Current California law makes it legal for human patients and their designated primary caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for their personal medical use with the recommendation or approval of a California-licensed physician or surgeon. In addition, the recently passed Proposition 64 “Legalizes marijuana under state law, for use by Read more…
Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) Director Awet Kidane plans to resign from his position at the end of February 2017 to purse a new opportunity, he told state employees in a message this week. Kidane has led a department that oversees more than 40 professional licensing boards, including ones that regulate medical Read more…
10 years of discipline data from the Medical Board of California shows a relationship between race and professional license discipline outcomes, so reports the California Research Bureau. Having conducted the research at the behest of the Medical Board of California (Board), the Research Bureau looked at the discipline imposed by Read more…
Before reviewing the collateral consequences of obtaining a probationary license as a health care practitioner or professional, lets provide some prospective and a disclaimer. Probationary licenses are not a bad thing. For many individuals, given their personal, social, or professional background, it may be wholly unavoidable. And for those individuals, Read more…
Our law firm’s primary practice area is representing professional licensees and healthcare licensees before the various licensing agencies within the state of California and its local or municipal levels of government. Most of these matters are “litigated” – if at all – through the administrative hearing process. Sometimes, the administrative Read more…
On November 7, 2016, Julianne Allen, Senior Paralegal at Simas & Associates, Ltd., guest lectured at American River College. The students were part of the Paralegal Program and the course was “Administrative Law and Procedure” taught by Julia Brynelson, Adjunct Professor. “I was invited to speak and jumped at the chance,” Read more…
Mitigation evidence, in the civil lawsuit realm, is evidence used to thwart a potential affirmative defense of the failure to limit ones damages. This evidence is done to demonstrate to the opposing party and/or adjudicator of your dispute that once you became aware of the injury, damage, or problem, you Read more…
The National Practitioner Data Bank (“NPDB”) was created by Congress and contains information related to “certain adverse actions related to health care practitioners, entities, providers, and suppliers.”[1] The law determines what types of adverse actions are reportable to the NPDB, however, most reporting entities error on the side of over-reporting Read more…
Professional licensees and healthcare-related licensees in the state of California can have discipline imposed on their licenses for misconduct. The “misconduct” for which license discipline is under the vague and amorphous “substantially-related to the profession” standard that is not the subject of this blog entry. When these licensees face discipline, Read more…
On October 8 and 9, 2016, Steven L. Simas, founder and owner of Simas & Associates, Ltd. spoke at the 2016 Annual Conference for the California Physical Therapy Association (CPTA). The conference was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center and had over several hundred physical therapists in attendance. This year’s conference featured Read more…