By George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law
Many nurses, nurse practitioners, and certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) carry professional malpractice insurance through the Nurses Service Organization (NSO) or one of the other similar insurance companies. This insurance is inexpensive and provides excellent coverage. What you may not realize, however, is that such insurance provides many added benefits, other than just coverage on nursing liability lawsuits. It will pay for legal defense expenses if there is a complaint filed against your nursing license. It will pay legal expenses for a lawyer to get involved and represent you if you receive a subpoena to testify or provide records. It will cover you if you have a HIPAA complaint or breach of medical privacy complaint filed against you.
Under such policies, the insurance company will pay the legal fees and other costs related to your defense. However, most of the time, you will still be required to locate and retain the appropriate attorney to represent you in the matter.
What to Look for When Retaining an Attorney to Defend You.
1. Your primary concern should be to find and retain an attorney who accepts the insurance that you have, whether it is NSO Insurance, CPH & Associates Insurance, Philadelphia Insurance, Trust Management Services, Firemans Fund, or another national company. This will ensure that you have an attorney who will give you the lower rates the insurance company had negotiated and will have a good working relationship established with your insurance company. If an attorney with our firm cannot represent you, we will certainly try to find an attorney who will.
2. Another primary qualification for any attorney you hire to represent you should be his or her experience in working with health professionals in the same field and on similar matters. If the attorney is not familiar with your area of health practice, it may be difficult for that attorney to get up to speed to represent you properly.
3. If you come across an attorney who states that she or he will help you make a statement to the investigator or assist you in the investigation, but does not appear with you in hearings, then this is the wrong attorney. You need an attorney who can represent you from start to finish.
4. Often you will come across an attorney who only wants you to accept a consent order, stipulation, or settlement agreement. Remember that these are all merely “plea bargains” and by signing this type of agreement, you will be pleading guilty to whatever offenses are charged. In most cases, you will probably be innocent of the charges and should request a formal administrative hearing in order to prove this.
5. You also want to retain the services of an attorney who has appeared before your professional board or professional licensing authority in investigations and hearings, especially formal and informal administrative hearings. The lack of familiarity with such investigations and boards can be costly to you.
6. You don’t necessarily need an attorney who is located in your city, county, or state. Almost all the work on the case will be done by telephone and e-mail. You usually have only one meeting or hearing with the investigator or its board and, depending on what type of hearing it is, it could be located in many different locations. Our attorneys will travel to those locations for meetings and hearings.
7. Beware of attorneys who hold themselves out in Internet advertising as health attorneys or professional license defense attorneys but are really some other type of attorney. We see this a lot from medical malpractice attorneys, criminal defense attorneys, and attorneys who sue insurance companies. Be sure you get an attorney who concentrates his or her practice in defending nurses with nursing complaints, investigations, and hearings.
8. If you can’t find an attorney to meet your immediate needs through an Internet search, you may contact your insurance company or professional association and ask if they have a list of attorneys that can do the legal work you require. For example, you may reach Nurses Service Organization (NSO) at (800) 247-1500; you can reach CPH & Associates at (800) 875-1911 or (312) 987-9823; you can access a list of professional license defense attorneys who represent nurses online at https://taana.org/referral/.
Contact Health Law Attorneys Experienced in Representing Nurses.
The Health Law Firm’s attorneys routinely represent nurses in Board of Nursing investigations and complaints, DORA investigations and complaints, and Department of Health (DOH) investigations and complaints. We appear before the Board of Nursing in licensing matters and in many other legal matters. We represent nurses across the U.S., not just in Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
To contact The Health Law Firm please call (407) 331-6620 or (850) 439-1001 or (970) 416-7456 and visit our website at www.TheHealthLawFirm.com.
About the Author: George F. Indest III, J.D., M.P.A., LL.M., is Board Certified by The Florida Bar in Health Law. He is the President and Managing Partner of The Health Law Firm, which has a national practice. Its main office is in Orlando, Florida, area. www.TheHealthLawFirm.com The Health Law Firm, 1101 Douglas Ave., Suite 1000, Altamonte Springs, FL 32714, Phone: (407) 331-6620.
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