The Washington State Department of Health licenses and regulates mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, and social workers with the support of its Mental Health Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Social Workers Advisory Committee. Your Washington State Department of Health license to practice professional counseling in one of these professions carries great value to you and your family, employer, and community. Don't underestimate all you invested to earn your license and build your counseling practice, as well as the rewards you accordingly and duly reap. Don't let Washington State Department of Health disciplinary charges suspend or revoke your license, causing you a total professional loss. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team to defend your Washington State Department of Health disciplinary charges. We are available in Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, Vancouver, Bellevue, Kent, Everett, Renton, Spokane Valley, Federal Way, Yakima, Kirkland, Bellingham, Auburn, and all other Washington locations.
Washington Health Department Licensing Authority
Revised Code of Washington Chapter 18.225 codifies the state's mental health counselor, marriage and family therapist, and social worker licensing laws. Revised Code of Washington Section 18.225.060 establishes the Mental Health Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Social Workers Advisory Committee to assist the Department of Health with the Department's obligation to license counseling professionals. Revised Code of Washington Section 18.225.080 incorporates the state's Uniform Disciplinary Act, which governs the issuance and discipline of licenses while prohibiting unlicensed practice. The state's Uniform Disciplinary Act authorizes the Department of Health to issue cease and desist orders and obtain a court injunction against unlicensed practice, the violation of which can result in contempt sanctions, fines, and incarceration.
Washington Health Department Discipline Impacts
You must not practice professional counseling in Washington without maintaining your current and valid license. If you lose your license, you must cease your counseling practice or face the above severe sanctions. If you lose your license to disciplinary suspension or revocation, you will lose your counseling employment and must notify your clients that you are unable to continue serving them. Losing your license in your current residence state of Washington may mean losing licenses you hold in other states and losing the ability to gain new licenses in other states. The impact of your Washington Department of Health disciplinary charges can thus be nationwide, not just limited to the State of Washington. The collateral consequences of losing your counseling license and employment can include serious impacts on your finances, financial obligations, personal health, and family obligations and relationships. Let us help you defend and defeat your disciplinary charges so that you can avoid these and other difficult consequences.
Washington Health Department License Requirements
The Washington legislature provides for social workers, marriage and family therapists, and mental health counselors licensure requirements in the Revised Code of Washington Section 18.225.090. While Section 18.225.090 states separate and detailed license requirements for each of those three professions, in general, they each require graduation from an approved program of education at the graduate level, other than for the lower-level social worker license that only requires undergraduate education. Each license also requires passing an approved licensing exam and completing a supervised work experience for a minimum of 3,000 hours. Each license also requires continuing education experience. Let us assist you if you have issues with any of these license requirements. But also keep in mind your substantial investment in meeting these license requirements when determining to defend your disciplinary charges with our skilled representation.
Washington Health Department Disciplinary Grounds
Washington's Uniform Disciplinary Act Section 18.130.175 enumerates the grounds on which the Washington Department of Health, under the guidance of its Mental Health Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Social Workers Advisory Committee, may discipline licensed practitioners in those professions. Our attorneys can defend you against charges that the Department of Health brings against you on any of the enumerated disciplinary grounds. Those grounds include:
- acts of moral turpitude, dishonesty, or corruption in counseling practice;
- misrepresentation or concealment in obtaining your counseling license, otherwise known as credential fraud;
- false, fraudulent, or misleading advertising of your counseling services;
- discipline of a health field license you hold in another state or jurisdiction;
- illegal use or possession of controlled substances, or misuse of alcohol or legend drugs;
- violating rules or statutes establishing standards of care for the counseling profession;
- aiding or abetting unlicensed counseling practice;
- practicing beyond the scope of your counseling license;
- practicing while suffering a contagious or infectious disease involving a serious risk to public health;
- felony or gross misdemeanor conviction relating to counseling practice;
- willful violation of patient or client privileges;
- patient abuse or sexual contact with a patient or client; or
- failing to cooperate with disciplinary authorities or to comply with a disciplinary order.
Washington Consumer Complaints
Washington Uniform Disciplinary Act Section 18.130.080 obligates the Washington Department of Health and other agencies governing the covered professions to accept and investigate complaints from any individual having observation or information of a professional's law, rule, or standard violation. The Washington Department of Health carries that obligation forward by offering an online consumer complaint portal and providing consumer information on how to pursue a complaint against a counseling professional or other health professional. As a counseling professional, you are under constant public and private scrutiny from clients, colleagues, employer representatives, and others. Remain aware of the likelihood of a consumer complaint to the Washington Department of Health if your actions appear to others to violate professional rules and standards.
Preserving Disciplinary Defense Evidence
You should retain our highly qualified license defense attorneys the moment you realize that an individual has a concern over your conduct, great enough that the individual is considering a Washington Department of Health complaint. We can help you promptly identify, recover, retain, and secure evidence, including electronically stored information, relating to the disciplinary concern. Procedural and evidentiary rules may draw an adverse inference against you if you carelessly or intentionally destroy material evidence. You may also face additional disciplinary charges and sanctions for destroying evidence. You could lose your disciplinary defense even before it gets started simply by losing track of and accidentally discarding key evidence. We can help you preserve evidence and avoid spoliation of evidence and obstruction charges. Don't let your alleged cover-up be worse than your alleged disciplinary wrong.
