Pain management providers dedicate their professional lives to a mission that could not be more important. Acute and chronic pain can sap one’s life of joy and meaning, and even has the potential to end lives directly or indirectly. The LLF National Law Firm Professional License Defense Team could not be prouder to help pain management providers fight for their licenses and careers.
At the same time, helping those in the pain management space is a uniquely complex and challenging undertaking. For one, “pain management” is a field that involves several professions, including physicians, nurses, mental health service providers, and allied health professionals.
We also know that the field of pain management remains affected by the stigma of the opioid crisis. This is a topic that ethical, committed providers are likely tired of. Unfortunately, the topic is also a relevant reality that manifests in material ways, including in the discipline of providers.
Our Professional License Defense Team is familiar with the field of pain management. We have also handled many cases involving licensed professionals throughout Maryland. With a reputation for competence and dedication, we are the team to call right away if your license is in jeopardy for any reason.
Call the LLF National Law Firm Professional License Defense Team today at 888-535-3686 or contact us online.
First, Let’s Address the Elephant in the Pain Management Provider’s Treatment Rooms
It is important that we establish the backdrop that casts a shadow over every pain management provider—not just in Maryland, but nationwide. Here are a few realities that we must confront when handling license-related issues within the field of pain management:
- The opioid crisis will remain relevant for the foreseeable future: Maryland residents, including but not limited to those in Baltimore, are well aware of the toll of the opioid crisis. In 2017, Maryland’s governor declared the opioid crisis (which has contributed to epidemics in heroin and fentanyl use) to be a state of emergency. We cannot discuss pain management licensing issues—including stricter regulatory oversight and allegations of provider misconduct—without addressing the ever-present shadow of this ongoing opioid crisis.
- A regulatory clamp-down has squeezed many providers: The Prescriber Limits Act of 2017 is one of Maryland’s legislative responses to the opioid crisis. This legislation mandates that providers “prescribe the lowest effective dose of an opioid,” while also placing other conditions on prescribing practices. Such rules are a justifiable response to the negligent oversight that fomented the opioid crisis. However, these regulations—which include plenty of subjectivity—provide more opportunity for providers to be disciplined.
- Some providers may suffer personally for the “greater good” of the pain management field as a whole: Because regulators have taken justified flak for past failures to protect patients from dangerous prescribing practices, we should be wary of overcorrections. Some providers may be at risk of becoming an “example” of how “seriously” regulators are now taking their oversight of the pain management field. Nobody should ever suffer overly punitive discipline because of the sins of others—that is the belief that inspires our aggressive defensive strategies.
- Skepticism about providers’ intentions can taint disciplinary proceedings: The stain of “pill mills,” and the types of providers who allowed those mills to operate, continues to seed doubt about pain management providers’ intentions. Ethical providers may feel that regulators have presumed their guilt, and that presumption can make the license defense process all the more challenging.
Our Professional License Defense Team recognizes these realities (and hurdles). We have seen them manifest in the licensing issues we have helped providers with.
Our team operates with complete awareness of the layered backdrop that informs pain-management regulation, and this ensures we are not caught off guard when advocating for our clients.
Who Might Qualify as a Pain Management Provider in Maryland?
Rather than a specific field of practice (like oncology or otolaryngology), pain management is a class of techniques. These techniques cross professional lines, so a pain management professional could be a:
- Physician
- Nurse
- Interventional pain specialist
- Mental health service provider
- Behavioral health specialist
- Rehabilitation and physical therapy provider
From physiatrists and orthopedic surgeons to psychiatrists and chiropractors, the spectrum of pain management providers is substantial.
If you are a licensed professional in the pain management field, and you feel your professional license or reputation is at risk, we want to help. Whether you work in Baltimore, Frederick, Bowie, Hagerstown, Annapolis, or anywhere else in Maryland, our firm is available to you.
Which Regulatory Authorities, Then, Might Be Involved in Such Providers’ Licensing Issues?
The range of regulatory bodies that oversee pain management providers reflects the range of providers themselves. When we represent a pain management provider in Maryland, we may be dealing with:
- The Maryland Board of Physicians
- Maryland Board of Nursing
- The Maryland Board of Examiners of Psychologists
- Maryland Board of Physical Therapy Examiners
- Maryland Board of Occupational Therapy Practice
- Maryland Board of Chiropractic Examiners
Whether you work for Johns Hopkins Medicine, provide rehab out of patients’ homes, or fulfill another professional role in Maryland, you have a licensing authority to answer to. You may even answer to multiple authorities, and we will be your representative with such immensely powerful entities.
Types of Self-Made Problems That Can Jeopardize a Provider’s License in Maryland
Any professional who is in a patient-centered field faces near-constant scrutiny. Their conduct is constantly viewed in the context of whether they are fit to care for patients.
Pain management providers sometimes appear superhuman, but they are not. Your license, livelihood, and reputation could be at risk because of:
Mistakes or Judgment Lapses That Lead to Misconduct Allegations
This is not to say that every misconduct allegation results from a provider’s poor judgment or mistake. Some allegations are baseless.
