Dental License Defense Attorney in Greenville
As a medical professional in the dental field, it is important that you conduct yourself professionally and provide the best care possible to your patients. Patients come to you for advice, for care, and for proper treatment because they expect that they can trust their dentist. If you violate that trust, it is possible for the patient to file a claim that could lead to an investigation that takes away your professional license. If you have been charged with misconduct in your field and are worried about the following investigation, make sure to pick out a good dental license defense attorney in Greenville to be on your side.
There are many different ways that a dentist could be charged with not providing the standard of care necessary in their field. When you are accused of any of the following, you will need your dental license defense attorney in Greenville to make things easier and help you get through the case:
Substance abuse
If you are charged and convicted of substance abuse as a professional in the dental field, you may lose your license. Those under the influence of various substances could make mistakes that will harm their patients and add unneeded risk to the procedure. In many states, there are professional recovery programs that will work with the professional to help them through their drug or alcohol dependency. Depending on how that goes and how bad the problem is, it is possible that you could lose your license.
With substance abuse, you must talk to a dental license defense attorney in Greenville right away. Sometimes the board does not want to be sympathetic to you even when dealing with substance abuse. Your attorney can advocate for you and may be able to get a bargain for you to participate in a recovery program rather than losing your license.
Fraud and misrepresentation
There are different activities that can fall under this. For example, if you charge different fees for people who use insurance compared to those who pay on their own. There could be an issue with insurance fees schedule and coding for different reimbursement, changing treatments, or unauthorized changes in their medical records.
While some therapists will claim that they were ignorant of some of the codes that were in use or that they didn’t realize they were working with the wrong codes, this is still a serious issue. You should never commit fraud or misrepresent information when working with your clients.
Patient abuse
This is often in terms of how responsible you are with your patients. If a patient suspects that you have abused them or that you are abusing other patients, you could easily get a claim filed with your local licensing board. This one is difficult to fight against because it is a lot of he-said-she-said, so finding a good dental license defense attorney in Greenville can make a big difference. Improper use of drugs during dental surgeries, not having a professional communication with patients, and more can fit under this.
Medication violation
This is going to be different depending on the state within which you practice. However, for most states, you are not able to provide advice about, administer, or dispense medication that is beyond your professional scope. There are times when a dentist may feel like prescribing or recommending medication that was not part of the treatment for the patient.
This will often depend on the reason for prescribing the medication. If you prescribe Advil to the patient after a tooth extraction, after knowing their medical history and that they would be fine with it, to help with the pain, that would not be a medical violation. If you just did a tooth cleaning and the patient mentions something about a headache, it would be a medical violation to talk about what medications they should take to deal with that since it is beyond your scope of work.
Unethical behavior
As a dentist, you are not able to discriminate against your patients for sex, religion, race, or age. If you refuse service to a patient because of any of those reasons or you treat them differently because of those reasons, you could end up with an investigation from the board of licenses in your state.
You also need to be careful with your advertising because sometimes. It all depends on the wording that you use. For example, if you advertise that you are providing free treatments to new patients, and then they come into the office and are required to pay their co-pay, then this can be considered unethical behavior. If they come in for free treatment and then you give them something extra that is not free without discussing it first, this can be unethical as well.
As a professional, it is important that you follow the highest standards of ethics possible. This makes it easier to deal with the patients that you have and will help you not need a dental license defense attorney in Greenville.
Poor documentation methods
As a dental professional, it is your job and responsibility to document things properly. There are plenty of guides online that you can use to help you with documentation and even with reimbursements. Yet, there are often times with documentation because the dentist either can’t read it, there are only a few key elements but not enough that someone can figure out what happened in that situation, or there is not really any information or evidence that is in that documentation.
When you are working with patients, it is important to write down everything that happens in each situation. This will make it easier for you to remember each encounter that you have with them and can prevent misunderstandings down the line. It gives you an opportunity to provide great customer service to customers because you can look over the paperwork again whenever you need and remember changes and important facts between each visit.
In addition, it is really going to help your dental license defense attorney in Greenville with your case. They can take a look at what you documented and see how it can help the case. If you didn’t write down much information, it makes the work of your attorney that much harder and can even give the board something to use against you. Try to be as concise and informative as you can with your documentation because you never know when it can come in use.
Dealing with a dental malpractice suit is something that no one wants to deal with during the course of a professional career. You can try to navigate the investigation and the case on your own, but many dentists are not equipped to deal with the legal issues at hand, and many find that they end up losing their licenses in the process. If you are in the middle of one of these cases and need the assistance of a dental license defense attorney in Greenville, make sure to contact our professionals at Brumback and Langley. We will be able to look at your case and come up with the best strategy to help you keep your license and your practice and get the case overturned.
