Kansas and Missouri Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger: How Should a Medical Professional Respond to a Subpoena?

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Receiving a subpoena—a legal request for your documents or for your presence at a formal, recorded interview—is often a first clue that there may be a claim against you. The records you deal with on a daily basis are often the foundation of a patient’s lawsuit against you or your hospital.  But how should you respond to receiving a subpoena for those records?

Why Would You Be Subpoenaed?

If you are being subpoenaed, something you did is of interest to a party in a lawsuit. It does not necessarily mean that you have done something wrong or that you are personally being sued, A subpoena can be a request for documents—a subpoena duces tecum—or for your presence at a recorded interview.  This blog post is concerned with the subpoena duces tecum, a request for records. This sort of subpoena usually requests your treatment records regarding a patient or patients.

A subpoena duces tecum can either be made in the context of a trial or in the context of “discovery,” which is the legal process through with parties exchange information preceding a trial. In the end, both types of subpoena duces tecum are just looking for documents, but the level of certification of accuracy in a trial subpoena is higher.

If you are subpoenaed, contacting an experienced attorney can help you determine whether you should respond, what documents you should provide, and whether the subpoena is something that should cause you professional concern. Attorney Sanger is experienced in providing medical professionals in Kansas and Missouri this sort of review and advice.

Do I Always Have to Respond to a Subpoena?

When you receive a subpoena, it will say the court that has jurisdiction over it and the parties that are in a legal dispute.  it will also which party sent it, and what documents they want you to produce. After reviewing that information, the question is, do you have to respond?

If you receive a subpoena from an out of state party or court, you are likely not subject to their jurisdiction and may not have a duty to respond. Deciding that you do not have to respond is not a simple decision, nor is one to be made lightly.  Contact an attorney with experience representing medical professionals if you are unsure about whether you are subject to a subpoena’s jurisdiction.

Similarly, if the subpoena requests a patient’s protected health information or PHI, you may be legally prevented from providing the information by HIPAA. If the subpoena seeks PHI, it should have an accompanying HIPAA release allowing disclosure. If it does not, you should not provide any PHI until you receive one.

How Long Do I Have To Respond?

How long you have to respond to a subpoena depends on what type it is.  If it is a trial subpoena, meaning there is an active trial underway, you may only have a few days to respond. However, if you have a discovery subpoena, you will likely have weeks.  In either circumstance, you should not just provide documents because you feel time pressure.  You can usually negotiate for more time if you need it, and it is a good idea to have counsel reach out on your behalf.

If you are a medical professional in Kansas or Missouri and are facing a threat to your license, call Danielle Sanger today.

Only an experienced attorney can determine whether a subpoena duces tecum is a routine request for information from a broad class of individuals or a prelude to an attack on you, your licensure as a medical professional, and your livelihood. Having experienced counsel help you through this process is vital. Receiving a subpoena begins a legally-intensive response process. It is important to proceed with caution and to attain skilled legal counsel to help you find the best path forward.

Kansas Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger is prepared to advocate for your best interests and defend your livelihood and career. Call Attorney Sanger today at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation with an experienced and aggressive attorney for medical professionals.

Kansas and Missouri Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger: As a Nurse, Should You Accept Probation in a Discipline Matter?

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Given nurses’ backbreaking workload, incredible degree of professional responsibility, and extensive one-on-one contact with patients, allegations of misconduct arise.  These allegations can be complicated by unfortunate facts such as drug or alcohol dependence, mental health issues, and poor documentation. Misconduct allegations can be difficult to disprove and are potentially career ending.

On the other hand, misconduct allegations are frequently false, trumped up, or based on weak foundations of rumors or bad blood. Out of fear, we see too many nurses facing discipline accept probations or some other “lesser” penalty out of fear, embarrassment or ignorance of how to challenge the allegations. You should not allow an allegation of misconduct end your career and ruin your finances and future, nor should you just blindly accept a disciplinary board’s offer of a “lesser” penalty out of fear.

