The Lento Law Firm Can Help If Your North Carolina Nurse's License Is in Jeopardy
Nursing in North Carolina can be a very rewarding career. But if North Carolina's Board of Nursing has just served notice on you of disciplinary charges against your nursing license, you likely have grave concerns for your career. License disciplinary proceedings can indeed cripple a professional career. Losing your North Carolina nursing license to discipline may well prevent you from practicing nursing not just in North Carolina but also elsewhere. North Carolina nursing license discipline could end your nursing career.
Don't ignore North Carolina Board of Nursing disciplinary charges. And don't retain unqualified local criminal defense representation. You instead need the skills and experience of a highly qualified professional license defense attorney. Retain the Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team and national license defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento to address your nursing license misconduct charges. Call 888.535.3686 or go online now for premier attorney representation for your best disciplinary outcome.
North Carolina Board of Nursing Mandatory Licensing
Under North Carolina's Nursing Practice Act, the North Carolina Board of Nursing regulates licensed practical nurses (LPNs), registered nurses (RNs), nurse midwives, nurse anesthetists, and clinical nurse specialists. The very first section of North Carolina's Nursing Practice Act, Section 90.171-19, mandates that you obtain and retain a nursing license from the Board if you intend to practice nursing in North Carolina: “The General Assembly of North Carolina finds that mandatory licensure of all who engage in the practice of nursing is necessary to ensure minimum standards of competency and to provide the public safe nursing care.” The Act's Section 90.171.43 goes on to specify the nursing license requirement, which is that no person may perform nursing practice in North Carolina without a license. The Act's Section 90.171.45 makes the unlicensed practice of nursing a misdemeanor crime. You must retain your North Carolina nursing license if you expect to practice nursing in North Carolina.
North Carolina Board of Nursing Disciplinary Authority
North Carolina's Nursing Practice Act authorizes the Board of Nursing to pursue disciplinary charges against any nurse violating the Board's nursing rules and standards. The Act's Section 90.171.23(b)(7) grants the Board of Nursing the power and duty to “determine and administer appropriate disciplinary action against all regulated parties who are found to be in violation of this Article or rules adopted by the Board.” The Act's Section 90.171.37 specifically authorizes the Board to revoke or suspend a nursing license, deny the license's renewal, or place a licensed nurse on probation, among other forms of license discipline. The same section authorizes the specific and general grounds for discipline.
North Carolina Board of Nursing Disciplinary Actions
North Carolina's Board of Nursing takes its license discipline obligations seriously. The Board regularly investigates and disciplines the licenses of its nurses. Indeed, the Board publishes the names, license discipline, and misconduct findings of the hundreds of nurses whom the Board disciplines annually. Those disciplinary action reports show the many and widely varying grounds on which North Carolina's Board of Nursing disciplines nurses. Do not underestimate the Board's willingness to discipline you if you face the Board's disciplinary charges.
Increased North Carolina Board of Nursing Scrutiny
Your nursing practice in a North Carolina hospital, clinic, home, or other healthcare setting is in a highly regulated environment. North Carolina Board of Nursing officials take seriously their duty to protect the public. For example, North Carolina Board of Nursing officials cooperated with the FBI in its Operation Nightingale investigation into over 7,600 nurses who allegedly used fraudulent nursing credentials for licensure. Hospital industry updates indicated that North Carolina's Board of Nursing actively investigated North Carolina nurses implicated in that credentials scandal. If you face North Carolina disciplinary charges relating to your educational credentials or on any other grounds, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team for your skilled and experienced representation. Call 888.535.3686 or go online now to retain highly qualified defense counsel.
