When Assistant Mistakes Threaten Your Medical License

Yes, it’s true: whether you are a physician, nurse, psychologist, therapist, counselor, or other licensed medical professional, the mistakes of an assistant in your medical practice can end up threatening your own professional license. You can get caught in the disciplinary crossfire. Treat misconduct allegations based on assistant mistakes seriously. Get our Professional License Defense Team’s skilled and experienced help as soon as you hear of the misconduct allegations.

State professional boards and their licensing officials maintain comprehensive standards for the professionals whom they license, regulate, and discipline. Those standards are generally so comprehensive as to address not only your own conduct but also your reasonable supervision of assistants whom you employ and direct to pursue your professional practice.

Disciplinary officials generally won’t let you get away with conducting a loose, shoddy, and unsafe professional practice in which you fail to reasonably train, supervise, monitor, and correct your assistants. They may promptly blame you for your assistant’s mistakes, especially when your reasonable supervision would have prevented those mistakes or led to their swift correction before patient harm resulted.

Examples of instances in which disciplinary officials hold the professional responsible for an assistant’s mistake generally depend on the profession. Consider the following several examples:

● a physician’s assistant practices beyond the PA license’s scope in a substandard manner, harming the patient, when the supervising physician was or should have been reasonably aware of the unauthorized and substandard practice and could have prevented it;

● a dental hygienist carelessly performs a procedure reserved for dentists, injuring the dental patient, when the dentist was or should have been reasonably aware of the hygienist’s unauthorized and incompetent practice and could have prevented it; or

● an office assistant administers and interprets a psychological assessment reserved for a psychologist’s administration and interpretation, incorrectly informing the patient of a mental disorder the patient did not have, causing the patient mental and emotional distress.

Defending Disciplinary Charges for Assistant Mistakes

Just because you face such a charge, though, doesn’t mean that you’ll suffer discipline. Our attorneys may be able to show any one or more of the following defenses to the disciplinary charge:

● that you were not aware that your assistant was acting beyond the scope of your instructions despite your reasonable monitoring and supervision;

● that your assistant unexpectedly violated your direct instruction, despite having the knowledge, skill, experience, and competence not to do so;

● that your assistant did not, in fact, make the alleged mistake, such that the charges have no factual support; or

● that someone other than your assistant made the mistake, or that your assistant made the mistake when under someone else’s supervision.

Premier License Defense Services Nationwide

Our premier attorneys, conveniently located in offices across the country, have the substantial skills and experience necessary to effectively handle professional license defense issues. Don’t wait for formal charges or disciplinary results. Retain us now if you face misconduct allegations relating to an assistant’s mistakes. Call 833.536.8652 for the representation you need for your best professional license defense outcome.