Physicians and surgeons operate in a constantly changing and confusing environment. As a practitioner in this healthcare field, you continually observe and evaluate patients for accurate diagnosis and treatment. Everyone holds you to a high standard because your services could mean life or death. The California Medical Board (CMB) governs medical experts to guarantee high-standard services that ensure public safety. Therefore, you are susceptible to complaints from the board when a patient reports you for poor services or misconduct, threatening your license.

If you are under investigation or face a complaint from the board, you should consult an experienced licensure defense attorney for guidance and support. At Santa Cruz License Attorney, we understand the painstaking training, education, and experience you encountered to obtain your physician or surgeon permit. So, we will offer top-notch legal representation and guidance to ensure you retain your medical license.

Ways the California Medical Board Regulates Physicians and Surgeons

CMB regulates physicians and surgeons and ensures that they maintain the high standards required in the industry. The primary roles of the board are:

Setting Standards That Guide Medical Practitioners

The priority of CMB is to protect the health of patients seeking the medical services of surgeons or physicians. The board achieves this objective by setting industry standards that all licensees should abide by.

Board members review current policies and standards occasionally to identify gaps or challenges. Once they identify problems, they make recommendations that usually involve introducing new procedures or guidelines.

With the ever-evolving policies and guidelines, you can easily engage in professional misconduct or rule violations because you are not updated with the recent changes. A violation will cause the board to initiate a complaint that places your permit at risk of suspension or revocation, even when you were unaware of the guideline changes.

Talk to your licensure attorney to understand the latest policy changes by the board, ensure you are updated, and avoid breaches that threaten your license.

Enforcing Eligibility for Fresh Medical Graduates

After finishing your education and training in medical school, you should undergo the license application process conducted by the CMB to obtain your practicing permit. The board only issues licenses to qualified individuals. Therefore, during the license application, they will request your medical school certification, apprenticeship, and the status of your medical residency.

After the board corroborates your academic qualifications, they will administer tests, and when you pass the tests and pay the requisite fees, they will issue you a permit.

Whether you are reapplying for the license after a disciplinary measure or it is your first application, you should seek assistance from an experienced attorney.

Receiving Client Complaints

As a medical practitioner, you joined the industry to save lives and improve the well-being of people. You are passionate about your job and careful not to cause harm. Unfortunately, mistakes happen, and these could lead to complaints. Patients unsatisfied with the medical services you provide because of negligence or professional misconduct can lodge a claim against you through the board. This means that the CMB has another responsibility of receiving claims from the public and evaluating them to decide if they can be substantiated and worth pursuing.

The licensing agency categorizes complaints depending on severity and prioritizes the severe ones. If a claim can be substantiated, they will contact you and the claimant, seeking additional information to aid decision-making.

However trivial you believe the complaint against you is, you should follow up to determine if it has merit. You are encouraged to consult with your attorney immediately after receiving a complaint notice.

Administering Investigations

After the board substantiates a claim against you, they assign the file to an investigator to gather more evidence to corroborate the accusations. You should expect a call or physical visit by the investigators for some questions and evidence collection during investigations. The board oversees the investigations. Therefore, if you have a complaint or any other issue you would like to raise about an ongoing investigation, you should bring it to the agency’s attention. For instance, if investigators do not have a valid search warrant when raiding your clinic, you should inform the board of the relevant measures, including dismissing the evidence obtained in the illegal search.

The Complaints Faced By Physician

You must exercise care and caution when providing services because even a minor complaint from a disgruntled patient, colleague, or public member can result in license loss. So, you should familiarize yourself with allegations commonly faced by medical professionals in your field. The common complaints against surgeons are:

  1. Sexual Harassment

As a medical practitioner, you meet diverse people in the line of duty, including patients and colleagues. With you dealing with tens of cases daily, setting boundaries with some patients can be difficult. Your actions or words could be misconstrued as sexual assault, leading to a complaint if the patients felt uncomfortable or offended. You face sexual harassment allegations, whether your behavior was deliberate or accidental, threatening your permit. If your conduct was accidental or misinterpreted by the accuser, you must find an experienced attorney to prove this to CMB to prevent disciplinary measures.

  1. Enlisting the Services of Unlicensed or Unaccredited Medical Assistants

You cannot perform all your responsibilities, especially in complex cases, without the help of a medical assistant. The board expects you to hire certified and qualified medical assistants to meet industry standards and provide quality medical care.

Even with the high standards, some medical practitioners take shortcuts and employ unlicensed assistants, compromising the quality of medical services. Physicians mainly hire unqualified assistants because of the lower hourly costs they charge compared to licensed assistants.

Sometimes, you can genuinely recruit a qualified assistant, only later to discover that they used fake academic documents to secure the job. Even though this is not your fault, it could still threaten your permit. Therefore, even if the accusations of hiring unqualified assistants are false, you should hire an attorney to help prove that you did not act intentionally and could not differentiate between fabricated and legitimate documents.

  1. Prescribe Unlawful Drugs

As a surgeon, one of your roles is drug prescription. You must adhere to the guidelines when making the prescription to prevent adverse effects like addiction, overdose, or incomplete dosage.