In Kansas and Missouri, nurses facing professional discipline can rely on Danielle Sanger, Esq. to defend their rights. Attorney Sanger has spent her career defending licensees before administrative and licensing boards, protecting nurses accused of making mistakes and other misconduct from losing their professions, savings, and homes.

How Should You Decide Whether to Accept a Deal or Fight?

As a licensing attorney, I always try to achieve the best possible outcome for my client. There are always two roads to that outcome, negotiating some sort of deal or going to a hearing. Obviously, a negotiated penalty is attractive because it is a low-risk choice with a known outcome. On the other hand, a hearing is a high-risk choice with a possibility of prevailing with no discipline or losing and facing an unknown penalty.

Preparing for a hearing and challenging the evidence being used against you is the vital to both prevailing ultimately at a hearing and getting the best possible offer of a lesser penalty. Excluding hearsay—rumors and other unsubstantiated statements—against you, challenging the validity of evidence, and making an administrative board second-guess the strength of the case against you will result in their settlement offer becoming increasingly favorable to you.

In my experience, administrative hearing boards and their experienced attorneys make “low ball” settlement offers to unrepresented nurses early on in cases. Without the advice of counsel, these offers may seem like generous ways to avoid the extreme penalties that could be imposed after a hearing.  However, what licensing attorneys know is that the case against you always has flaws, and that “low ball” offer is simply a first attempt to get you to give up on a hearing where those flaws may be exposed. Those offers are to be avoided, especially when they include permanent discipline, prohibitions on working for periods of time, or other onerous conditions.

After hiring a licensing attorney with experience before the board seeking to discipline you, the offers to settle usually get much more attractive. An aggressive challenge to the evidence against you and a willingness to go to a hearing often results in a dismissal of charges of misconduct. But that sort of outcome is not going to come about without an experienced advocate by your side.

I sometimes urge clients to accept reasonable offers when the risk of a serious penalty after a hearing is simply too great to accept. Sometimes clients accept deals because their fear of an unknown outcome drives their decision-making. That said, the decision to settle a case instead of going to a hearing is ultimately yours.

There is no time to waste if you are accused of misconduct. Too many nurses try to talk their way out of misconduct, try to represent themselves before licensing boards, or accept “low ball” initial offers with long-lasting consequences. You should not respond to an investigation until you have attained representation by a skilled licensing attorney. Having a zealous advocate by your side challenging the validity of the evidence against you and cross-examining those who testify against you is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

If you are a nurse in Kansas or Missouri and are facing a threat to your license, call Danielle Sanger today.

Kansas and Missouri professional licensing attorney Danielle Sanger is prepared to advocate for your best interests and defend your livelihood and career. Call Attorney Sanger today at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation with an experienced and aggressive attorney for nurses facing occupational discipline.

 

Kansas and Missouri Licensing Attorney Shares Missouri Chiropractor’s Criminal Conviction as a Cautionary Tale for Medical Professionals

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Clients often ask what sort of behavior leads to the loss of a license. Medical billing fraud can lead to the loss of license as well as a criminal conviction. Whether due to financial stress, drug or alcohol addiction, or just a lapse in judgment, medical professionals often succumb to economic pressure and submit false claims for services they either did not provide or that were medically unnecessary.

Sometimes people think that the size of the false claim makes a difference or that isolated instances are not as serious as patterns of behavior. Both of these assumptions are incorrect, as a single instance can constitute fraud, and lying to the government or an insurance company is a crime regardless of the size of the bill attached to the false statement.  Additionally, while there are statutes of limitation limiting how far into the past the government can investigate and bring charges, you are not “out of the woods” just because some time has passed since you submitted a fraudulent bill.

It is vital to underscore that if you find yourself in this dire situation, you must contact an experienced licensing attorney immediately. Having provided that warning, the following recent case out of Missouri illustrates each of the above points.

