You worked and studied long and hard to earn your nursing degree, pass the NCLEX, and qualify for nursing practice. When you finally reached the point of applying for your license, you must have felt great relief and great anticipation. To face state nursing board disciplinary charges alleging that you claimed false credentials, qualifications, or experience on your license application must be crushing, just as you felt you were crossing the finish line to a rewarding practice. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team to defend against your false credentials disciplinary charges. Don't let disciplinary charges destroy everything for which you've worked. Let us help you preserve and protect your nursing practice.
Nursing Board Interests in Qualifying Credentials
Your state nursing board certainly has a strong interest in ensuring that you have the education, examination, and other credentials to meet its license requirements. Don't doubt your state nursing board's commitment to ensure that you are safe, fit, and competent for nursing practice. Your state nursing board has a mission and duty to protect patients and the public against unsafe and incompetent nursing. For example, the Virginia Board of Nursing's mission statement is to “ensure safe and competent patient care” through licensing nurses and enforcing nursing standards. Virginia Nurse Practice Act Section 54.1-3005 expressly establishes the Virginia Board of Nursing to “prescribe minimum standards” for nurse licensure. Your state nursing practice act will have similar provisions. Your state nursing board won't let you practice nursing without meeting its minimum standards. That's why it has a strong and legitimate interest in your qualifications. We can help you address and resolve qualifications issues.
State Nursing Board Application Requirements
Your state nursing practice act requires that you apply to your state nursing board on the forms and with the information and documentation that your state nursing board requires. See, for example, Section 43-26-7 of the Georgia Nurse Practice Act, requiring nurses seeking a license to apply on Georgia Board of Nursing forms. See also Texas Nurse Practice Act Section 301.252, requiring nurses seeking a license to submit to the Texas Board of Nursing “a sworn application that demonstrates the applicant's qualifications” meeting all license requirements. State nursing board officials examine license applications closely to ensure that the applicant nurse meets all statutory and regulatory requirements for licensing. Your application is the primary way in which your state nursing board carries out its patient and public protection mission. Our attorneys can help you address and resolve application issues.
State Nursing License Requirements
When you applied for your nursing license, your application likely had to show your nursing education, examination, and experience, as well as perhaps other matters like your qualifying age, criminal history, physical and mental fitness, and good moral character. State nursing practice acts list licensure requirements, typically including education, examination, and experience at a minimum. The just-cited Texas Nurse Practice Act Section 301.252, for example, requires the nurse's application to show good professional character for nursing, graduation from an approved nursing education program, and passage of a licensing exam that the Texas Board of Nursing approves. The Texas Board of Nursing requires the NCLEX to satisfy the examination requirement. The Texas Nurse Practice Act also authorizes the Board of Nursing to conduct a criminal history background check. Let us help you address and resolve issues you may have discerning and meeting your state nursing board's license requirements.
Nursing Board Authority to Discipline
If your state nursing board has charged you with discipline for credential fraud or other issues surrounding your license application, you should appreciate that the board has the state's authority to pursue and enforce your discipline. State nursing practice acts routinely grant the state nursing board the authority to discipline nursing license applicants and licensed nurses who violate state law or nursing board rules and standards. For example, Florida Nurse Practice Act Section 464.018 authorizes the Florida Board of Nursing to deny or discipline a license based on a long list of disciplinary grounds. Your state nursing board will have similar authority under a similar provision. Don't doubt your state nursing board's authority and willingness to pursue disciplinary charges against you and impose discipline for credential fraud or other rule and standard violations. Let us help you defend and defeat the charges.
Disciplinary Grounds Relating to Credential Fraud
State nursing board disciplinary officials cannot simply make up disciplinary standards as they go along. They must instead identify statutory or regulatory disciplinary grounds. They must look to their state nursing practice act or state nursing board administrative rules for the general or specific disciplinary grounds reaching the misconduct they are investigating.
State nursing practice acts routinely authorize discipline for credential fraud. The just-cited Florida Nurse Practice Act Section 464.018 is an example, authorizing discipline for “procuring” or “attempting to procure” a nursing license “by knowing misrepresentations,” causing the Florida Board of Nursing to issue a license to an unqualified applicant. The already-cited Virginia Nurse Practice Act Section 54.1-3007 is another example, authorizing discipline for “[f]raud or deceit in procuring or attempting to procure a license....” Indeed, state nursing practice acts often make credential fraud their first ground for discipline, as the Florida and Virginia nurse practice acts both do. The state nursing board disciplinary officials charging you with credential fraud for misrepresenting your qualifications or experience likely have plenty of state nursing practice act authority to do so. Get our help defending the charges.