Your patients are less likely to notice when you make an illegal prescription. Therefore, these complaints are commonly filed by colleagues or coworkers after they observe you making an unlawful prescription once or twice. For instance, after surgery, as a surgeon, you are expected to prescribe some opioids to the patient to help with pain management. However, when a coworker notices that you issue some of your patients with more opioids than necessary, they can report you to CMB.

When you observe addiction signs in a patient after prescribing a particular medication for a long time, you should switch medications to avoid feeding their addiction. If you do not take action to remedy the situation when the signs of addiction are apparent, the board can take disciplinary measures against you for endangering a patient’s safety.

Irregular prescriptions also indicate that you could be working with a third party to peddle controlled substances.

  1. Maintaining Incorrect Medical Files

Your patients' medical documents are crucial in properly running a medical practice as they enable tracking of a patient’s medical history, which is vital in providing adequate care.  Records are essential because they also help show how you have been administering treatment and if you are maintaining the high standards required in the field.

Therefore, if you have made errors, engaged in fraudulent practices, or committed criminal negligence, you could try to cover up your actions by destroying or modifying patient medical records.

When CMB receives a complaint about improper medical records in your facility, they will initiate an inquiry to corroborate the claims. Your records will provide all the evidence they require. If there is evidence your records are inaccurate, you will face disciplinary action.

  1. Engaging in Insurance Fraud

Some physicians or surgeons collude with patients to claim compensation for insufficient medical services. Insurance fraud can never happen without the input of a medical practitioner. After a patient crafts a plan to defraud their insurer, they need you to fill out medical forms and claims for medical services not provided or an exaggeration of the services offered. Billing the insurer for services not offered or unnecessary medical services is fraud and, if uncovered, could lead to a CMB investigation and loss of practicing license.

  1. Substance Abuse or Addiction on the Job

Physicians and surgeons interact with controlled substances daily and could be tempted to use these substances. Abusing substances at the workplace violates the professional code of conduct. The alcohol or drugs impair your ability to provide uncompromised medical services. If the matter is reported to the board, you risk an investigation and subsequent disciplinary action.

Possible Disciplinary Measures

The type of disciplinary measure you will attract depends on the violation. Any decision by CMB will be accessible to the public through their website and will have severe repercussions on your reputation. The possible outcomes of the CMB investigations and processes are:

No Punishment Despite the Existence of a Violation

With the help of an experienced license defense attorney, you can prevent any form of punishment, even when evidence shows you engaged in a violation or misconduct. Very few attorneys can compel the board not to punish you, so you should take time to hire the best attorney.

There was No Violation

Other times, the board will receive a complaint; upon investigation, they will not come across any incriminating evidence. Even if they find evidence, sometimes the proof could be insufficient for a formal accusation. Under the circumstances, the case will be closed, and you will not face punishment.

Negotiations or Mediations

Many complaints to CMB stem from conflict between you and the patient, coworker, or insurance company. Therefore, before considering an administrative proceeding, the conflicting parties should be allowed to mediate the problem. If mediation or arbitration is successful, the case is dropped. For instance, if your accusations are for maintaining inaccurate records, you can promise the accuser to rectify the situation. If you reach an agreement, CMB will have no business filing formal allegations against you.

Issuance of a Warning Letter

When you have engaged in a minor violation that does not harm the public, CMB can issue you a warning letter to discourage you from the conduct. The letter reminds you that repeating the same action will attract punishment. The verbal warning stays private so it does not dent your reputation.

Reprimand Letter

Depending on your case’s circumstances, CMB can decide to issue a reprimand letter for a minor infringement. Unlike a warning letter, a reprimand letter is posted on the board’s website, denting your reputation. However, it only stays public for a few months, but these are enough to dissuade existing and potential clients from seeking your medical services. Therefore, you should speak to your attorney to present mitigating factors to compel the board to make the reprimand letter private. That way, it will not cause significant harm to your career.

Enforcement Review

If investigations into a complaint point to a departure from CMB’s standard of care, the licensing agency could opt not to take the file to the Attorney General (AG) for a formal accusation. Instead, they could require you to participate in an enforcement review where you appear before CMB several times to show that you are taking measures to prevent previous violations from happening in the future. The review is voluntary, but you are better off if you seek the help of an experienced license attorney.

Suspension or Revocation of Your Medical Practitioner Permit

In severe cases, the board will order you to stop offering medical services for a stipulated time, which is known as a suspension. You cannot provide services as an employee or run your clinic during the withdrawal period. However, you can apply for reinstatement after the suspension lapses to regain your permit.

In contrast, a revocation is a complete termination of your permit. The revocation is indefinite and puts your medical career to a halt. Nevertheless, your attorney can still help you reinstate the license through proper procedures.

Find a Competent License Attorney Near Me

You have worked hard to gain your physician license; retaining it should be your priority. Complaints against you should be taken with much weight, as they threaten your career. CMB investigates complaints, administers administrative proceedings, and imposes disciplinary measures on those found guilty. Some punishments, like license termination or suspension, could damage your career, so you should fight complaints aggressively. At Santa Cruz License Attorney, we have the experience you require for the best outcome after a complaint. Call us at 831-732-4390 to discuss your case.