A Missouri resident chiropractor, James Briggs, was convicted in October 2017 for filling out and sending a false medical claim to Medicare for an ankle orthodic in 2013. The submitted billing was “only” for several thousand dollars. However, because Medicare is a program administered by the federal government, his fraudulent act was a federal offense. In essence, defrauding Medicare is defrauding the federal government. Because he was convicted of lying to the government, the amount he actually acquired as part of his deception was irrelevant.

However, it is worth noting that not only did he have to pay back thousands of dollars that he fraudulently billed, but he also had a $10,000 fine and was subjected to six months of home confinement, which means his home would serve as a jail and he could not leave it. Now convicted, he will be on probation monitoring for five years. While it is too soon to say definitively, his professional career is likely over.

But this sort of mistake does not have to cost you your career. Deciding whether you speak to investigators and what documents to provide them requires experienced counsel, and you cannot just call any attorney you find in the phonebook to deal with complex licensing issues. Expert, proactive legal advice can mean the difference between retaining your livelihood and a loss of your license and a criminal conviction.

Call attorney Sanger today at (785)-979-4353 to protect your professional license.

Contact Missouri Licensing Attorney Sanger to help you protect your license and career. Call her immediately if you are being investigated for fraud. An administrative investigation by a licensing board can evolve into criminal charges without any notice to you. Having her counsel at that moment protects your rights and your investment in your career.

Attorney Danielle Sanger is an experienced Kansas and Missouri licensing attorney and has the experience to resolve your licensure issues in a way that allows you to protect your profession, your home, and your family. She has the experience to deal with licensing bodies, appear before administrative boards, and provide clients with advice to best position themselves professionally when allegations of fraud arise.

Kansas Professional Liability Defense Attorney Advises Medical Professionals: Five Ways to Lose Your License

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Whether you are a doctor, a nurse, a pharmacist, or physical therapist, your license is critical to your livelihood. While it took you years to attain your license, it can be taken from you in an instant because of a simple mistake or lapse of judgment.

As an experienced licensing attorney, clients often ask what are the most common ways that they can lose their professional license. Before I get into those individual ways, I must stress that if you find yourself being investigated, there is no time to waste, contact a professional licensing attorney immediately. The following are the five of the most commonly seen ways that medical professionals lose their licenses:

  1. Abusing Controlled Substances or Alcohol

A number of factors lead to medical professionals abusing medications and alcohol.  Often it is a combination of a high-stress career, access to pharmaceuticals, and a level of comfort with administering them. It is not always drugs, however, as alcohol abuse is also a prevalent way for professionals to deal with stress or problems. All it takes is a DUI or a complaint from coworkers to result in a referral to an administrative board and investigation into your behavior.

  1. Committing Fraud

With the complex billing practices and medical data entry required in the modern medical office, many professionals believe that charging or entering codes for procedures they did not perform will go unchecked. That is a mistake. Healthcare is a multi-billion dollar industry, and there are sophisticated controls built into the billing system.  Professionals may not be investigated the first time they enter a false code, but find themselves under scrutiny after making a serious of fraudulent entries.

  1. Violations of Professional Ethics

Medicine is a profession filled with redundant forms and checklists created to make sure that patients’ wishes are followed and that medical procedures are performed safely. Given the time pressure medical professionals sometimes find themselves under, some unfortunately resort to forging either patients’ or providers’ signatures or filling out checklists falsely.

  1. Improper Dispensing of Medication

Dispensing and prescribing medication is complex. When medications are prescribed or dispensed to patients that should not take them because of an allergy or known reaction to another prescribed medication, there can be dramatic results, including death. Sloppy administration of medications can be caused by overwork, stress, or burnout. Some patients seek out medications they should not have because they have become addicted to them; too often, medical professionals continue to provide medications to addicts who offer extra payment for them. Whether out of sympathy or greed, providing extra medications to drug-seeking patients is illegal and never wise.