Value Your North Carolina Board of Nursing License
The extraordinary value of your North Carolina nursing license warrants that you defend your nursing license with appropriate commitment, urgency, and resources. Consider your substantial investment in your nursing education, training, NCLEX examination, and state licensure. Those accomplishments didn't just fall into your lap unbidden. You instead devoted your full attention and resources to each of those professional achievements. Your nursing practice in North Carolina has added to your practical knowledge and skills. Your nursing income proves the financial value of your investment, especially considering your future years of nursing employment. You also have personal and professional reasons to value your North Carolina nursing license highly, beyond the financial reasons. Your family, employer, patients, and community also highly value your nursing practice. The Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team is available in North Carolina to help you preserve and protect your investment. Appreciate all you have at stake when facing disciplinary charges.
What North Carolina Board of Nursing Charges Mean
North Carolina Board of Nursing charges mean you face allegations of professional misconduct, not professional misconduct findings. Allegations may rest on guesses, speculation, and conjecture rather than personal observations. Allegations may be beyond the complainant's expertise, such as when a patient or patient's family member complains of substandard nursing practice without any nursing education or training. Allegations may also be based on mistakes, such as when a colleague or supervisor believes you practiced while intoxicated, when instead prescription medication, fatigue, or other innocent circumstances influenced your demeanor. Disciplinary officials often expect an accused nurse to come forward with exonerating and mitigating evidence. You should trust and respect the disciplinary process by retaining highly qualified defense counsel to advocate for you. Call the Lento Law Firm at 888.535.3686 or contact the Firm online here for skilled and experienced representation.
The Nature of North Carolina Nursing Board Disciplinary Charges
North Carolina nursing license disciplinary charges are not criminal court charges. You do not face incarceration. And North Carolina nursing license disciplinary charges are not civil court claims for your nursing malpractice liability. You do not face a money judgment against you for a patient's injury. But license disciplinary charges can be just as serious, depending on your circumstances. In the worst case, disciplinary charges can cost you your nursing job and career, whereas criminal and civil court disputes do not generally have those goals or seek those consequences. License disciplinary cases also proceed in an administrative tribunal before a hearing officer rather than in court before a jury and judge. License disciplinary rules and procedures are thus all different from court rules and procedures, which is another reason why you should retain the Lento Law Firm's highly qualified professional license defense representation for the best outcome to your proceeding.
Increased Stakes of North Carolina Board of Nursing Charges
Unfortunately, you also have more than your North Carolina nursing practice at stake in a North Carolina nursing license disciplinary proceeding. North Carolina is among the thirty-nine states participating in the Nurse Licensure Compact. The good news is that your North Carolina nursing license qualifies you for licensed practice nurse (LPN) or registered nurse (RN) practice in other Compact states. But the bad news is that discipline of your North Carolina nursing license disqualifies you from nursing practice in those other Compact states. North Carolina disciplinary officials will report your discipline, if it occurs, to the Compact's national Nursys database. Employers anywhere in the U.S. can search that database to find your discipline. So, too, may licensing officials in other states where you may plan on seeking a nursing license. Defend your North Carolina nursing license to the fullest extent with the best available license defense representation, rather than lose your ability to pursue your nursing career throughout the U.S.
What Allegations Put a North Carolina Nursing License at Risk?
