Video Transcript
My name is Kraig Marton and I work in Healthcare here at Jaburg & Wilk.
Do healthcare professionals have to report legal trouble to their licensing board?
It turns out that healthcare professionals have a duty to report certain things to their licensing board.
What kind of charges must be reported?
Any kind of felony must be reported, again within ten days, but not just felonies but most kinds of misdemeanors also have to be reported. The common kind that I see licensees fail to report are DUIs. You’ve got to tell your licensing board you’ve been charged with, not arrested, but charged with a DUI. Another common kind that I’ve seen not reported is domestic violence. If you’re arrested and then charged for domestic violence, you have to tell your licensing board in writing and again within ten days.
How soon do they have to report the charges?
The law requires that every healthcare professional who has been charged with a reportable offense that they report it within ten working days of the date that the charge is filed.
What are the consequences of not reporting?
The statute is pretty clear that if you don’t tell your licensing board about a charge and then they find out about it, they can take legal action against you. It’s called unprofessional conduct and the licensing boards have a lot of tools available to them from revocation down to censure and other kinds of slaps on the wrist. I’ve seen boards take it very seriously that they weren’t told about charges against one of their licensees because they want to know early and they want to investigate promptly about what the charges are to see if other actions need to be taken. If you’re an applicant for a license, possibly to probably you won’t get that license if you didn’t tell them about a charge and even if you’ve got an application pending, once a charge is filed against you, you have to tell the board where your application is pending that a charge has been filed against you. It’s serious stuff and when you’ve been charged, you cannot ignore it, you have to act quickly and report it.