The Six-Year Gap: Renewal, CE, and Lapsed Practice
Dr. Marcus Bell was licensed in Alaska in 2010. In 2018 he moved to Arizona for family reasons and stopped practicing entirely, but he kept paying his Alaska renewal fees each cycle and his license remained active. He returns to Anchorage in 2025 and wants to reopen a practice. He has completed 12 hours of CE in the last two years - all from a weekend seminar on practice management and billing, none clinically focused. He has not taken a jurisprudence course since his original licensure. He asks whether he can simply hang his shingle, and whether the 12 hours he has will satisfy the renewal requirement. He also wants to know whether his long absence triggers anything.
1. Does Dr. Bell's continued payment of fees during a seven-year non-practice period change his CE or competency obligations? Explain.
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No. Paying renewal fees keeps the license active but does not substitute for the substantive requirements attached to renewal. Alaska requires continuing education as a condition of renewal, and the obligation accrues regardless of whether the licensee actually treated patients. A licensee who let his clinical skills lapse while paying fees has the same CE obligation as an active practitioner.
The practical point: the Board's concern is current competence, and a seven-year absence is exactly the situation where the CE requirement matters most. Bell should not assume that fee payment 'kept him current.' He should verify the current CE hour requirement, the required content categories (including jurisprudence/ethics), and the reporting period directly with the Board before renewing.
2. Evaluate the 12 hours of practice-management CE against the likely requirements, and identify the gap.
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Two problems:
- Subject matter: A weekend of billing and practice management is not clinical chiropractic education. Most jurisdictions require a substantial portion of CE in clinical subjects relevant to chiropractic practice, with only a limited allowance for practice management or business topics. Bell cannot count all 12 hours toward a clinical requirement.
- Jurisprudence: Bell has not taken a jurisprudence course since original licensure. If Alaska requires jurisprudence or ethics hours each cycle (or as a condition of reactivation after a gap), his 12 hours do not satisfy it.
He should: (a) obtain the exact current hour total and category breakdown from the Board; (b) complete a jurisprudence/ethics course; (c) complete clinically focused hours to fill the remainder; (d) keep certificates of completion for the required retention period. He should not renew on the assumption that any 12 hours will do.
3. What should Bell do about the seven-year absence before seeing patients, and what is the risk if he does nothing?
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Even with an active license, a seven-year absence raises a competence question. Best practice - and the safer reading of the Board's authority to protect the public - is for Bell to contact the Board before resuming practice and ask whether any refresher, re-entry, or competency assessment is required, and to document the answer. He should also complete clinically focused CE and consider a period of mentoring or supervised return to practice.
Risk of doing nothing:
- If a patient is harmed and the record shows a seven-year gap with no refresher, that becomes a competence and negligence issue in any complaint.
- The Board has authority to investigate and discipline for practicing below the standard of care; a long absence is a foreseeable trigger.
- Malpractice insurers may impose their own re-entry conditions; ignoring them can void coverage.
Proactive disclosure and remediation is the defensible course.