Professionals in all fields face common license disciplinary issues. Nurses, though, practice in an extraordinary environment where their patients are often diseased, distressed, and facing demise. Those and other risks peculiar to healthcare practices mean that nurses can have peculiar needs for nursing license defense, well beyond the ordinary risks that other professionals face. Section 90.171.37 of North Carolina's Nursing Practice Act authorizes the Board of Nursing discipline on the following specific and general grounds, many of which are so broad and vague as to make disciplinary charges especially subjective. One of the primary roles of highly qualified defense counsel is to ensure a precise specification of the disciplinary charges so that you know what you face and must refute in your disciplinary proceeding. The Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team is available in North Carolina to defend your nursing license against any of the following misconduct charges:
- giving false information or withholding material information from the Board in procuring or attempting to procure a license to practice nursing. This ground is the one on which the Board would discipline a nurse identified in the FBI's Operation Nightingale credentials scandal;
- conviction or guilty or nolo contendere plea to any crime indicating that the nurse is unfit or incompetent to practice nursing or that the nurse has deceived or defrauded the public. If you face criminal charges, retain a highly qualified license defense attorney to ensure that the outcome of those charges does not affect your nursing license;
- inability to practice nursing with reasonable skill and safety to patients by reason of illness, excessive use of alcohol, drugs, chemicals, or any other type of material, or by reason of any physical or mental abnormality. North Carolina's Board of Nursing offers a Drug Monitoring Program to divert nurses from license discipline. But do not consent to program participation without first consulting a highly qualified license defense attorney. Your failure or inability to complete program terms could result in license suspension or revocation;
- engaging in conduct that endangers public health. Allegations that you engaged in domestic violence, other acts of violence, drunk driving, or threats of violence, or that you violated rules having to do with your infectious disease could result in endangerment charges;
- unfitness for or incompetence in nursing practice by reason of deliberate or negligent acts or omissions, regardless of injury to any patient. Expert nursing consultant review and testimony may be necessary to refute allegations of incompetence, which is another reason to retain highly qualified defense counsel with a network of professional consultants;
- engaging in conduct that deceives, defrauds, or harms the public in the course of professional activities or services;
- engaging in unprofessional conduct that is nonconforming to the standards of acceptable and prevailing nursing practice or the ethics of the nursing profession, even without patient injury. Like allegations of incompetence, allegations of substandard care can require expert consultant review and refutation;
- acts of dishonesty, injustice, or immorality in the course of the licensee's practice or otherwise, including acts outside of the state. Once again, this category can be extremely broad, reaching things like the failure to pay taxes, failure to pay child support, refusal to provide nursing services allegedly based on unlawful discrimination, and allegations of domestic violence or sexual harassment;
- revocation of a nursing license or other nursing license discipline by another jurisdiction;
- failing to respond to the Board's disciplinary investigation and inquiries in a reasonable time and manner regarding any matter affecting the license to practice nursing; or
- violating any other Board standard or rule.
What Is the Disciplinary Process for North Carolina Nurses?
Section 90.171.37 of North Carolina's Nursing Practice Act authorizes North Carolina's Board of Investigation to follow the Act's procedures for disciplining nurses. The Nursing Practice Act identifies those procedures in that statutory section and elsewhere. Those procedures must meet minimum notice and hearing requirements that constitutional due process imposes. North Carolina disciplinary officials may not revoke your nursing license without notifying you of what you allegedly did wrong and giving you a chance to dispute the allegations. Those procedures are generally as follows.
North Carolina Board of Nursing Complaints
Section 90.171.47 of North Carolina's Nursing Practice Act urges “any person who has reasonable cause to suspect misconduct or incapacity of a licensee or who has reasonable cause to suspect that any person is in violation of” Board of Nursing standards to report that suspected violation to the Board. In other words, complaints may come from anywhere, including patients, their family members, colleagues, supervisors or subordinates, the public, media reports, and court filings. Section 90.171.47 grants immunity from liability for false reports made in good faith. Disciplinary officials will preliminarily review allegations for merit. Retain the Lento Law Firm's highly qualified defense counsel the moment you learn of a complaint against your license. Time can be of the essence in heading off impending disciplinary charges with your own exonerating and mitigating evidence.
North Carolina Board of Nursing Investigations
Section 90.171.37 of North Carolina's Nursing Practice Act authorizes the Board of Nursing to initiate an investigation whenever receiving a complaint or other information of a suspected nursing standards violation. Disciplinary officials ordinarily notify the accused nurse of the investigation except in rare circumstances where notice could result in adverse reactions. The Board invites nurses under investigation to retain qualified defense counsel who must send a letter of representation to the investigator, who will thereafter communicate through counsel. Once again, your retained defense attorney may be able to supply the investigator with your exonerating and mitigating evidence in a way that avoids a disciplinary hearing. The investigator will gather witness statements, records, and other information to produce an investigation report. You and your attorney have the right to review the investigator's evidence. Section 90.171.37C makes all investigation materials confidential.
