For California's three million-plus licensed professionals, the name of the game is to stay off their licensing agency's radar screen. If you run into a problem, you want to make it go away, or at worst, suffer as little damage as possible. Here are some tips:
1) Get Out of a Problem Workplace: Many license problems arise from reporting by employers to licensing agencies, and can come from spiteful employers and arise from employee conflicts. If you have a bad feeling, get out before you are the subject of a complaint.
2) Solve Your Personal Problems Before They Become License Problems: Alcohol and drug abuse, followed by physical and mental issues, can trigger serious safety concerns for a licensing agency. Seek prompt treatment so that your personal issue doesn't become a public safety concern that causes the loss of your license.
3) Take Great Care of Your Customers (or Patients, or Clients): When you are wrongly accused of course defend yourself, but if you have made a mistake, fix it, if the customer deserves a refund, make it, if an apology is due, give it. Hurt feelings, refusal to make an account adjustment or rudeness can trigger a license discipline nightmare.
4) Be Honest with Your Licensing Agency: If you are caught in a lie and shatter the trust placed in you by your licensing agency, the lie will almost always overshadow the behavior you wanted to cover up. Most licensing agencies are poorly staffed and rely upon the honesty of licensees when they make an inquiry or do an inspection. Betraying this trust can cost you your license.
5) Keep Your Address Information Up to Date: If your licensing agency has a problem and can't reach you, they may assume your guilt or never get your side of the story. You could be disciplined or lose your license and not even know it! A license hanging on a wall means nothing if, unbeknownst to you, the license has expired or has been revoked.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Fighting for California Licensed Professionals
Many professionals may think that the agency that licenses them is on their side. They are so wrong. The primary goal of a California license agency is public protection. Whether the Medical Board, Department of Insurance or the Chiropractic Board, these agencies impose more regulations and seek to strictly enforce discipline against their licensees.
The equalizers in this process, who counterbalance the awesome power of the Boards, Bureas and Departments, are the administrative law judges, the Superior Court, and most importantly, the attorneys who appear before them. The rules are relatively simple. Each licensee is constitutionally entitled to due process, meaning simply notice and an opportunity to be heard. The agency cannot punish, but instead only protect the public. The agency must follow its own rules and treat everyone fairly. Violations of these rules will lead to successful appeals before the Superior Court and higher courts.
In a recent case, we succeeded in getting an order of license revocation overturned. The licensee had gone to a hearing without an attorney (regrettable, and unfortunately common these days). The hearing had, of course, gone badly, and his license was revoked. Luckily for the licenseholder, the Department of Insurance violated the rules of due process, and, even more fortunately, he came to me while we could do something about it. After eight months of fighting in court with the Department, the decision was overturned and the license was restored.
Most law is based upon relatively simple rules which anyone can grasp. The lawyer's job - and what all lawyers must demonstrate to pass the bar - is applying the law to the facts of a specific case to make effective legal arguments. The more experience the lawyer has in a specific area of law, the more insightful the lawyer becomes at applying facts to the law.
To learn more about the difference you can make by hiring an experienced license defense or license denial appeal attorney, visit http://www.mylicenselawyer.com/.
The equalizers in this process, who counterbalance the awesome power of the Boards, Bureas and Departments, are the administrative law judges, the Superior Court, and most importantly, the attorneys who appear before them. The rules are relatively simple. Each licensee is constitutionally entitled to due process, meaning simply notice and an opportunity to be heard. The agency cannot punish, but instead only protect the public. The agency must follow its own rules and treat everyone fairly. Violations of these rules will lead to successful appeals before the Superior Court and higher courts.
In a recent case, we succeeded in getting an order of license revocation overturned. The licensee had gone to a hearing without an attorney (regrettable, and unfortunately common these days). The hearing had, of course, gone badly, and his license was revoked. Luckily for the licenseholder, the Department of Insurance violated the rules of due process, and, even more fortunately, he came to me while we could do something about it. After eight months of fighting in court with the Department, the decision was overturned and the license was restored.
