control of the situation.
There are also situations where we may conduct our own investigation into the allegations on our client’s behalf. That’s because board investigators don’t always collect all of the relevant information about an allegation. If we can find evidence to support our client’s defense, we can deliver it to the investigator along with an explanation for why it is important to the case.
Not every investigation ends with the board moving forward with disciplinary proceedings against the accused dentist. The best-case scenario, of course, is one where the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is able to work with the board’s investigator to show that our client was not responsible for the alleged misconduct.
In other cases, the licensing board may decide to move forward with formal charges against the dentist. When that happens, it is extremely helpful to be working with an experienced attorney who understands the case and is immediately ready to defend you. This is why it is important to retain the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team as soon as you learn that someone has filed a misconduct complaint against you.
Help During Disciplinary Investigations
As a dentist, you are used to being in control of the conversation much of the time, while your patients sit, some more patiently than others, as you conduct your examination and provide treatment. When you are sitting across the table from your licensing board’s investigator, however, things may feel flipped. It can be a very stressful experience to have someone asking you questions about allegations that you have committed misconduct.
Your attorney from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help. We regularly prepare clients for the unfamiliar and stressful interview process, and can show you how you can feel more in control of the situation. This may involve a bit of practice. For example, you need to listen very carefully to the interviewer’s question and make sure you understand it. Then focus your answer only on that question. This helps keep the interview record clear so that both sides can use it.
You can also ask questions, particularly if you don’t understand what the interviewer is asking. Not every investigator is good at asking a clear question. And, in most cases, we can be there by your side to help make sure you only answer clear, fair questions that you understand.
There are other ways our attorneys can help during the investigation process. We can be the board’s point of communication with you, so that you do not have to field every message that the board sends about the case. We can also help you find documents and other information that responds to the board’s fair requests, and gather and produce the responsive information within the time frame requested by the board.
All of this helps you focus on providing quality dental care to your patients, instead of running around responding to the investigator’s information requests or worrying about the next deadline in your case. We are here to protect your rights, defend you against the allegations you’re facing, and make what can be a months-long process a bit easier to deal with.
After the Investigation
The investigator will typically prepare a report to the licensing board, which will make a decision whether to move forward with disciplinary charges based on the information in the report.
In some cases, the investigator’s report will not support further disciplinary action against the dentist, and the board will elect to dismiss the case. That, of course, is the ideal situation, and is more likely to happen if you have been represented by an experienced license defense attorney during the investigation.
In most cases, however, the licensing board will move forward with disciplinary charges against the dentist. The board will notify the dentist of the allegations it is making against the dentist, and will often propose one or more sanctions for the alleged misconduct.
This is where working with an experienced attorney from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can really pay off. That is because the vast majority of dentist disciplinary matters are resolved through negotiation, not through a formal hearing. Our attorneys regularly negotiate with licensing boards all across the country on behalf of our professional clients. We understand the concerns that these boards have – they are there to protect the health and safety of the public – and we are often able to use our experience to propose a resolution that protects the dentist’s license while still respecting the board’s role.
When disciplinary cases don’t settle, they proceed to an administrative hearing. The format of these will differ somewhat between Missouri and Illinois, but in large part, they will appear similar to court hearings in that both the board and the dentist will be able to introduce witnesses and evidence for their sides of the case, and can cross-examine the other side’s witnesses and dispute the other side’s evidence. When you are working with an experienced attorney from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team, you have someone on your side who understands the laws, regulations, and procedures that apply in these administrative hearings and will be able to provide you with a strong defense based on the facts of your case.
Potential Outcomes
Licensing boards typically have a lot of discretion when it comes to the kinds of sanctions that they can impose on dentists found to have committed misconduct. These sanctions will, of course, depend on the severity of the misconduct and, in some cases, whether there has been any misconduct by the dentist in the past.
Typical sanctions can include:
- A letter of warning or censure
- Probation, sometimes with reporting requirements or a requirement that the dentist take one or more continuing education courses
- Suspension of the dental license, for a definite period or until certain conditions, such as successful completion of substance abuse therapy, are met
- Revocation of the dental license
- A monetary fine
When the sanction is public, it will go on the dentist’s record, which can be publicly searched, both in Missouri and in Illinois.
The LLF National Law Firm Can Defend Your Dental License in Greater St. Louis
If you are facing a disciplinary investigation from the dental licensing board of either Missouri or Illinois, the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team is here to help you protect your dental license and your future. Our experienced attorneys regularly defend professional license holders all across the country who work in a wide range of professionally licensed fields. We know the laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that apply in dental license disciplinary investigations and proceedings in both Illinois and Missouri. When you work with us, you will have the benefit of our years of experience helping other license holders.
When your license, reputation, and livelihood are on the line, it makes sense to retain an experienced license defense attorney to protect your rights and defend you against the allegations you are facing. To learn more about how the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help you, fill out our online contact form or give us a call at 888.535.3686. We will schedule a confidential consultation where you can tell us about your case, and we can explain how we will help.