North Carolina Board of Nursing Consent Agreements
A consent agreement may be a good option for you to resolve your North Carolina nursing license disciplinary charges, depending on the agreement's terms and conditions. Section 90.171.37 of North Carolina's Nursing Practice Act gives the Board of Nursing authority to resolve a disciplinary case by requiring “satisfactory completion of treatment programs or remedial or educational training.” A consent agreement means that you avoid a formal hearing and the risk of discipline in the hearing decision. Both the Board's disciplinary officials and you, through your Lento Law Firm representative, may propose and negotiate acceptable terms and conditions.
North Carolina Board of Nursing Consent Agreement Risks
But do not accept the Board's terms and conditions without retaining highly qualified defense counsel to review the agreement. Consent agreements routinely include a term that authorizes license suspension or revocation automatically on the nurse's failure or inability to satisfy the terms and conditions. While you may hope or even be optimistic that you can do so, you should have more than hope or optimism, or your consent agreement may have set you up for failure. Your highly qualified Lento Law Firm defense attorney can help you evaluate whether you are confident and even sure to meet the agreement's terms and conditions to avoid license revocation. The Lento Law Firm's Defense Team may also be able to help you negotiate a safer and more favorable agreement.
North Carolina Board of Nursing Formal Hearings
Section 90.171.47 of North Carolina's Nursing Practice Act authorizes the Board of Nursing to notify an accused nurse that the Board intends to proceed with a formal hearing. Section 90.171.37A authorizes the Board of Nursing to designate three of its members to conduct the disciplinary hearing. The Board's representative presents evidence against you at the hearing while you and your retained attorney present your defense evidence. Our Team's attorneys may cross-examine the opposing witnesses and research, draft, and file a hearing brief arguing the law and evidence.
North Carolina Board of Nursing Decision
Under Section 90.171.37A of North Carolina's Nursing Practice Act, a majority of the hearing committee's members decide the charges. The hearing committee must write a decision that includes findings of fact and conclusions of law so that the parties can examine the results and rationale. The hearing committee's decision is only a recommendation to the full Board of Nursing, which must approve or reject the decision before its implementation. Section 90.171.37A gives you and your retained attorney the right to submit written exceptions to the hearing committee's decision. The Board of Nursing adopts or rejects the findings by a majority vote.
North Carolina Board of Nursing Appeals
Section 90.171.37B of North Carolina's Nursing Practice Act grants you an appeal from an adverse disciplinary decision of the Board of Nursing. You and your Lento Law Firm attorney must file your appeal in the superior court of the county in which you reside, or the Board of Nursing has its office, within thirty days of the Board's decision. Our Defense Team will then research, draft, and submit an appeal brief summarizing the record and specifying the error that warrants the decision's reversal. The Board will respond with its own appeal brief. Appeals are highly technical forms that require our Team's skilled and experienced administrative license defense counsel.
Why You Need a Nursing License Defense Attorney in North Carolina
Protective procedures are one thing. Strategically implementing them to their best effect in your defense is another thing. Nurses generally lack the legal and procedural skills for self-representation in licensing proceedings. Self-representation is also always unwise because of the accused nurse's clouded judgment and inability to objectively assess options. But the better reason for retaining a highly qualified defense attorney is that the disciplinary officials working against you are themselves career professionals with substantial experience in implicating unrepresented nurses in misconduct. Those officials also have unlimited resources. Those officials also need only prove your charges by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning that you must come forward with your own evidence at least equal to the weight of the evidence they present against you. You have no presumption of innocence. You are not at all on a level playing field but are instead at a distinct and crippling disadvantage when unrepresented.
License Defense Team for North Carolina Board of Nursing Charges
Your best move is to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team and national license defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento to strategically defend your Board of Nursing disciplinary charges. Do as hundreds of other professionals nationwide have done. Trust the Lento Law Firm's Professional License Defense Team. Call 888.535.3686 or go online now.