Most law is based upon relatively simple rules which anyone can grasp. The lawyer's job - and what all lawyers must demonstrate to pass the bar - is applying the law to the facts of a specific case to make effective legal arguments. The more experience the lawyer has in a specific area of law, the more insightful the lawyer becomes at applying facts to the law.
To learn more about the difference you can make by hiring an experienced license defense or license denial appeal attorney, visit http://www.mylicenselawyer.com/.
Friday, August 8, 2008
The Summer of Sunsets
We are hearing a lot about "sunsetting" this summer, a term used for the phasing out of programs and agencies typically by legislation passed for that purpose. Perhaps the most famous "sunset" was the elimination of the Medical Board of California's diversion program. This program was judged to be ineffective by an independent analysis and subsequently was phased out, effective June 30, 2008.
For those who were in the diversion program at the time of its sunset, they seem to have remained on diversion of a sort, under the auspices of the Board's enforcement personnel, or have been released from diversion in recognition of their substantial compliance. For those who would now elect to go into diversion, it would seem, at first blush, that they have missed the boat.
I can think of, however, many reasons why no one was happy with diversion. To those who think that the Medical Board should, in the name of public protection, create a damming public record about every physician subject to possible discipline, the diversion program swept these "bad" physicians under the rug, and kept their secrets to the detriment of all. From the point of view of those in diversion, the program was grueling, using as its primary compliance mechanism the maligned "EtG" drug and alcohol test, and tended to be a "one size fits all" program that seemed to last years without end. In constrast, drug addicition treatment in the criminal justice system (from Prop 36 to common judge-ordered treatment) relies upon less frequent but more reliable drug testing and typically entails three to nine months of treatment. Diversion remains alive and well for the other healthcare professions. Time will tell if it has really become unavailable, once and for all, for physicians.
This year, five California boards, the Dental Board, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Board, Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians, Court Reporters and Barbering and Cosmetology were "sunsetted." They expired without renewal, apparently because the political will did not exist to continue them. Licensees may see little effect, however, there is a difference - Boards tend to be comprised of the professionals regulated (largely), whereas the Bureaus that replace them are run by civil servants. A predictable result, despite the cost savings of eliminating a Board with members to be hosted, served and flown around the state, is the elimination of peer oversight that a Board provides. A Board can be replaced with an advisory committee to inject a certain amount of industry insight, although an advisory committee lacks the governing power of a Board.
Neither a Board nor a Bureau is very democratic, but a Board meets in public and permits public comment. A Board can withstand political pressure by doing right but unpopular things, and can use its specialty knowledge to govern a profession with skill and insight. I, for one, hope these Boards are reinstated, or at a minimum, that this trend does not continue. And those remaining Boards, approaching sunsets of their own, should work hard to prove their relevance, so that they enjoy the support and respect of the professions they regulate.
For those who were in the diversion program at the time of its sunset, they seem to have remained on diversion of a sort, under the auspices of the Board's enforcement personnel, or have been released from diversion in recognition of their substantial compliance. For those who would now elect to go into diversion, it would seem, at first blush, that they have missed the boat.
I can think of, however, many reasons why no one was happy with diversion. To those who think that the Medical Board should, in the name of public protection, create a damming public record about every physician subject to possible discipline, the diversion program swept these "bad" physicians under the rug, and kept their secrets to the detriment of all. From the point of view of those in diversion, the program was grueling, using as its primary compliance mechanism the maligned "EtG" drug and alcohol test, and tended to be a "one size fits all" program that seemed to last years without end. In constrast, drug addicition treatment in the criminal justice system (from Prop 36 to common judge-ordered treatment) relies upon less frequent but more reliable drug testing and typically entails three to nine months of treatment. Diversion remains alive and well for the other healthcare professions. Time will tell if it has really become unavailable, once and for all, for physicians.
