In a formal Administrative Procedure Act (“APA“) proceeding before an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) of the Office of Administrative Hearings (“OAH”), the ALJ is authorized on his or her own motion – or on a motion of either party – to conduct a Prehearing Conference. The Prehearing Conference, not to be Read more…
YES! This blog entry is a message to all types of licensed professionals who are responding to inquiries, investigations or otherwise communicating with their respective licensing board, bureau, or department. Specifically: PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO DEAL WITH AN ADMINISTRATIVE LICENSING AGENCY ALL ON YOUR OWN! Of course, you can. Read more…
States outside of California, such as Oregon, do not have regulations in place to keep pace with the fast-growing medical-laser industry, which could leave consumers at risk of injury from skin treatments. The Oregon Health Licensing Agency has received recently more than 30 complaints alleging injuries from lasers. The Oregon state Read more…
The longstanding purpose of license discipline laws is to protect the public from incompetent practitioners. Although the standards differ somewhat from agency to agency, almost every licensing agency has laws that allow it to take disciplinary action against a licensee when their conduct falls below what is expected of the Read more…
On June 4, 2013, under threat from the state legislature, the Medical Board of California (“MBC”) met to embark on a search for new leadership and began to earnestly consider a host of proposals aimed at combating reckless prescribing of physicians. The state legislature intends to abolish the MBC at Read more…
On February 26, 2013, Steven L. Simas, founder and owner of Simas & Associates, Ltd., gave a presentation at the Blue Goose Event Center in Loomis, California. The presentation was part of the Winter Lecture Series hosted by Loomis Basin Veterinary Clinic. The topic of the presentation was “Veterinary Medical Records as Read more…
Physicians do business with many people and entities in their medical practice. This includes patients, billing services, insurance companies (including health maintenance organizations (HMO) and preferred provider organizations (PPO)), liability insurance providers, government providers (such as Medicare and Medi-Cal), and governing agencies (such as the Medical Board of California (MBC) Read more…
Steven L. Simas, owner and founder of Simas & Associates, Ltd., was recently interviewed for an article on Medscape.com. The article touched upon a central theme of Simas & Associates, Ltd – retaining competent counsel and representation when dealing with investigations by professional licensing agencies in the state of California. Read more…
California law requires certain peer review organizations responsible for reviewing the medical care of physicians to make reports regarding physicians to the Medical Board of California (“Board”). And these reports can trigger Board investigations and even license discipline. This is the often misunderstood – but almost always detrimental – “805 Read more…