  1. Discrimination.

Engaging in discrimination against patients, treating them differently based on their age, sex, race, citizenship or other “protected class” status is illegal. A complaint that you have differentiated in how you provide medical treatment to those individuals can result in an investigation and suspension or loss of your license. Careful documentation of your fair treatment of individuals is your best defense to a claim that you have treated some differently than others.

As this list demonstrates, professionals with good intentions can make honest or inadvertent mistakes. Otherwise good people can also have lapses of judgment due to work or financial pressure.  But these mistakes do not have to cost you your career.

Call attorney Sanger today at (785)-979-4353 to protect your professional license.

Contact Kansas Professional Liability Defense Attorney Danielle Sanger to protect your license and career. If you are being investigated for a workplace mistake or misconduct, call her immediately. Attorney Danielle Sanger has the experience to deal with licensing bodies, appear before administrative boards, and provide clients with advice to best position themselves professionally.

 

Kansas and Missouri Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger Explains How Discipline Can Follow You for Life

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As a licensed professional, you have the ability to achieve great mobility. You can practice in multiple states at once or move from state to state based on where you are licensed. That tremendous freedom can be cut short, however, by allegations of misconduct. When allegations of misconduct arise, simply abandoning a license in one state with a plan to rely on a license held in another is not a viable plan. Resolving those issues can mean the difference between practicing in the state of your desire and being unemployed.  Retaining a highly qualified professional licensing attorney can be that difference.

Often a client will have a license in a state, say New York, and have a licensure problem. Licensure problems should not be a source of shame, as some arise from fans accusations while others arise from simple human error. Whether due to embarrassment, ignorance of the discipline process, or a feeling of not wanting to be bothered by dealing with the allegations, they give up the license or let it lapse and move to a new state and renew their professional life there.

As a professional licensing attorney, Ms. Sanger often has the unfortunate task of telling clients that licenses can follow them forever, even if they have lapsed elsewhere. The granting state continues to have professional jurisdiction over those they license, even those no longer practicing in the state. Continuing to have professional jurisdiction means that those states continue to have the ability to discipline you, even for misconduct occurring out of state. That ability does not end and follows licensees throughout their career.

Lapsed licenses in other states are an issue because of a concept called “reciprocal discipline” which means that discipline in one state follows the licensee to whatever other state they are licensed in. If you are disciplined in one state, that is usually a violation of the professional code in any other state you are licensed in. This problem is not solved by time—it does not matter that the conduct in question was proven or that it occurred a decade before.

Unfortunately, too many people choose to bury their head in the sand and pretend these problems do not exist. These poorly informed people hope that their licensure problems will go away simply by not bringing it up on the application the next time they apply for licensure. This is a major mistake, as failure to disclose past licensure issues is itself a violation of most states. This compounds licensees’ problems, as they basically infected their new license with problems from their old one.

Problems involving your license, whether they occurred a decade ago, occurred here in Kansas or Missouri, or occurred in your home state pose a problem for you now. Cleaning of those old problems and dealing with the problems surrounding your old license is the first step. Fixing any problems with your current or active licensure is the next step. These are not tasks for you to take on alone. Seemingly innocuous statements you make can be used against you.  You need a skilled licensing attorney by your side to protect your career, livelihood, and future.

Call Kansas and Missouri Professional Licensing Attorney today at (785)-979-4353 to protect your professional license. Attorney Danielle Sanger is an experienced Kansas and Missouri licensing attorney and has the experience to both resolve your lingering licensure issues and walk you through your current licensing process. She has the experience to deal with licensing bodies, appear before administrative boards, and provide clients with the advice to best position themselves professionally.

Can I Lose My Nursing License in an Emergency Suspension?