This year, five California boards, the Dental Board, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Board, Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians, Court Reporters and Barbering and Cosmetology were "sunsetted." They expired without renewal, apparently because the political will did not exist to continue them. Licensees may see little effect, however, there is a difference - Boards tend to be comprised of the professionals regulated (largely), whereas the Bureaus that replace them are run by civil servants. A predictable result, despite the cost savings of eliminating a Board with members to be hosted, served and flown around the state, is the elimination of peer oversight that a Board provides. A Board can be replaced with an advisory committee to inject a certain amount of industry insight, although an advisory committee lacks the governing power of a Board.
Neither a Board nor a Bureau is very democratic, but a Board meets in public and permits public comment. A Board can withstand political pressure by doing right but unpopular things, and can use its specialty knowledge to govern a profession with skill and insight. I, for one, hope these Boards are reinstated, or at a minimum, that this trend does not continue. And those remaining Boards, approaching sunsets of their own, should work hard to prove their relevance, so that they enjoy the support and respect of the professions they regulate.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Doing More Harm Than Good at a Board Meeting
I learned (or perhaps re-learned) a few basic lessons of license law at a recent licensing board meeting I attended. On the day I attended, a number of individuals (all without attorneys) asked the board to either terminate their probation early or reinstate a long lost license. Most of these individuals had waited many months, if not years, for this chance. What I saw one after another of them do genuinely shocked me.
Licensing boards exist to protect the public. Each and every person who was heard had voluntarily accepted discipline against their license, probably grabbing a deal to either save their license (for those on probation) or save the costs and ignominy of a discipline hearing (for those who were revoked). The Board, having long since decided these folks were bad apples, expected to hear remorse, reflection and rehabilitation, and perhaps a carefully thought out argument why someone should be off probation or returned to practice.
What I heard, however, was each and every person lash out at the discipline against them and claim their innocence. They were framed, the charges were untrue, the judge got it wrong. They of course did not realize that, indirectly, they were arguing the board itself wrongly disciplined them. I understood that after so many years of hardship, their bitterness, anger and regret openly flowed onto the board members before them. Nevertheless, these people squandered a rare opportunity to plead directly with the board for their licenses.
What no one seemed to realize, of course, was that the results of their denials, rationalizations and tirades would be written in decisions and added to their records. Not only did they seem to utterly fail to accomplish their goals, but they added to the derogatory records of their license discipline.
As a license attorney, I must persuade people to leave their bitterness and hostility behind and to move in a positive direction. People who won't acknowledge or learn from their mistakes almost certainly will repeat them. What a pity that otherwise smart adults didn't seem to get it.
[If you need assistance with a license problem, learn more about my law firm at www.mylicenselawyer.com ]
Licensing boards exist to protect the public. Each and every person who was heard had voluntarily accepted discipline against their license, probably grabbing a deal to either save their license (for those on probation) or save the costs and ignominy of a discipline hearing (for those who were revoked). The Board, having long since decided these folks were bad apples, expected to hear remorse, reflection and rehabilitation, and perhaps a carefully thought out argument why someone should be off probation or returned to practice.
What I heard, however, was each and every person lash out at the discipline against them and claim their innocence. They were framed, the charges were untrue, the judge got it wrong. They of course did not realize that, indirectly, they were arguing the board itself wrongly disciplined them. I understood that after so many years of hardship, their bitterness, anger and regret openly flowed onto the board members before them. Nevertheless, these people squandered a rare opportunity to plead directly with the board for their licenses.
What no one seemed to realize, of course, was that the results of their denials, rationalizations and tirades would be written in decisions and added to their records. Not only did they seem to utterly fail to accomplish their goals, but they added to the derogatory records of their license discipline.
As a license attorney, I must persuade people to leave their bitterness and hostility behind and to move in a positive direction. People who won't acknowledge or learn from their mistakes almost certainly will repeat them. What a pity that otherwise smart adults didn't seem to get it.
[If you need assistance with a license problem, learn more about my law firm at www.mylicenselawyer.com ]
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