Kansas and Missouri Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger Discusses How Doctors Derail their Careers

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The vast majority of physicians I know enjoy long and successful careers and stand out as pillars of their communities.  But what about those that don’t?  Some physicians derail their careers with poor judgment, addiction, and deceit. I have written the following blog post to help members of the medical community how to avoid these sorts of threats to professional licensure.

If you are a licensed professional in Kansas or Missouri facing an allegation of misconduct, call attorney Sanger today at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation. Your career, reputation, and livelihood are at risk, and the challenge facing you is one you cannot work your way through alone.

Career-Ending Actions for Physicians

If you are alleged to have committed misconduct, it can mean a suspension or revocation of your license to practice medicine. You must attain experienced counsel immediately to help you through this process.  I have advised licensing boards, know how they work, and can often attain a dismissal or a significant reduction in whatever penalty you may receive. These are the most common behaviors that lead to discipline:

Self-Medication

Physicians have almost unfettered access to medications. Unfortunately, this is the most common reason for their license suspension or revocation. In recent years, the national opioid crisis has focused increased attention on physicians’ use of powerful pain medications.  If you find that you are self-prescribing these sorts of drugs and have become dependent, get help immediately.

Allowing Unlicensed Practice

Physicians are all aware of how tight margins can be in certain areas of patient care and how low repayment is from programs such as Medicaid and Medicare. Unfortunately, some physicians’ answer to this problem is to allow unlicensed professionals perform procedures that only a physician should perform. This is both fraudulent and unsafe, and physicians routinely get caught when a patient is injured, or an unlicensed employee becomes disgruntled and reports his or her former employer.

Boundary Issues

Physicians all know that they should not have sexual relationships with patients, even consensual ones. Further, everyone should know that touching someone sexually without his or her consent is sexual assault and is illegal. That said, physicians routinely find themselves in disciplinary situations because they enter into “harmless” sexual flings with clients or touch clients in ways that make them feel violated without first attaining a valid release.  Either of these issues can easily lead to a license suspension or revocation.

Failing to Disclose Past Transgressions During the Licensure Process

Doctors must be completely forthcoming when applying for licensure. In my experience, it is far better to disclose past criminal convictions, addiction issues, or other transgressions than to have this sort of conduct come to light later. As with any other field, responsibly disclosing past transgressions is difficult, but lying to cover up the transgression is usually seen as much more severe.

Contact an Experienced Kansas and Missouri Licensing Attorney Now for the Advice You Need

You have worked too hard to attain your medical license to lose it because you failed to attain professional legal advice when you needed it. You need to speak to a licensing attorney as soon as you become aware that there are allegations concerning your conduct.  Contacting an experienced licensing attorney now can mean the difference between getting back to helping your patients and losing your career forever.

Kansas and Missouri professional licensing attorney Danielle Sanger is prepared to advocate for your best interests and defend your license. Call Attorney Sanger at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation with an attorney experienced dealing with professional licensing issues.

 

 

Kansas and Missouri Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger Advises Physicians: Steps to Take If You Detect Fraud

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The physicians I know are all respected members of their communities who volunteer their time, money, and skills to make their towns and cities better places. Unfortunately, we are all aware of physicians who use their medical license to bilk the public and commit fraud. While these are the minority in the medical profession, they cast a dark shadow over the rest of the field. Some of these physicians are just crooks while others turn to fraud due to drug or gambling habits. Regardless of the reason for their deception, they can bring down unsuspecting partners in their actions. But what should you do if you discover that your medical partner is engaging in fraudulent activities? Because I have helped several physicians protect their medical licenses as they reported fraud, I wrote the following blog post to describe the process.

If you are a physician in Kansas or Missouri that has detected fraudulent activities occurring within your practice, call attorney Sanger today at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation. Detecting, documenting, and self-reporting the fraud should only happen with the help of experienced licensing counsel.  Your career, reputation, and livelihood are at risk, and this is a  challenge you cannot work through alone.

Steps You Should Take if You Discover Fraud Occurring in Your Practice

Many kinds of fraud occur in medical practices. Overbilling, prescription of unnecessary procedures, and billing for procedures that were not performed are all common. If you become aware of this sort of conduct, what should you do?