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As a nurse, your license is your ticket to a career and livelihood. Unfortunately, nurses often come to me too late asking whether the Board of Nursing can take their nursing license. The answer to that question is “yes,” unfortunately. If you find yourself asking this question because you have done something unprofessional or illegal, you need to retain a competent licensing attorney immediately so that your license can be protected proactively. The Sanger Law Office has a long track record of successfully providing this sort of defense to Kansas and Missouri nurses.

You need legal representation because you have a constitutional property interest in your nursing license, and that property cannot be taken from you without “due process,” meaning some sort of opportunity to be told what the charges are against you, to challenge the evidence against you, and to argue your position. However, the amount of due process you are entitled to depends on the degree of the suspension you are subjected to, but you should seek legal representation any time you are being investigated or are facing suspension.

Emergency Suspension

If it is believed that you are a clear and immediate danger to the public, your license can be suspended with little or no due process. This is called an emergency or summary suspension, and because it is not permanent, the process is far less substantial than you might expect.  In this process, an administrative board will hear evidence that you are a danger. But unlike a court where strict rules dictate what can and cannot be considered, this sort of emergency hearing will consider hearsay and less substantial evidence than what one would expect in a civil or criminal trial. Social media posts, second-hand information, and unsubstantiated statement can all be considered.

What Steps Can I Take to Avoid an Emergency Suspension?

Nurses are under a tremendous amount of stress. Even under these stressful situations, they are expected to perform professionally and carefully document their duties.  Unfortunately, given the rise of the opioid epidemic in the United States, nurses are being scrutinized for their use, access, and destruction of pharmaceuticals that they use in a medical setting.  Allegations of use or distribution of drugs are a common basis for emergency suspensions.  Here are three steps you can take to avoid these sort of allegations being made against you:

  1. Be careful to follow all hospital or clinic policies precisely.  For example, always make sure you have someone observe the wasting of medications and that that that person actually witnesses the wasting and cosigns the appropriate documentation.
  2. Avoid all controlled substances – you may be prescribed controlled substances of a legitimate medical condition. If you need to take those controlled substances for a short period of time, do so.  However, take off from work while you are under their influence.  If something inappropriate happens while you are at work under the influence of these substances, even if they were legally prescribed, the administrative board will have no way of determining whether you are abusing them, whether you took them at work, or whether your work was influenced by their effects.
  3. Never borrow, share, or save controlled substances. Get a prescription for your medications and keep the prescription on hand until you no longer need the medication. Destroy medications once you no longer need them. Even if you think you may need the medications someday, do not keep them.  Using them later, without a prescription, may be seen as the illegal practice of medicine.

I hope that you never need this advice but also wanted to give you guidance so that you can proactively avoid license issues.  However, even professionals who do nothing wrong can be wrongly accused. Not having competent legal representation when you are being investigated can have tragic results for you, your carer and your family.

Call today if you are a nurse  from Kansas or Missouri, and you are being investigated or facing professional discipline.

Kansas Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger is ready, willing, and able to mount a vigorous defense for you. Call Attorney Sanger today at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation with an experienced and aggressive attorney for nurses facing occupational discipline or licensure issues.

Kansas and Missouri Licensing Defense Attorney Warns that Social Media and Medical Care Don’t Always Mix

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As social media use becomes ever-present and clients come to me with licensure issues based on their Facebook and Twitter posts, it seems prudent to go over how your status as a medical care provider can be affected by your social media use.

You likely see friends and family post and repost funny anecdotes about their life and work.  Teachers grumble about grading.  Plumbers complain about clogged pipes.  While you may have an impulse to join in and tell tales from your hospital, nursing home, or medical office, think twice before doing so. Several factors limit your ability to share stories from the workplace, and a failure to use good judgement and obey applicable laws may have significant employment or licensure consequences.

Federal Privacy Laws Limit What You Can Say about Patients

Even if you are a newcomer to the health field, you are likely aware that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects patients’ privacy. HIPAA provides a legal framework for protecting your patients’ privacy. In short, you cannot reveal patients’ medical information to third parties without the patient’s consent.

