We at Walker Medical Law see a constant stream of cases where the client, a physician, a nurse, a physician assistant, or some other type of medical provider, does things at work that are clearly wrong, bizarre, and unprofessional in nature. These matters often involve accusations against other medical providers, and those accusations, when looked at by anyone who is a disinterested observer, are simply wrong. Sometimes the statements are defamatory, by anyone’s definition, and sometimes they carry with them threats of loss of employment for the person in question. Since these accusations almost always have absolutely no merit, we immediately look into the mental health of our client at the time the acts occurred. I mean, why would anyone make these statements that are not only untrue, but that can be easily proven to be untrue, thus ensuring that the culprit, our client, will be discovered and have to endure the truly unpleasant consequences of the discovery? In other instances, our client, for no obvious reasons, made up treatment visits by patients that simply did not occur. In these types of cases, we find that there was almost always a mental health crisis that put the client on this path to the possible loss of his/her license.
When the case gets reported to OPMC or OPD, we start to gather a defense to the claims when there is true evidence of causation due to a mental health issue. The first thing that we do is to be certain that the client is placed on the road to recovery by enrolling in a course of therapy. We then collect statements from the therapists that link the prior mental health matter to the offending behavior. At the same time, the therapist will comment on the fact that the client has recovered from the mental health issue and is now functioning with a clear mind and that the behavior in question will not recur.
Additionally, we make certain that the client is back to work at some facility, and we then obtain letters from the client’s supervisors that attest to the professionalism and competence of our client at the current work site. These letters demonstrate that, while the client may have been challenged from a mental health point of view in the past, the client is now a valued member of the team at the current employment site.
With this evidence, we put together a package for OPMC or OPD and make a very good argument that what happened was due to a sickness, and that sickness has been successfully dealt with, and the client is now a fully functional medical provider who is cherished by his/her co-employees and patients.
Note that this way of addressing the problem is not magic or luck. Instead, it is the use of logic, hard work, and the cogent presentation of the facts to obtain the best possible result for the client.
If you have any questions about this subject matter, please give us a call.