First, you should contact an experienced licensing attorney immediately. You will need help documenting the fraud and navigating the self-disclosure process. It is vital that you have counsel help you through that process, as your statements to any other confidant or friend will be discoverable—public—during any subsequent investigation or litigation. You want to be able to ask hard questions and disclose uncomfortable facts without those statements coming back to haunt you later.  The only way to make those disclosures and ask those questions safely is to make them to an attorney with whom you share an attorney-client privilege.

Second, you must formally put an end to any fraudulent activity. While you may not be the provider engaged in these practices, your license is jeopardized by them. The steps you take to end the fraudulent activity should be carefully and thoroughly documented. Any overpayment should be returned.

Third, with the help of licensing counsel, you should commence a thorough investigation of any fraud and an audit of all practice accounts.

Fourth, you should carefully self-disclose your findings to either the Missouri or Kansas state offices that handle Medicare and Medicaid fraud.  Because so much of the money that comes into medical practices originates in one of these state-managed federal programs, the states have offices to deal with medical provider fraud. Once again, you must not make any self-disclosure without the help of experienced counsel by your side, or you run the risk of handing over the evidence needed to suspend or revoke your medical license.

Contact an Experienced Kansas and Missouri Licensing Attorney Now for the Advice You Need 

Don’t let someone else’s poor judgment result in the loss of your medical license. You have worked too hard to attain your medical license to lose it because you failed to attain professional legal advice at the moment you needed it. You need to speak to a licensing attorney as soon as you become aware that those working within your practice are committing fraud.  Contacting an experienced licensing attorney now can mean the difference between getting back to helping your patients or clients and losing your career forever.

Kansas and Missouri professional licensing attorney Danielle Sanger is prepared to advocate for your best interests and defend your medical license. Call Attorney Sanger at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation with an attorney experienced dealing with professional licensing issues.

 

 

Kansas and Missouri Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger Discusses How Pain Medication Use Can Affect Nurses’ Professional Licenses

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Nurses face a “Catch-22” situation—they work in a bruising profession that can injure them physically but at the same time can be disciplined for using the pain medicines needed to alleviate those injuries. There is an opioid epidemic in Kansas and Missouri and part of the effort to end it has focused on the use and abuse of opioids in the medical profession.  As a result, there has been an increase in the scrutiny of doctors and nurses’ use of pain medications, even legal use, as that legitimate use is seen as a gateway to abuse and illicit drug distribution throughout the community as a whole.

If you are a licensed professional in Kansas or Missouri facing an allegation of misconduct involving pain medications, call attorney Sanger today at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation. Your career, reputation, and livelihood are at risk, and the challenge facing you is one you cannot work your way through alone.

If You Need to Use Pain Medications, Know How to Protect Yourself from Abuse Allegations

Pain medications—opioids, sedatives, and narcotics—are highly effective but highly addictive ways of treating chronic pain.  They are powerful and can impair judgment and motor skills, rendering users unable to make sound judgment and slowing motor skills.  As a society, those are not qualities that we seek in nurses.  But what steps should a nurse take when he or she legitimately needs pain medications, is taking them with a prescription and is not affected by them at work?  While there is a temptation to keep the legitimate use of pain medications a secret out of fear of employer discipline, this is not a course of conduct that I suggest to my clients.

If you are legitimately using pain medications with a valid prescription, you should disclose your use to your employer according to applicable workplace rules. You will usually also have to show a prescribing note from a pharmacist that indicates that the proper use of the medications will not have a deleterious effect on your ability to perform your job duties. That said, an employer may still choose to reassign the reporting nurse to a position that poses a lower risk to patients. While reassignment may feel punitive, it is almost always within the employer’s right.  Moreover, reassignment is far better than discipline or termination, which is what usually occurs when a nurse’s use of pain medications is discovered without prior disclosure. In this latter scenario, even a nurse that is taking these medications with a valid prescription will often be disciplined for failing to report that use preemptively.