Yet, our Professional License Defense Team steps in to mitigate harm when a provider:
- Fails to maintain accurate documentation or paperwork (particularly in prescribing, which is closely monitored)
- Crosses a professional boundary (even out of good intentions)
- Makes a billing mistake
- Engages in care outside the scope of their license
Licenses are conditional. If a provider in any field of care is accused of failing to meet those professional conditions, they should anticipate discipline and engage our Professional License Defense Team to protect them.
A Substance Use Disorder
Proximity to controlled substances, stress, and long hours are among the risk factors for substance abuse—risk factors most pain management providers see in their own lives.
If you have suffered from a substance use disorder, your professional board could handle the issue compassionately. Conversely, the board might decide you have violated a rule that it cannot simply forgive.
Whether we are seeking to enroll you in a treatment-focused alternative-to-discipline (ATD) program, defend you from an attempt to discipline you, or seek another resolution, we will give you our all (and do so compassionately).
Administrative Problems
Pain management providers may be required to:
- Complete a specific amount of continuing medical education (CME) at regular intervals
- Maintain a Maryland Controlled Dangerous Substances (CDS) registration and any other required registrations
- Comply with the Maryland Prescription Drug Monitoring Program
- Abide by all recordkeeping requirements
- Report developments that they are legally required to report
- Renew their license as necessary
This is a lot to keep up with, especially given other professional and personal obligations. If a provider loses track of any administrative obligation, serious license-related ramifications can follow.
Legal Problems
Criminal convictions or non-compliance with court-ordered arrangements can cause significant professional problems for pain management providers.
Our Professional License Defense Team is focused on professional issues, but we understand how professional problems often arise from other problems—whether it’s a conviction, a struggle with substances, or another root cause. And sometimes, a professional problem is a standalone issue. We are positioned to help providers in both cases.
A Provider’s Career Can Also Be Derailed by a Problem Someone Else Create
Sometimes, we have to present a Maryland professional license defense for a problem the provider had absolutely no role in causing.
These circumstances are no less threatening to a provider’s career and reputation, and can include:
- False accusations of misconduct, which may stem from misunderstandings or even malice by the complainant
- Mistakes by parties working on behalf of private or public institutions involved in professional regulation (possibly including the professional board that oversees the provider’s license)
- Delays or total breakdowns in communication, with one example being a failure to report a provider’s progress in completing continuing medical education (CME) progress
Providers in the field of pain management rely on many systems, including but not limited to the Maryland Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. A provider also trusts that people, including patients and peers, are operating in good faith.
Systemic breakdowns, malicious complaints, and other hazards that a provider cannot control should not cause harm to that provider—and yet they can.
Even if you feel your present professional quandary is unfair, contact our Professional License Defense Team right away.
We Will Provide a Strategy Tailored to Your Problem and Your Profession’s Regulatory Bodies
Whether a pain management provider is in Rockville, College Park, Baltimore, or another locale in Maryland, they are bound by laws, administrative procedures, and other rules that extend statewide. However, applicable laws and procedures vary based on the board that regulates your profession and the particular problem you’re facing.
Our Professional License Defense Team provides strategies tailored to each pain management provider we represent, which generally requires us to:
- Gather all relevant information about the particular problem the provider has tasked us with resolving
- Learning of the provider’s relationship with their licensing board, including any disciplinary history
- Inform the provider of how we have resolved similar problems in the past (and the various strategies that may be available for resolving their problem)
- Consider the provider’s employment circumstances, and explain how those circumstances may be relevant to our strategy
- Identify any proceedings we know will lie ahead, and provide the provider with instructions specific to those proceedings
- Solicit the provider’s feedback and answer their questions
Whether you work for the University of Maryland Medical System, Frederick Health, a small mental health service provider, Adventist HealthCare, yourself, or another employer matters. Your professional disciplinary history matters. Details matter, and we will ensure that every relevant detail is reflected in your case strategy.
We will be forthcoming in lending our advice and guidance. However, the provider has to be 100% comfortable with our strategy, as their career is the one we are fighting for.
What Kinds of Regulatory Procedures Should a Maryland-Based Provider Brace For?
Regulating pain management practice in Maryland is a complex undertaking. Different institutions oversee and resolve a broad range of issues, from a physician missing a license renewal deadline to a nurse facing a misconduct complaint and a chiropractor suffering from a substance use disorder.
We could not reasonably detail every license-related process that might lie ahead of you, but we will quickly examine how a medical provider in Maryland might address a misconduct complaint against them:
- The Maryland Board of Physicians takes up to six months to complete the preliminary review of a complaint
- A disciplinary panel representing the Board may close the case or refer it for a “full investigation”
- Following the investigation, the disciplinary panel may impose discipline against the physician
- The physician may then exhaust all available appeal avenues
This is a brief overview. In reality, procedures related to a pain management provider’s license are often complex, multifaceted, and unpredictable. Having our Professional License Defense Team on your side will help you maintain calm and composure throughout a process that flusters most.
We know how much you care about your career. You deserve a capable team of advocates who will show the same level of care for your career. We are experienced, versed in Maryland law, familiar with regulatory bodies that oversee pain management professionals, and determined to secure the outcome you seek
Call the LLF National Law Firm Professional License Defense Team today at 888-535-3686 or contact us online to discuss the problem you are facing and how we plan to help you resolve that problem.