If you are going through a board disciplinary process, the financial impact can be monumental. It can take a toll on you in the the short run, the mid-run, and/or the long run depending on how you play it. HARBR can help you make a plan to anticipate and minimize your cost.
It started with medical boards, but increasingly other healthcare regulatory boards are adding mandatory assessments and treatment to their means of assaulting licensees. Often presented as an “alternative to discipline,” damage to the licensee is rarely if ever averted by the licensees’ “compliance.”
Although this is part of HARBR members’ role as activists, conflicts of interests confound the fairness of disciplinary processes at every turn. It needs to be addressed as it arises.
Some of the terms you will need to know are: administrative law, separation of powers, ex parte communication, trade restriction motivation, and regulatory capture.
HARBR can help you find the witnesses you need to win your case. From within and without HARBR, we can help you get expert witnesses, fact witnesses, and character witnesses. Contrary to what might first come to mind, many of these witnesses can testify to the nature of the board, the nature of the board’s attorney and investigators, the behavior of the board staff, the nature of “corrective” programs, and so forth. You will need witnesses and they will need to present powerfully. Witness procurement, as with all things in HARBR is done lawfully. To do otherwise would undermine a case.
HARBR has come to believe that many (or most) judges who hear cases in the Court of Appeals, are not fully aware of the dynamics of healthcare regulatory board disciplinary processes. As wise, experienced, and just as judges may be, we do not believe they are fully aware of what is at stake for the licensees or what licensees have faced before getting to the appellate stage. HARBR is working on an outreach campaign to judges so that good judges may deliver better opinions and verdicts. Much of this will be done by publishing articles on this site which are specifically aimed at educating judges about the disciplinary experience. We are also developing our ability to write timely “amicus briefs.” These are briefs sent to the court at the outset of appellate hearings. They are designed to provide helpful information by people who may have an interest in the case but are not directly involved in the case. When HARBR writes an “amicus” brief, HARBR would be writing as an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”).
Although HARBR encourages boldness, some members should choose to be “ghost” members for at time. We vet all members, but do so reasonably. We are protective of members.
Responding to board assaults is not enough. HARBR finds that healthcare regulatory boards across the nation are fundamentally flawed. Some believe they are so flawed and mired in corruption that they cannot be repaired. It is HARBR’s mission to reform regulatory to the point that they serve their proper purpose and only their proper purpose. We have found no evidence to show that they actually protect the public. We have found no evidence to show that they hold healthcare professions to their highest standards. HARBR works with state legislators, like minded organizations, and the press via letters, email, phone, & face to face meetings. We help craft legislation, testify before legislative committees, and we monitor & investigate wrong-doings within regulatory boards. We affect administrative rulemaking and report illegal and unethical behaviors of board attorneys to state bar associations for investigation and discipline. We also present our concerns directly to the public via many venues.
In short, HARBR membership is free for those going through disciplinary processes who are also willing to contribute to the larger cause (after their crises have been stabilized). See more in the membership section.
The Healthcare Alliance for Regulatory Board Reform (HARBR) is an organization for all healthcare professionals – licensed and unlicensed. Although some of our current members have interest in what boards regard as a quasi-legislative processes (rule making and policy development), most have gathered together to form this organization due to direct, unfair board disciplinary processes which have cost them dearly. Through our group efforts we have become much stronger than we have been as isolated individuals, and we have been able to take effective action. Over the past couple of years (pre-HARBR), many of us have testified before our legislatures and have stopped bad laws from being passed.
HARBR is heavily rooted in Oregon and at this time, our membership consists primarily of Physician’s, Psychologists, and Counselor-Therapists. In Oregon, this means healthcare professionals licensed by the Oregon Medical Board (OMB), the Oregon Board of Psychologist Examiners (OBPE), and the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors &Therapists (OBLPCT).
We believe that the nature of our make up is no accident. It so happens that each of these healthcare regulatory boards are represented by the same Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney, Senior Assistant Attorney General Warren Foote.