Definition and Examples of Credential Fraud
To evaluate and defend your state nursing board credential fraud charges, you need to understand what credential fraud is. Fraud is a knowingly false representation or misleading omission made to induce another's reliance, causing harm or loss to the accused party's benefit. In the case of a nurse applying for a state nursing board license, credential fraud is knowingly making a false assertion of qualifying credentials or concealing disqualifying conditions to induce board officials to issue a license to an unqualified applicant. Examples might include an applicant deliberately and knowingly:
- Claiming graduation from an approved nursing school when the applicant did not graduate;
- Claiming a clean disciplinary record in nursing school when the applicant instead had a nursing school disciplinary record;
- Claiming nursing school graduation in good academic standing when the applicant instead has pending charges of academic misconduct;
- Claiming NCLEX passage when the applicant instead failed the NCLEX or failed to take it;
- Claiming NCLEX passage, when the applicant instead cheated on the exam or faces pending cheating charges;
- Claiming good moral character when the applicant instead has disqualifying criminal convictions;
- Claiming fitness for nursing practice when the applicant instead has mental or physical impairments or an impairing substance abuse, dependency, or addiction issue;
- Claiming clinical nurse experience or other relevant work experience when the applicant lacks the experience or has exaggerated its nature or duration;
- Claiming no record of prior license denial or discipline when other state nursing boards have already denied the applicant a license or disciplined licenses the applicant holds or held.
Purposeful Fraud Versus Innocent Mistakes
If it isn't already clear to you, a fine line exists between innocent mistakes on, or innocent omissions from, a state nursing board application on the one hand and guilty deceptions or deliberate omissions to conceal disqualifying information on the other hand. Credential fraud generally requires the wrongdoer's deliberate, purposeful, intentional, and dishonest misrepresentation. Innocent misstatements and accidental omissions should not count as credential fraud.
State nursing board officials should be making that distinction. However, board officials cannot see into an applicant's mind and soul. They must instead rely on inferences as to whether an applicant made an innocent mistake or deliberate deception. Details of the application itself may suggest one or the other. However, state nursing board officials may presume credential fraud in certain cases of clear misstatements, waiting for the applicant to come forward with an innocent explanation if one is credibly and authentically available.
Defenses to Credential Fraud Charges
Just because your state nursing board's officials have denied your license application or charged you with discipline based on alleged credential fraud does not mean that they have already finally determined your matter or even that they have substantial and convincing evidence of your misconduct. A disciplinary charge is an accusation, not a finding. You generally have the right to challenge a license denial or license disciplinary charge with your exonerating and mitigating evidence. We can help you do so. We may be able to raise any one or more of the following potential defenses to your credential fraud charges:
- Your state nursing board application was accurate, or you were unaware of the alleged inaccuracies;
- Others were responsible for the alleged inaccuracies, which they made without your knowledge;
- You could not correct the alleged inaccuracies without raising suspicions over altering documentation;
- You were unable to get recordkeepers to correct documentation inaccuracies;
- The alleged inaccuracies were innocent mistakes rather than purposeful misrepresentations;
- You supplied all requested documentation, and any documentation omissions were accidental, not purposeful concealment;
- You did not alter any documentation as the charges allege, and any alterations were the work of others, such as the submitting recordkeepers;
- You made the representations in the form you did based on the advice and direction of registrars or knowledgeable others on an uncertain question of fact;
- Circumstances changed after your application, making your accurate statements and documentation appear inaccurate; and,
- You were unaware of the changes in circumstances that made your application inaccurate and thus had no opportunity to update and correct it.
Credential Fraud Disciplinary Sanctions
Beware of the potentially severe consequences and impacts of license denial or discipline based on credential fraud. State nursing practice acts routinely authorize license denial or discipline up to license suspension or revocation for proven charges of credential fraud. The above-cited Florida and Virginia nurse practice acts are examples, each of which authorizes license denial, suspension, or revocation for credential fraud. If you already hold a state nursing board license, you could lose that license if board officials find you committed credential fraud in order to obtain it. If you have only applied for a license, board officials may reject your application based on credential fraud. If you hold licenses in other states, the state nursing boards issuing those licenses may suspend or revoke them based on your credential fraud in your current state of residence. Let us help you avoid these and other collateral impacts. Let us help you defend and defeat your credential fraud charges.
Procedural Protections on Credential Fraud Charges
Your state nursing practice act must provide you with procedural safeguards against disciplinary charges so that we can help you challenge the charges with your exonerating and mitigating evidence. You have a constitutional right to protect your nursing license and nursing practice interests. State nursing practice acts routinely offer hearings and appeals to satisfy your due process rights. Texas Nurse Practice Act Section 301.511 is an example, incorporating the state's Administrative Procedure Act assuring individuals of an adjudicative hearing in contested cases. We can invoke your hearing right to present your defense showing that you did not commit credential fraud and that you deserve your nursing license. If you have already lost your hearing, we can invoke your appeal rights and seek court review if necessary.
Premier License Defense Attorneys Available
If you face state nursing board disciplinary charges alleging that you presented false credentials for your license or renewal, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team now for your best disciplinary outcome. Our attorneys help hundreds of nurses and other healthcare professionals defend licensing board disciplinary proceedings nationwide. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for our skilled and experienced representation.
