The Attorney General Letter, a Lapsed License, and Forty Questionable CE Hours
Sixteen months into your first renewal cycle you receive a certified letter from the Indiana Attorney General's office. A former client has filed a complaint alleging that you (1) told her ex-husband, who called your office, that she 'was in treatment and doing better'; (2) practiced for five weeks after your license expired because you believed the Board allowed a 30-day grace period; and (3) submitted a renewal attestation listing 40 continuing education hours, 22 of which came from a single online 'certificate mill' with no attendance verification, plus 8 hours on aromatherapy. The letter asks for a written response within 20 days and warns that failure to respond may result in discipline. Your malpractice carrier's renewal asks whether you are 'the subject of any pending investigation.' A colleague suggests you call the former client and 'clear it up.'
1. How do you respond to the Attorney General's letter in the twenty days, and what must you not do?
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Respond, in writing, within the deadline, through counsel if you can. The response should be factual, chronological, and verifiable: your dates of licensure and expiration, the date and nature of any contact with the ex-husband, your CE certificates, and your records of the client's treatment. Do not argue, characterize the complainant, or volunteer speculation. Include only what you can substantiate.
Do not contact the former client. Even a well-intentioned call can be framed as interference with an investigation or as retaliation, and it will be reported. Route any communication through counsel or the Board's process. Do not discuss the complaint with colleagues or the complainant's family. Above all, do not amend, backdate, or destroy records - an altered record converts a defensible confidentiality complaint into a fraud and spoliation problem.
The process to expect: investigation, review by Board staff, then either dismissal, a consent agreement or settlement, or a hearing with the opportunity to present evidence and appeal the outcome. Summary suspension is reserved for situations where the licensee presents a clear and immediate danger to the public; a single misdirected phone call usually is not that. Answer the malpractice question truthfully. Non-disclosure of a pending investigation is exactly the kind of omission that can void coverage when you need it.
2. Assess each of the three allegations for likely discipline, including whether the 'grace period' is a defense and what you must disclose at renewal.
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Allegation 1: confirming to a caller that a person is a client, and describing her progress, is a disclosure of protected information without authorization. Exceptions are narrow, and a spouse or former spouse is not one of them. This is the strongest count against you and supports discipline for unprofessional or unethical conduct distinct from any health-privacy claim.
Allegation 2: the lapse itself is the problem. Practicing after expiration is unlicensed practice for those five weeks; belief in a grace period is not a defense because the statute and renewal notices define the operative date, not the licensee's assumption. What mitigates is prompt self-correction and candor - and self-reporting matters here. Renewal applications typically ask whether you have practiced on an expired license or are the subject of an investigation, and answering 'no' when the answer is yes creates a second, worse violation than the first.
Allegation 3: the attestation is your signature on the accuracy of the hours. If some are invalid, the issue is not the tally but the truthfulness of the statement. A pattern of unverifiable and out-of-scope hours, presented as compliant, supports discipline for fraud or misrepresentation.
Overall, expect a range from a reprimand with conditions to suspension, plus a civil penalty; aggravating factors are the multiple counts, the misrepresentation, and any prior discipline.
3. Assuming the Board requires 40 hours per cycle including at least 3 hours in ethics, which hours are vulnerable, and what do you do before the renewal deadline?
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Sort the 40 hours against three requirements: relevance to the practice of marriage and family therapy, verifiability, and the ethics minimum.
The aromatherapy hours are the most exposed. CE must relate to the licensee's scope of practice; a wellness topic without a demonstrated clinical application to MFT practice is easy for a reviewer to reject. The 22 hours from the 'certificate mill' fail on documentation: acceptable CE should have identifiable objectives, a defined time of attendance, a qualified instructor, and a certificate the licensee can produce. If you cannot show attendance, you cannot defend the hours. That leaves roughly 10 hours in this example that appear solid - far short of 40, and short on the ethics minimum too.
The remedy is to replace the hours before renewal, not to argue about them afterward. Take documented, practice-relevant courses from providers whose certificates are defensible; ensure at least the required ethics hours; keep every certificate and a running log with dates and provider names. If the deadline is close, complete the hours first and renew late if necessary rather than sign an inaccurate attestation - a late renewal is a fee issue, while a false attestation is a discipline issue. If you have already signed an inaccurate one, correct it in writing to the Board before the audit finds it, and disclose the investigation where the renewal form asks.