As a psychiatrist working in the Portland area, which includes nearby cities such as Salem, Eugene, Hillsboro, and Beaverton, among others, you know how much time and effort it took you to earn your medical degree and your license to practice medicine from the Oregon Medical Board. Two decades worth of schooling, and years of residency and possibly more time completing a fellowship – not to mention studying for your licensing exam and, in some cases, your board certification test. In short, you may have invested nearly three decades just to be able to secure the right to practice psychiatry.
This is why it is vital that you take it seriously if you learn that a misconduct complaint has been filed against you with the Oregon Medical Board. Your reputation, your license, and your livelihood could be in jeopardy. And the chances of you facing serious disciplinary sanctions are far greater if you fail to properly protect your rights and defend yourself against misconduct allegations. This is why you should call the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team; so you have a professional on your side who knows what it takes to defend against misconduct allegations. Call us today at 888.535.3686, or fill out our contact form, and we will schedule a confidential consultation to learn more about your case and to explain how we can help.
Psychiatrists in the Portland Metro Area
There are hundreds of psychiatrists serving the more than three million people who live in the Portland metro area. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, psychiatrists in the region are very well-paid, with an annual mean wage of more than $280,000 in 2024. This gives you an even stronger incentive to take active steps to protect your rights and defend your license if you have been accused of misconduct. Your medical license and any board certification you have earned are probably your most valuable personal assets – and as with any asset, you need to take active steps to protect them if it is threatened in any way.
Even relatively minor disciplinary sanctions from the Oregon Medical Board can have an effect on your reputation and your livelihood. Most sanctions are public, and in some cases will make the local news reports. With psychiatry being such a personal profession, involving deep levels of communication and trust, any Board action that can cause patients and potential patients to question your ability to provide them with the best psychiatric care can end up harming your career for years to come.
Of course, what this means is that you need to protect your license if you have been accused of misconduct. The sooner you reach out to the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team, the better we will be able to help you understand what is likely to happen in your case; make sure you meet your obligation to cooperate with any Board investigation; conduct our own investigation if that may help us defend your license; and fight to protect your license and your future.
Disciplinary Actions Against Psychiatrists in the Portland Metro Area
The Oregon Medical Board takes seriously its role in protecting Oregon residents from physicians, including psychiatrists, who the Board determines have committed misconduct that could result in some sort of harm. While the Board can discipline medical professionals for a wide range of misconduct, Oregon law identifies some types of misconduct in particular that the Board is expected to sanction medical professionals for committing. These include:
- Disclosing patient confidential information without the patient’s consent to someone who is not entitled to know that information
- Committing “unprofessional or dishonorable conduct”
- Fraud or misrepresentation to a patient for purpose of securing payment of a fee
- Conviction of any crime that could result in the psychiatrist serving time in a state or federal prison
- Practicing while impaired by alcohol or drugs
- Making false statements in connection with their medical license application or renewal
- Making misleading statements about the effectiveness of a particular course of treatment
- Committing gross negligence or repeated instances of negligence while practicing psychiatry
- Practicing psychiatry while not competent to do so
- Being disciplined by another state’s licensing board, or failing to report any such discipline
- Willful violation of any provision of Oregon law regulating the practice of physicians; any rule adopted by the Board; or any Board order
- Failing to comply with a Board request
- Refusing to meet with the Board when requested to do so for an informal interview
- Violating the federal Controlled Substances Act
Not every complaint made to the Board will result in disciplinary action, however. Some complaints do not allege conduct that the Board regulates. For example, ordinary billing disputes that do not involve allegations of fraud are typically not ones that the Board will take action on. Nor is it likely to investigate allegations that a member of the psychiatrist’s staff was rude to a patient.
That said, there are many misconduct complaints that the Board will accept. In most of those cases, it will appoint an investigator to review the allegations and gather evidence. That investigator has a great amount of leeway when it comes to exploring the facts supporting (or contradicting) the allegations. You can almost always expect that you will be interviewed or deposed by the investigator and, in many cases, asked or required to produce documents and data that relate to the allegations against you.
It can be uncomfortable to be in the position of having to answer questions about your past actions, or to be producing business records, or even personal communications. But if you fail to cooperate with the investigation, you can be disciplined for failing to do so. That is why it can be enormously helpful to have one of the experienced license defense attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm on your side. We can help you make sure you cooperate with the investigation while protecting your rights at the same time.
Sometimes, when the circumstances support it, we will conduct our own investigation into the matter. This can be particularly helpful in cases where the Board’s investigator fails to appreciate (or sometimes, ignores) evidence that is out there that could be used to help defend you against the misconduct allegations made against you.