Even if You Post Anonymous Information, It Could Lead to Problems

Removing a patient’s name or distinguishing information from a social media post may help you avoid running afoul of HIPAA, but it may not avoid violating the patient’s privacy. While you may think that removing the patient’s name takes away others’ ability to know who you are joking or griping about, it may make matters worse. If you assisted on six births over a weekend, but joke about one on Facebook, you may have given enough information to make all six patients believe you have violated their privacy.  Moreover, you may have made every recipient of your post question whether you will joke about their medical care sometime in the future. That erodes your credibility as a professional. This problem compounds when you joke or post about a highly specific medical condition on a certain day. That is a recipe for a patient figuring out that you are talking about them.

Use Good Judgment Even When Not Revealing Protected Patient Information

You do not have to violate HIPAA to run into trouble on social media. One thing to keep in mind is that you lose control of social media post once it is posted.  So a quip that you and your colleagues may see as humorous “shop talk” or “gallows humor” may be shocking to recipients to whom the post is eventually forwarded. Mocking or discussing patients or medical procedures performed on a certain day may suggest to your community that you are flippant about patient care or unprofessional. This has implications for your personally and for your employer as well. Serious cases of this may result in a claim of unprofessionalism or licensure issues.

Never Post Pictures of the Workplace

The United States Navy recently investigated two hospital corpsmen who posted inappropriate videos of newborn babies on Snapchat. These were cynical, unprofessional videos mocking the babies. While in the end the videos did not pose any real harm to the children, they gave rise to questions about the corpsmen’s professionalism. Posting pictures from the workplace of patients or procedures suggests  a degree of unprofessionalism that you cannot risk.

Call Attorney Sanger today at (785)-979-4353 to protect your professional license.

Contacting Missouri Licensing Defense Attorney Danielle Sanger can help you protect your licensure and career. While you have a constitutional right to free speech, your employer may illegally take employment action based on what you say on social media. Attorney Danielle Sanger is an experienced Kansas and Missouri licensing attorney and has the experience to both resolve your lingering licensure issues and walk you through your current licensing process. She has the experience to deal with licensing bodies, appear before administrative boards, and provide clients with the advice to best position themselves professionally.

Kansas and Missouri Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger: Dedicated Advocate for Social Workers Facing Professional Discipline 

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Social workers are professionals entrusted to take care of some society’s most vulnerable populations. Children, the disabled, the elderly, and people with drug and alcohol dependency are often social worker’s clients. While most of society appreciates and applauds social workers’ hard work to better society, many are quick to condemn a social worker if any suspicion or rumor of misconduct arises. Given social workers’ backbreaking caseloads and one on one contact with clients, these allegations can be difficult to disprove and potentially career ending. Don’t let an allegation of misconduct end your career and ruin your finances and future.

In Kansas and Missouri, social workers facing professional discipline can rely on Danielle Sanger, Esq. to defend their rights. Attorney Sanger has spent her career defending licensees before administrative and licensing boards, protecting those accused of making mistakes and other misconduct from losing their professions, savings, and homes.

Let’s face it, social workers have an extremely difficult job. They are haunted by the specter of misconduct daily for more than one reason. First, they are often working with extremely vulnerable populations with little or no supervision. Drug addicts, at-risk youth, neglected or abused children—they all require the special training and services that only a social worker is trained to provide. On the other hand it is also extremely easy for one of these clients or their family member to concoct an allegation of misconduct against a social worker in hopes of getting some sort of financial windfall from a state or agency. As a result, licensing issues can and do arise at no fault of the social worker. Well meaning social workers often try to “work with” investigators to clear up these misconceptions. That seemingly well-intentioned act can lead to your words being twisted and used against you later and an eventual loss of your professional license.