Instead, if a nurse reports legitimate use and supplies a valid prescription that indicates that he or she is still able to practice, he or she will not be in the position of explaining why narcotics or opioids are showing up in his or her drug test results and will usually avoid discipline altogether. 

Contact an Experienced Kansas and Missouri Licensing Attorney Now for the Advice You Need

You have worked too hard to attain your nursing license to lose it because you failed to attain professional legal advice when you needed it. You need to speak to a licensing attorney as soon as you become aware that there are allegations concerning your use of pain medications.  Contacting an experienced licensing attorney now can mean the difference between getting back to helping your patients and losing your career forever.

Kansas and Missouri professional licensing attorney Danielle Sanger is prepared to advocate for your best interests and defend your license. Call Attorney Sanger at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation with an attorney experienced dealing with professional licensing issues.

 

 

Missouri Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger Discusses Social Media Pitfalls for Nurses

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It seems like almost everyone enjoys social media. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are all fun places to reconnect with friends, debate issues of the day, and blow off steam. But as every nurse knows, nurses must present themselves as professional to their community and to protect their patients’ privacy. While fun, social media is also a serious hazard when nurses portray themselves as unprofessional—pictures of one too many margaritas on vacation—or violate confidentiality—gripes about the third colostomy bag you had to change during your shift. Seemingly funny posts, sarcasm taken out of context, and “gallows humor” can all easily be misconstrued and lead to ethics complaints. If you find yourself facing allegations of unprofessional conduct because of social media posts, you need to contact an experienced licensing attorney immediately.

If you are a nurse in Kansas or Missouri facing an allegation of misconduct or an investigation, call attorney Sanger today at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation. Your career, reputation, and livelihood are at risk, and the challenge facing you is one you cannot work your way through alone.

HIPAA Concerns and Patient Privacy

You hopefully already know that is a violation of HIPAA to share any patient information with anyone outside the medical environment, including on social media.  There have been stories in the news about medical professionals who record or photograph patients while they are sedated or asleep. Never engage in this unethical conduct.

Social media can make the line between ethical and unethical conduct less clear.  It is a smaller world than we often believe, and a comment made to your social media “friends” can easily be forwarded on to others, including patients you are treating or their family. A flippant comment on Facebook about changing a patient’s colostomy bag, even if you did not name the patient in your post, can come to that patient’s attention, raise ethical concerns, and complaints.

Unprofessional Behavior

You already know that nurses are held to a higher standard than other professions.  Pictures involving drinking, recreational drug use, or any other conduct that makes the nurse appear unprofessional and can lead to ethics complaints.  So while a simple post with a picture of your crazy night on vacation that you intended to be shared only with your friends may not seem like a serious issue, it can be taken out of context by a patient who believes you are doing that partying on the night before her surgery.

Workplace Complaints

Workplace complaints expressed on social media pose a complex problem.  You have a first amendment right to make certain statements, and federal, and state labor rights may protect your right to complain about workplace conditions on social media. Generally speaking, courts see social media as the “virtual watercooler” where employees are allowed to gather and gripe. But there are many variables at issue when it comes to workplace complaints, such as whether you are a public or private employee and whether the comment was about the workplace or patients.  Usually, public employees have more expansive rights than employees of a private employer, and while employees are generally allowed to complain about the workplace, they are typically prohibited from complaining about patients or customers.  Because this is a tricky area, I recommend keeping your privacy settings to private so that your posts are limited to those you know.

Contact an Experienced Kansas and Missouri Licensing Attorney Now for the Advice You Need

Don’t let a poorly considered social media post mean the end of your nursing career. You have worked too hard to attain your nursing license to lose it because you failed to attain professional legal advice when you needed it. You need to speak to a licensing attorney as soon as you become aware that there are allegations concerning your professional conduct or ethics.  Contacting an experienced licensing attorney now can mean the difference between getting back to helping your patients or clients and losing your career forever.

Kansas and Missouri professional licensing attorney Danielle Sanger is prepared to advocate for your best interests and defend your nursing license. Call Attorney Sanger at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation with an attorney experienced dealing with professional licensing issues.