If you are a licensed medical professional in New York, you should avoid being scheduled for an informal settlement conference with the Office of Professional Discipline (OPD) at all costs. While the term “informal” may suggest a low-pressure situation, this is quite misleading. Rather, if this conference goes wrong, it may seriously affect the status of your medical license, your reputation within the medical community, and your professional career as a whole. Without the need for further introduction, please continue reading to learn how to prepare for an informal settlement conference and how one of the experienced OPMC/OPD misconduct defense lawyers at Walker Medical Law can step in to represent you at this time.
Why was I scheduled to attend an informal settlement conference?
Simply put, the OPD may have scheduled you for an informal settlement conference if they are prepping to address a medical misconduct complaint against you with a formal investigation process. Such misconduct complaints may regard ethics violations, negligence, documentation issues, or otherwise. And so, it is one of the first and most serious steps in the misconduct disciplinary process. Here, an OPD investigator, a prosecuting attorney, and a Board consultant or professional member may attend.
With that, we strongly encourage you to appear at this meeting with your legal representative. This is more than an opportunity to have a civil conversation and explain your side of the story, so to speak. Rather, this is the time when opposing parties may legally assess your case and compare the uncovered facts against professional medical standards, all to determine whether this should be escalated to a formal hearing with the OPD Board. The last thing you want to do is make on-the-record statements that can later be used against you if the case proceeds further.
What can I do to prepare for an OPD informal settlement conference?
Besides bringing your legal representative along to an OPD informal settlement conference with you, you may work together to prepare for this scheduled meeting in the following ways:
- You and your legal representative may collect practice records, billing records, chart logs, etc., that support your response to this misconduct allegation.
- You and your legal representative may format your documents in a way that complies with HIPAA and other privacy laws and professional practice standards.
- You and your legal representative may compose a written statement that clarifies the issue at hand without unnecessarily admitting fault or liability.
- You and your legal representative may review the types of questions you may be asked and practice responding to them professionally and strategically.
- You and your legal representative may coordinate which settlement offers should be agreed to and which proposed resolutions should be contested further.
So, if you wish to gain more clarity on the situation you are dealing with, the best way to get it is by consulting with one of the skilled OPMC/OPD misconduct defense lawyers. Get in touch with our team at Walker Medical Law today.