Second, social workers are often underpaid and overworked.  Extreme caseloads, unrealistic expectations, and diminishing training budgets can combine to result in mistakes. Even innocuous mistakes, however, can result in extreme consequences such as loss of a license and permanent reputational harm. In these situations, heartfelt apologies and expressions of remorse will be “Exhibit A” in the administrative hearing against the social worker.

There is no time to waste if you are accused of misconduct. Too many social workers try to talk their way out of misconduct or represent themselves before licensing boards, thinking that they can understand the process and anticipate the challenges that lie ahead. You should not respond to the licensing agency until you have attained representation by a skilled licensing attorney.  Rest assured, the licensing administration opposing you will not be representing themselves, they will have an expert representing their interests. So should you.

You have rights if you are accused of misconduct.  Because the state is seeking to take your property—your license to practice social work—you are have a right to due process.  This is not the sort of due process you might see in a courtroom, but it is no less important. Having a zealous advocate by your side challenging the validity of the evidence against you and cross examining those who testify against you is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

If you are a social worker in Kansas or Missouri and are facing a threat to your license, call Danielle Sanger today.

Kansas and Missouri Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger is prepared to advocate for your best interests and defend your livelihood and career. Call Attorney Sanger today at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation with an experienced and aggressive attorney for social workers facing occupational discipline.

 

Physical Therapists in Kansas or Missouri Facing Professional Discipline Should Turn to Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger for Impassioned Defense

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Facing professional discipline is a daunting time in a physical therapist’s career. A physical therapist should not feel like they are a bad person merely because the Board of Healing Arts levied a complaint against them. Mistakes do happen, but that does not mean that the physical therapist should never practice again. It could mean that the Board of Healing Arts in Kansas or Missouri will seek sanctions against their license. A physical therapist in that position must seek legal advice from a competent and experienced professional licensing attorney who practices in Kansas and Missouri such as Danielle Sanger, Esq.

Having a vigorous and aggressive professional licensing advocate on your side could mean the difference between continuing practicing in your chosen profession and searching for supplemental work because your license to practice is suspended or revoked. Not just any attorney will suffice. Professional disciplinary attorney Danielle Sanger has the experience, dedication, devotion, and competence you need.

Your inclination might be to fight the government on your own. Representing yourself is a path that could have severe consequences. Most people who represent themselves get caught up in the emotional aspect of the proceedings. It is hard to think clearly, to know your options, and execute a plan to protect your professional and personal well-being when you must counter allegations of misconduct, especially if they are untrue or exaggerated. Having a professional licensing attorney by your side from the inception of the investigation into your alleged misconduct will help you achieve the best result for you and your family.

Facing professional discipline is a dire situation that could have potentially drastic consequences for you and your family. Disciplinary boards have broad discretion on the penalty they can fashion for a physical therapist who runs afoul of the rules governing the profession. The Board of Healing Arts could impose sanctions ranging from a censure and a private reprimand to revocation. There are intermediate sanctions available to the Board of Healing Arts as well. The Board of Healing Arts has the authority to issue a public reprimand, probation for a length of time with conditions or limitations on the physical therapist’s ability to practice, suspension, or revocation.

Suspension and revocation are typically reserved for the worst cases. The Board of Healing Arts will impose such severe sanctions when a patient or patients of the physical therapist suffered an injury, be it physical, emotional, or monetary. Alternatively, the Board of Healing Arts will examine the physical therapist’s background for prior discipline and determine that previous sanctions have not corrected unlawful behavior and therefore the physical therapist must be ordered to stop practicing.

No matter the punishment, the goal for the Board of Healing Arts is to protect the public. The physical therapist has the opportunity to demonstrate that any sanction should be limited in scope, limited in duration, and not be too onerous. A savvy and experienced professional licensing attorney will have the ability to argue in your favor persuasively.

The physical therapist who is facing professional discipline has other rights beyond the right to choose counsel. Any professional against whom discipline is sought has the right to a hearing before a neutral and detached magistrate, to confront and cross-examine witnesses who testify against them, and to know the evidence the government has that supports its claim. Also, the physical therapist has the right to call witnesses on their own behalf and testify on their own behalf. Additionally, the physical therapist has the right to appeal all adverse rulings to a court of law after all administrative remedies have been exhausted.

