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We Help Virginia Nurses Protect Their Nursing License
Nursing is hard. As you’ve experienced, nursing is physical and mental work that’s stressful. Your patient load and or demands are high everyday.
You work hard to help others and spend time away from your family giving your time and energy to others. When you do so much in this helping profession, it hurts to receive a nursing board complaint that can threaten your ability to work.
A nursing board complaint is to be dealt with seriously and with care. Even if you think what you’re accused of is not serious, you still must act immediately. At LicenseSure Defense Law, we can help as we’ve done other nurses fighting a board complaint in Virginia.
Get started on your defense now. We’ll take through this difficult time in your life and will be on your side until the complaint is resolved. Take a step towards saving your license. Don't wait to call our Team at 703-740-1129.
Virginia Board of Nursing
The Virginia Department of Health Professions and its Board of Nursing have oversight over nursing licensees. The Board of Nursing is in charge of regulating registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), advanced practice registered nurses, nurse anesthetists, nurse midwives, advanced certified nurse aides, and clinical nurse specialists.
Virginia Nurse Laws and Regulations
Nurses practicing in the Commonwealth of Virginia are regulated under the Virginia Nurse Practice Act and the Medical Practice Act. Also, there are specific laws for certified nurse aides.
What’s more, the Board of Nursing from time to time publishes guidance documents that lay out nursing standards of care, protocols, and more. To stay out of licensing trouble, nurses must follow these guidance documents.
Where Does a Nursing Complaint Start in Virginia
Every nursing complaint case is unique, but all cases alleging a potential violation of nursing regulations, laws, and standards of care start with intake of a complaint. Sometimes the initial complaint is considered baseless and it does not go any further. But some nursing complaints go past the intake stage and follow one of these paths:
Path 1: Complaint
All nursing complaints are filed with the Department of Health Professions (DHP) Enforcement Division.
Every year, the Enforcement Division gets and sorts through many complaints It’s good news that many complaints are thrown out initially if it doesn’t need more investigation. But there are others that go forward and end up with some form of disciplinary action taken against the nurse.
Sometimes the intake department believes that further investigation of a nursing complaint is not necessary. In that instance, it can recommend to the Board of Nursing that no further action should be taken on the complaint. The Board then decides if it agrees to throw the complaint out or if it wants to send the case back over to the Enforcement Division for further investigation.
Path 2: Investigation
If the Enforcement Division finds a complaint is solid, it will assign an nursing investigator to look further into your case.
Investigators are tasked with collecting complaint related documents, conduct interviews with people who know about the facts of the complaint, and issue subpoenas for records.
Path 3: Board of Nursing Review
The Enforcement Division's sends its’ written investigation report to the Board of Nursing. This is when the Board of Nursing first gets involved.
Next, the Board of Nursing reviews the report and decides if there’s enough reason to continue investigating the complaint. If there’s not enough reason to move forward with discipline, the Board will not and the nurse will be notified that their case will be dropped and the case is over.
When Can My Nursing License Be Suspended?
If the Virginia Board of Nursing opts to pursue a complaint against you, it will figure out if it makes sense to immediately suspend the nurse's license – which is called a summary suspension.
Summary suspensions are issued if the Board of Nursing thinks a nurse's conduct poses a substantial danger to public health or safety. A nurse doesn’t have the right to a formal hearing before getting a summary suspension, but after the suspension is handed down, the Virginia Board of Nursing must schedule a formal hearing.
A nursing license can be suspended immediately if a nurse is convicted of a felony, has had a license revoked or suspended in another state and it has not been reinstated, is under a legal disability, or falls into other suspension categories.
There are also situations where a nursing license can be suspended without any allegations of professional wrongdoing, such as a court suspending a nursing license for failure to pay child support.
Consent Orders
If you’re a nurse facing discipline, you can agree to sign a consent order with the Board of Nursing before an informal conference or formal hearing has happened.
By agreeing to a consent order, you’re required to admit wrongdoing. Admitting guilt has serious consequences. We can help you decide if signing a consent order is right for you.
Informal Conference
Attending an informal conference lets you get the chance to come up with a solution to the Board complaint without having to go to a formal hearing. At an informal conference you’ll be in front of a Board of Nursing committee.
At the informal conference, a nurse gets an opportunity to defend the allegations made against them in the complaint and investigative report.
Some options to come out of an informal conference are: entering into a consent order, accepting a reprimand, a fine, placing terms and conditions on a nursing license, outright dismissal of all charges, reinstating your nursing license, or referral of the case over to the full Board of Nursing for a formal hearing.
Formal Hearing
At the formal hearing, evidence in support of the complaint allegations will be submitted to the full board. It’s like a trial. There are opening statements, witnesses, you will have a right to testify and cross examine the Board’s witnesses (your accusers), present your own evidence, and closing arguments.