Responding to Washington Consumer Complaints
When you retain us promptly upon learning of someone's concern over your professional conduct, serious enough to warrant a potential Washington Department of Health complaint, we may be able to help you head off a complaint and attendant disciplinary investigation and charge. We may be able to assist you in presenting your innocent explanation and reasonable excuse for the conduct to the concerned client, colleague, or other individual so as to alleviate the disciplinary concern. Do not attempt to do so on your own, without our assistance, in a way that appears to involve threat, bribe, or coercion, in which instance you might face disciplinary charges for obstructing an investigation. Let us help you avoid any such inference while reassuring the concerned individual of the soundness, trustworthiness, and competence of your questioned actions.
Washington Health Department Investigations
When the Washington Health Department receives a complaint against you, whether, through its online portal or other routes, its officials work with representatives of the Mental Health Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Social Workers Advisory Committee to determine whether and how to investigate the complaint for disciplinary enforcement. Only if the complaint credibly alleges a potential rule or standards violation will an investigation commence. Consumer complainants don't necessarily know your professional rules and standards and may mistakenly, foolishly, or vengefully complain about unregulated conduct having little or nothing to do with counseling practice. The Health Department and Advisory Committee winnow complaints before assigning investigators to potentially credible and meaningful ones within their disciplinary authority.
Your Washington Health Department Investigation Response
Retain us the moment you learn of a Washington Department of Health disciplinary investigation. Your investigator may have already interviewed other witnesses and gathered key documentation. Your investigator may know more about your matter than you do, or at least more than the investigator reveals to you. Playing dumb can be a common investigator tactic to trick interviewees into careless and unguarded speculation and conjecture for which they have no first-hand observation or other factual basis. Beware of such speculation, carelessness, or inconsistencies. Disciplinary officials may construe your errors and omissions as intentional lying and obstruction, bringing down additional disciplinary charges. We can help you make accurate, truthful, consistent, and complete responses that you can recall and defend later.
Washington Health Department Disciplinary Sanctions
Washington's Uniform Disciplinary Act Section 18.130.160 lists the range of potential disciplinary sanctions the Department of Health may impose against a counseling professional found to have violated applicable law, rule, or standards. Those sanctions include license suspension, revocation, restriction, remedial education, treatment, monitoring, supervision, censure, reprimand, probation with conditions, fines, and other “corrective action.” Department of Health disciplinary officials pursuing your discipline have broad authority to advocate for fitting punishment and other protections relating to the specific wrongs in which you allegedly engaged. Your potential sanction thus very much depends on your alleged wrong. That said, Department of Health officials may use license suspension as a default sanction to which they jump in the absence of clear reasons to impose a lesser sanction. In short, your stakes are high. You could lose your license in virtually any case in which officials bring a charge against you. Let us help you defend and defeat the charge.
Mitigating Washington Health Department Sanctions
We can certainly help you pursue an outright defense to your disciplinary charge, depending on your facts and circumstances. Disproving the allegations can be the best way to defend a case and avoid any prospect of sanction. But evidence of your wrongdoing may exist, and that evidence may be substantial, even if you are convinced you did nothing wrong. You may also know you committed some or all of the violations your disciplinary charges allege. In that case, we may be able to put on a good defense case to mitigate sanctions. Sometimes, the best defense isn't arguing the facts. Sometimes, the best defense is arguing the outcome. We may be able to show that the Department of Health can protect clients and the public without suspending or revoking your license, and instead, with a simple caution, warning, or reprimand, or with a license limitation, restriction, or condition, you can easily endure without substantial cost, burden, or interference with your professional reputation and relationships.
Washington Health Department Remedial Measures
We may even be able to negotiate remedial measures in lieu of punitive sanctions of any kind, even a lesser sanction. Your top-level goal in a disciplinary proceeding should generally be to avoid a disciplinary record. Any discipline could have broad and long-term implications, even a license reprimand or censure. If, instead, we can negotiate training, education, supervision, or mentoring, for instance, you may be glad to accept those benefits to your practice, especially if they impose little cost or burden. Alternatively, we may be able to negotiate your private evaluation, counseling, and treatment that you have already undertaken or want to take in any case, whether or not you are facing disciplinary charges. Let us see if we can make your charges go away, leaving you better off than ever.
Washington Health Department Hearing and Appeal
The Washington Department of Health must follow the state's Administrative Procedure Act, guaranteeing you a hearing, appeal, and even civil court review in certain cases. Let us help you exhaust all avenues for relief until you obtain your best possible outcome, even if you have already suffered disciplinary charges and lost your hearing.
Premier Washington State Board License Defense
Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team if you face the Washington Department of Health disciplinary charges. Our highly qualified attorneys help hundreds of professionals nationwide defend against disciplinary charges. Your professional counseling license and practice are worth our skilled and experienced defense.