Kansas and Missouri Professional Discipline Attorney Fighting to Protect the Livelihoods of Physical Therapists

Call Kansas Professional Disciplinary Attorney Danielle Sanger today at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation. Do not hesitate. Call immediately if you learn that you are being investigated. It is never too soon to begin preparing a winning defense.

Kansas and Missouri Professional Licensing Attorney Danielle Sanger: Aggressive Representation of Dentists Facing Professional Discipline

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More and more studies have shown that oral hygiene and good oral health are a vital component of our overall well-being. Therefore, dentists, dental assistants, and dental hygienists help keep us healthy in conjunction with our primary care physicians and other healthcare professionals upon whom we rely. All professionals within the dental field are educated and licensed professionals dedicated to their craft. However, dentists, dental hygienists, and dental assistants (collectively “dentists”) make mistakes just as fallible humans do, despite having their patient’s best interest in mind. That is why dentists who are facing professional discipline need an experienced, aggressive, and successful advocate for dental professionals in Kansas and Missouri like Danielle Sanger, Esq.

Attorney Danielle Sanger has dedicated her practice to representing professional licensees before professional boards and administrative agencies. Her passion for helping professional licensees differentiates Attorney Sanger from other attorneys. She has over a decade of experience defending clients facing license loss. Additionally, her experience as an Assistant Attorney General prosecuting professional license matters before the Kansas Board of Nursing gives her clients an added advantage. Attorney Sanger understands how the system works and how best to represent her clients within those strictures.

Those who work in the dental profession are well-regarded as intelligent individuals. Therefore, it would be tempting for them to try to take on the government and represent themselves before the Board of Dentistry. Self-representation is fraught with danger. People unsophisticated in the law are easily overwhelmed and can make mistakes despite how convinced they are of their innocence. Additionally, some dental professionals might believe that they can save money by representing themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hiring an experienced, savvy, and zealous professional licensing attorney could save your practice and therefore your livelihood.

Dentistry professionals, like other professional licensees, face a myriad of disciplinary possibilities. These possibilities range from censure and public reprimand to suspension or revocation. Dental professionals may also suffer punishments such as public reprimand, a probationary period with conditions placed on their license to practice dentistry, suspension, and finally revocation. Enlisting a vigorous dental licensing attorney to fight on your behalf will give you the best chance of receiving the least severe punishment possible under the circumstances. Those conditions also include particulars about the dentist’s career and history of the previous discipline. The severity of the penalty meted out by the Board of Dentistry will come down to whether the dentist has a history of professional discipline, the severity of the incident in question, and the dentist’s reputation within the dental community. Also, the disciplinary board could consider other relevant factors such as whether there was a victim in the case and whether he or she suffered any injuries.

Dental professionals enjoy a plethora of rights before the government, presented by the licensing board, can impose a sanction on their ability to practice.  The rights professional licensees have are similar to those afforded to a criminal defendant. Chief among those rights is the right to a fair and impartial hearing before a neutral and detached magistrate or fact finder. It is important to note that there is no right to a trial by jury. But, the licensee has the right to see the government’s evidence, cross-examine or confront witnesses, and to call witnesses to testify on their behalf. Professional licensees have a right not to incriminate themselves, but an invocation of their right not to incriminate themselves may be used as negative evidence against them.

Consult an Experienced and Dedicated Dental Licensing Attorney before Speaking to Anyone about a Complaint or Investigation into your Conduct

You have the right to counsel of your choosing to represent you, even during the investigation phase of a claim made against you. Choose Kansas and Missouri professional licensing attorney Danielle Sanger to fight for you and your livelihood. Call Attorney Sanger today at 785-979-4353 to schedule a free consultation.