Working as a licensed physical therapist in Delaware means you have accomplished quite a bit just to get to where you are today. You’ve spent years in college and graduate school absorbing the specialized education needed to qualify you for a physical therapist license, then many months of hands-on clinical training. You’ve studied for and passed the National Physical Therapy Examination, and have gathered and submitted the detailed information required by Delaware’s Examining Board of Physical Therapists and Athletic Trainers before receiving your physical therapist license.
In other words, you’ve spent a lot of time, effort, and money earning your physical therapist license. That is why it is so important to defend that license if you learn that you have been accused of misconduct. The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team understands what it takes to protect and defend physical therapist licenses in Delaware. Call us at 888.535.3686 or fill out our contact form so we can schedule a confidential consultation to discuss your case, and so you can learn more about how we can help protect your physical therapist license and your future.
Delaware Physical Therapist Licensing
In Delaware, physical therapist licenses are issued by the state’s Examining Board of Physical Therapists and Athletic Trainers. The Board, which is part of the Division of Professional Regulation, is responsible for protecting the public “from unsafe practices” and for maintaining “standards of professional competence and service delivery.” To deliver on these goals, the Board:
- Develops standards for professional competency
- Issues rules and regulations for physical therapists (and athletic trainers)
- Reviews misconduct allegations and, where appropriate, imposes disciplinary sanctions
The Board is also responsible for reviewing physical therapist license applications, issuing licenses, and renewing licenses where the licensee has met the renewal standards.
One thing that can stand in the way of the Board issuing or renewing a physical therapist’s license is a criminal conviction. In cases where a therapist has been convicted of a crime or is facing a criminal charge that has not yet been resolved, the Board will determine whether the crime is “substantially related to the practice of physical therapy.” Note that certain crimes are by law automatically deemed to be related to the practice of physical therapy.
A criminal conviction or charge – even one that counts as being substantially related to the practice of physical therapy – does not automatically disqualify the applicant from receiving a license or a license holder from having their license renewed. Instead, the Board will review information from “the appropriate authorities” about the conviction or charge and can allow a license to issue or renew where “a waiver would not create an unreasonable risk to public safety.”
The Professional License Defense Team can help you present your case to the Board if you have been convicted of or charged with a crime that could stand in the way of your physical therapist license. The Board is required to consider a number of factors when deciding whether a conviction or charge should stand in the way of a license, and our attorneys can help present your case in the best possible light, given your particular set of facts.
When it comes to misconduct complaints against physical therapists, it is the Division of Professional Regulation, or DPR, that reviews incoming complaints and investigates those that the Board and DPR have jurisdiction over. While the DPR will conduct the investigation, it will be the Board that reviews the results and determines whether to discipline the physical therapist.
What Delaware’s Examining Board of Physical Therapists and Athletic Trainers Does When it Comes to Regulating Physical Therapists
The Board has the responsibility to determine whether a physical therapist who has been accused of misconduct should be disciplined as a result of those accusations. The Board will review the information gathered by the DPR in connection with its investigation of misconduct claims, and based on that information, will decide whether to move forward with disciplinary proceedings against the physical therapist.
When the Board publicly disciplines a physical therapist, the disciplinary action will become part of the physical therapist’s public record and can be reviewed by anyone using the state’s Open Data Portal to search for the physical therapist’s license records. This is yet another reason to fight to protect your license from sanctions if you have been accused of misconduct. The Professional License Defense Team knows how important your reputation is to you, and we are here to protect your rights and to vigorously defend you when you’ve been accused of misconduct.
The Disciplinary Authority of Delaware’s Examining Board of Physical Therapists and Athletic Trainers
Delaware law provides a list of reasons that the Board can use to discipline physical therapists. Misconduct that can result in sanctions being imposed includes:
- Obtaining their license by way of fraud or misrepresentation
- Negligently practicing physical therapy
- Conviction of a crime that is “substantially related to the practice of physical therapy”
- Habitually using narcotics or other drugs
- Excessively consuming alcohol
- Being disciplined by the licensing board of another state
- Being found guilty of “unprofessional conduct,” including failing to meet “minimal standards of acceptable and prevailing physical therapy practice”
- Splitting fees for referrals
- Conviction of a felony sexual offence
- Violating any law, rule, or regulation related to the practice of physical therapy
- Failing to notify the Board of discipline from another state’s licensing board
- Making an inaccurate or false patient record
- Abusing patients – verbally, physically, mentally, or sexually
- Violating patient confidentiality rights
- Stealing drugs, supplies, or property belonging to a patient or a facility
- Failing to report misconduct by another licensee to the Board
The Board and the DPR follow certain procedures when a complaint is filed with the DPR about a physical therapist. Assuming that the complaint is about a matter that the Board regulates, the DPR will send the physical therapist a copy of the complaint. The physical therapist then has 20 days to send the DPR an answer to the complaint.
The best time to contact the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team about a misconduct complaint is the day you learn that someone has filed a complaint against you. How you respond to that complaint can make a difference in what actions the DPR takes against you. Our attorneys can review the facts of your case and work with you to draft an effective response to the complaint. If things move forward and the DPR investigates the matter further, we will be the point of contact with the DPR for you. We will make sure you respond to information requests in a timely way so that you cannot be accused of failing to cooperate. Our attorneys will keep you informed of what is happening with your case and will continuously be working to protect your rights and defend you and your license.