In response to a complaint against SAAG Warren Foote (and others) to the Oregon State Bar signed by 12 individual HARBR members on November 29, 2016, Warren Foote’s attorney, SAAG Stephanie Thompson attempted to suggest that our signers were little more than “sour grapes” complainants who all had a grudge against Foote. The implication was that we were a lot of vigilantes acting out a vendetta. The truth is that, despite deep problems with healthcare regulatory boards in general, Warren Foote is a special problem. We believe in his work with each of the above boards, Warren Foote has violated numerous Rules of Professional Conduct (Ethical Standards) held by the Oregon and American Bar Associations. It is only natural that those professionals he has aggressed gather together to complain to the proper authority.
HARBR’s membership also includes nurses, psychologist associates, and unlicensed healthcare professionals. Inasmuch as unlicensed healthcare professional are actively hunted down and prosecuted by these boards – often unfairly or unlawfully, they share an interest in healthcare regulatory board reform as well.
We have members in others states, including North Carolina, Massachusetts, and California. We are working on a Texas affiliation and welcome healthcare professionals from all states and abroad.
Not all of our members have experienced problems with healthcare regulatory boards directly. Some of our members have learned of the problematic features of board conduct from colleagues. Some of our members are licensed and practicing. Some of our members have been so aggressed by their boards that they are no longer practicing. Some of members are patients or clients who have been impacted by problematic board conduct. Some are friends and family who’ve been impacted, and some of our menbers are professionals who are being aggressed by healthcare regulatory boards at this very moment as you read this.
If you are not already a member of HARBR, we encourage you to become one – to lend us your support, and to recruit as many others as you can so that we can advance our cause.
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One of the primary goals of the Healthcare Alliance for Regulatory Board Reform (HARBR) is to help healthcare professionals when they are being aggressed by their healthcare regulatory board (or a healthcare regulatory board). One of the reasons this is a priority is due to the urgency of the matter when a healthcare professional is notified that there is a complaint, an investigation, or a proposed disciplinary action against them. HARBR regards such matters as emergencies and would like every practicing healthcare professional to know that these actions are emergencies.
Without delving into the psychological dynamics at this point, HARBR has found that far too many professionals sign some sort of agreement with their boards. Although HARBR is working on ways for licensees and other targeted professionals to rescind such agreements we do not have that worked out at present. Under the duress of possible board action against ones license and livelihood, many are lead to believe that being “cooperative” will make things better. It doesn’t. We advise licensees and other under fire by healthcare licensing boards to SIGN NOTHING and AGREE TO NOTHING until they have been in touch with a good attorney (we can make recommendations) AND with us.
Dealing with licensing boards (as well as hospital boards and boards of professional organizations) once you are under fire is crazy, crazy, crazy business. It involves “law” which bears no resemblance to anything one thinks of when they think of law. It will gaslight* you and perplex your attorney. If you are under fire from a healthcare regulatory or licensing board, you NEED to work with us. Remember, we are not the government nor sales people.
Due to the groundswell of objections to the way healthcare boards operate, an increasing number of attorneys, at long last, are training and offering services in the defense of healthcare licensees under fire from healthcare boards. We at HARBOR, nevertheless are not ready to simply advise people to get attorneys. We DO advise, however, that defense attorneys be consulted, immediately upon notice that some action is, or might, being taken against you. Unless specifically stated to the contrary, HARBR members are NOT attorneys and HARBR is in no way a law firm. There are things attorneys can do for you that we cannot, and it is important for you to know, as a disclaimer, that NOTHING HARBR or any HARBR member tells you should be regarded as legal advice or relied upon for legal decisions. We are, however, smart and experienced professionals who likely know many important things your attorney does not.
HARBR has a great moral compass. We DO believe there are practicing healthcare professionals who need redirection, restriction, retraining, and at times, as necessary, prohibition from practice. The current system however has no basis on which it can claim to accurately separate the “good” from the ‘bad.” This is where long term regulatory board reform comes in. This is also where HARBR comes in as part of an emergency response team. The current system is not just and we are here to change that. We don’t want GOOD healthcare practitioners to be UNJUSTY be put out of their careers.
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