You should not even consider representing yourself in the formal hearing. This is where an experience professional license defense lawyer at LicenseSure Defense Law comes in. We can help you get ready for your formal hearing so you are prepared and ready to mount a strong defense.
Board of Nursing Decisions
The Board of Nursing has the authority to take many possible disciplinary actions. Some board actions are private while others are publicly made available where anyone can see them.
The Board of Nursing has the following disciplinary options:
Option 1: Case Closure
If the Virginia Board of Nursing doesn’t think there’s enough evidence to find you violated a nursing law or regulation it can close your case and send you on your way.
Option 2: Consent Agreement
A consent agreement is a private agreement entered into by the Board of Nursing and a licensed nurse. Most of the time, it’s offered when there’s no harm to the patient or limited injury that will probably not occur again by the nurse. It remains private and is not disseminated to the public or potential employers.
Option 3: Consent Order
With a consent order, a nursing complaint is settled a case before the Board of Nursing proceeds to the informal or formal hearing stage.
The consent order is a legal document where facts are laid out and discipline is outlined. Consent orders are public and can negatively affect a nursing career.
Option 4: Reprimand
The Board of Nursing has the power to reprimand nurses if they’ve violated Virginia nursing laws or regulations. A reprimand doesn’t interfere with a nurse’s ability to work. When issued, a reprimand can be seen by the public.
Option 5: Monetary Penalty
After an informal conference or a formal hearing, the Board of Nursing can impose a monetary penalty- in other words, a fine.
Option 6: Impose Terms and Conditions
The Nursing Board has the power to require a nurse follow terms and conditions to keep their license. For example, the Board can require a nurse to take continuing nursing education, place them on probation with terms to follow or risk suspension or other penalties, or other requirements before the nurse can start practicing normally.
Sometimes, the Board of Nursing uses terms and conditions as a measure to address nurses with physical or mental health problems, as well as those with substance abuse problems. On top of that, the Board of Nursing can require nurses to participate in the Health Practitioner's Monitoring Program as a term and condition to practice or resume practice.
Option 7: Limited Practice Privileges
The Board of Nursing can limit a nurse’s practice and order limited practice privileges. This means that it will not hesitate to suspend or revoke some of a nurse’s privileges they hold with an unrestricted license. In a situation where a nurse has stolen a controlled substance, they may have their privilege to access these types of drugs temporarily stopped.
Option 7: Suspension or Revocation
For the most egregious violation, you could be looking at license suspension or revocation. This type of drastic action can only be handed down after a public informal conference or formal hearing that will be publicly accessible.
Option 8: Dismissal
The best outcome is a dismissal at a public informal conference or a formal hearing. Dismissals happen when a nurse is found to have not violated nursing laws or regulations or if the Virginia Board of Nursing has insufficient evidence to prove a nursing practice violation occurred.
Appeal
After a disciplinary order has been issued resulting from an informal conference, the order becomes final 33 days after it is mailed to a nurse that being accused of wrongdoing. During this 33-day timeframe, a nurse can object to that order and ask for a formal hearing. Your attorney here at LicenseSure Defense Law can swiftly help you with this, but time is ticking. You must act now if you want to appeal.
If you go to a formal hearing and an order is entered, orders issued after a formal hearing have a 33-day appeal deadline as well. But if you want to appeal an order after a formal hearing, you must file an appeal with the circuit court.
What Mistakes Can Cause Me to Get a Complaint?
There are many actions that can cause you to get a complaint against you and jeopardize your nursing license.
There are many examples of acts that can threaten your license and here are some:
• Violent acts
• Stealing controlled substances
• Charting errors
• Drug abuse
• Insurance fraud
• Sexual relationship or other inappropriate relationship with a patient
• Stealing or misusing patient property
• Conviction of a crime
There are Possible Long Term Consequences of Nursing Disciplinary Actions
A board complaint resulting in discipline can negatively impact your professional and personal life.
Losing your license is devastating to your livelihood, professional reputation, and other aspects of your life, including your relationship with a spouse or significant other.
Disciplinary action results in immediate long term impacts. If disciplinary action is handed down against your nursing license, the Virginia Board of Nursing wil add you to Nursys, a national database showcasing license information and discipline for nurses. Nursys along with others databases, is there to give potential employers and the general public a way to get nationwide nursing license information.
What this means is serious and can impact your entire nursing career because any disciplinary action imposed on you in the Commonwealth of Virginia will immediately affect your ability to get a nursing job in other states.
Why You Need the LicenseSure Professional License Defense Team
You can’t take a chance on your nursing license. Having an experience professional license defense lawyer is vital. We will guide you through the entire disciplinary process in your case. We will help you get the evidence you need to defend yourself and will fight for you and your nursing license. Don’t give up or go against the Board on your own. Let us help you by calling 703-740-1129 or reach us online today.