In some cases, the Board will decide not to move forward with disciplinary charges after the investigation is complete, which is great. In other cases, however, it will take the information from the investigation and use it to file formal charges against the psychiatrist. When this happens, it can be enormously helpful to be working with an attorney who already understands the case and the allegations you are facing. That’s why the sooner you retain the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team, the better we will be able to help you if your case does proceed past the investigation stage.
Help During Disciplinary Investigations
As a psychiatrist, your practice may require you to spend hours each day or week speaking with people, asking questions, fielding responses, and communicating in the ways you have learned over the years to provide your patients with the care they deserve. But almost all of that training goes out the window when it comes to being interviewed or deposed by a Board investigator. That is a different style of communication entirely.
It can be enormously difficult to have someone ask you questions about misconduct allegations made against you, especially when that person’s role is to gather evidence that could be used to discipline you – and even to revoke your medical license. Just as there is a certain way to communicate with your patients when they are in session with you, there is also a way to communicate when you are being deposed. When you work with one of the experienced attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team, we will help you understand how interviews and depositions work. The goal of all of this is to protect you, to make sure you only answer clear questions that are fair and that you understand, and that you focus your answer on the question you’re asked. That will help create a clear record that can benefit you in the long run.
We can also be with you during the interview or deposition, helping make sure that the questions you’re being asked are clear and fair. And sometimes we can help by making sure you provide complete answers to questions so that you cannot be accused of failing to cooperate with the investigation process.
In many cases, you may also be asked to provide documents or electronic records. Looking for those, sorting through them, and deciding which ones are responsive to the investigator’s requests can be enormously time-consuming and difficult. We can review the information requests, make sure they are fair, review potentially responsive materials, and collect and submit them on your behalf. Your attorney can also be the point of contact for the Board, so that you don’t have to directly field the Board’s communications – and so that you don’t have to worry about missing a response deadline that the Board sets.
After the Investigation
The Board will review the investigator’s report and decide whether to bring formal charges against you. If they decide to do so, they will also likely propose one or more sanctions against you. You can accept these, or, in most cases, when we are defending the psychiatrist, the sanctions can be negotiated. The majority of disciplinary matters are eventually resolved with an agreement between the psychiatrist and the Board.
Those cases that don’t settle will move towards a contested case hearing. These are very much like court proceedings, and can be enormously stressful to both prepare for and participate in. Fortunately, the attorneys from the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team have the experience it takes to effectively defend professional license holders, including psychiatrists, in contested case hearings. This is not something you want to try to defend on your own. There are deadlines, documents that need to be prepared, and rules that need to be followed both before and during the hearing itself. When it comes to something this important, you need the help of an experienced license defense attorney.
Potential Outcomes
In cases of negotiated settlements and contested hearings, the Board can impose a range of sanctions against the psychiatrist. These can include:
- A formal reprimand
- A requirement that the psychiatrist complete specified remedial education courses or programs
- A formal limitation on the scope of the psychiatrist’s practice
- Placing the psychiatrist on probation, often with other requirements such as remedial education or a reporting requirement
- Suspending the psychiatrist’s license for a defined period of time, or until the psychiatrist takes certain defined actions
- Revoking the psychiatrist’s license
- Fining the psychiatrist up to $10,000, assessing the psychiatrist for the costs of the disciplinary proceeding, or both.
Public disciplinary actions by the Board become part of the psychiatrist’s record. The public can search for any licensed psychiatrist by name to determine whether they have been disciplined in the past. The Board also publishes periodic “Board Action Reports” that include summaries of disciplinary actions taken by the Board and that name the medical professionals involved.
The LLF National Law Firm Can Defend Your License in the Portland Metro Area
If you are facing a disciplinary investigation by the Oregon Medical Board, or if the investigation has already taken place and the Board has filed charges against you, you need help. Your medical license may be on the line, and even if the Board does not suspend you or revoke your license, you can end up having your reputation harmed by publicly being disciplined by the Board.
This is not the time to try to defend yourself. Your license is too valuable a personal asset. You need a professional in your corner, someone who has helped other professionals in similar circumstances, and who knows the laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that apply in medical professional disciplinary cases. At the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team, our attorneys have that experience. We know what it takes to protect our clients during Board investigations and during disciplinary negotiations and hearings.
The sooner you contact us about your case, the better we will be able to help. Call us at 888.535.3686, or use our contact form, and we will schedule a confidential consultation to discuss your case with you and explain how the LLF National Law Firm’s Professional License Defense Team can help.