How Delaware’s Examining Board of Physical Therapists and Athletic Trainers Learns About Alleged Misconduct
The DPR and the Board both make it easy for anyone to file a complaint against a physical therapist in Delaware. There is a link on the DPR website that leads to a page with instructions on how to file a complaint, and the complaint form itself is available via an online portal. Many complaints come from patients and family members. They may also come from colleagues, because licensed physical therapists have an obligation to report misconduct committed by other physical therapists.
Licensees also self-report their own types of misconduct to the Board, particularly criminal charges and convictions, and discipline imposed on them by other states’ licensing bodies. It is important to understand that how you self-report these kinds of matters to the Board makes a difference. The Professional License Defense Team can help you make sure you provide the Board with the information the Board needs to fully consider how it should respond to a matter you self-report. By providing the Board with important context concerning the matter, we can increase the chances that any action the Board might take in response to your report will not include one that would prevent you from working as a physical therapist.
Investigations of Physical Therapist Misconduct Allegations in Delaware
As noted above, allegations of physical therapist misconduct in Delaware are investigated by the Division of Professional Regulation, which provides investigation services for a number of licensing bodies, including the Board of Physical Therapists and Athletic Trainers. The DPR has a process that it follows when it investigates allegations against physical therapists.
The DPR will, of course, consider any written response provided by the physical therapist to the notice that the DPR sends when a complaint is filed against the PT. In many cases, the response won’t answer all of the questions that the DPR may have about the matter. It will be assigned to an investigator, who may interview witnesses, including both the person who filed the complaint and the physical therapist accused of misconduct. Other people who may have helpful information may also be interviewed. The investigator may also gather relevant documents and take additional steps, such as site visits, as may be necessary.
It can be enormously helpful to have an experienced professional license defense attorney on your team during the investigation process. Most of us have little or no experience being interviewed by someone whose job it is to uncover information that could hurt our career and our reputation. These interviews can be very stressful, and going into one unprepared can mean giving incomplete or even inaccurate answers, all because of the stress of the situation.
The team can prepare you for your interview in advance, so you know what to expect, how to listen to the questions, and how to take the time to answer them calmly and properly. In addition, we can be there with you when you are interviewed, to make sure the investigator asks fair questions, and that you understand the questions before you answer them.
In some cases, we can also conduct our own investigation of the alleged misconduct, especially where we may be able to uncover information helpful to your case that the DPR investigator either missed or didn’t consider relevant.
When the investigation is complete, the DPR investigator will present their findings to the Board for review. The Board can choose to move forward with disciplinary proceedings, or may decide to dismiss the matter if there is not enough evidence to support a misconduct complaint. In some cases, the team may be able to negotiate matters with the Board at this relatively early stage, to resolve cases that should not go any further.
If, however, the Board decides to proceed with formal disciplinary proceedings, the state Attorney General’s office will become involved. Where the AG’s office agrees that matters should move forward, it will issue a formal complaint against the physical therapist.
Even when a formal complaint is issued, there is often still hope for an agreed-upon resolution to disciplinary cases. In fact, the vast majority of disciplinary proceedings against physical therapists and other professional licensees will settle, with the Board and the PT coming to an agreement on the terms of a consent order. The experienced attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team regularly negotiate consent orders on behalf of our clients. Our goal is always to protect our client’s PT license and to do everything we can so that our client can continue to work as a physical therapist.
Cases that don’t settle will move forward to a formal hearing, which will be very much like a court proceeding. Both sides can have witnesses testify in support of their case, can cross-examine the other side’s witnesses, and can introduce other evidence in support of their side. At the close of the hearing, the hearing officer will present their findings and recommendations to the Board. The Board will then make a final decision based on the results of the hearing and the hearing officer’s report.
Board sanctions against a physical therapist can include:
- A letter of reprimand
- Probation, with a requirement that the PT report regularly to the Board, or limit their practice of physical therapy as directed by the Board
- Suspension of the license, sometimes with terms that the PT must meet before the suspension is lifted
- Revocation of the license, which may be permanent
- Fines, up to $500 per violation
In cases where a physical therapist has a substance abuse issue, the Board may require the PT to successfully complete a substance abuse program before allowing them to return to work.
The LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team Can Help Protect Your Physical Therapist License in Delaware
If you are notified that a misconduct complaint has been filed against you in Delaware, one that could have a serious impact on your reputation and your ability to practice physical therapy in the state, you need the help of an experienced professional license defense attorney. The Professional License Defense Team understands the laws, rules, regulations, and procedures that apply in physical therapist misconduct proceedings in Delaware.
We regularly help Delaware physical therapists and other licensed professionals defend their licenses and their livelihoods in misconduct investigations and disciplinary proceedings. Our attorneys understand how important your license is to you, and we are ready to protect your rights and fight for your license and your future.
To learn more about how the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help you protect your physical therapist license in Delaware, call us today at 888.535.3686 or fill out our contact form, and we will schedule a confidential consultation. Tell us about your case, and let us explain how we can help.