Complaints, investigations, and professional conduct
Complaints, investigations, and professional conduct
This domain tests how the Board handles allegations against a hygienist and what professional conduct the Board expects. A complaint can come from a patient, employer, coworker, or the Board's own review. The Board's authority includes investigation, settlement, formal hearing, and discipline.
Process and conduct rules
- Complaints are submitted to the Board, generally in writing. The Board may also open an investigation on its own motion or from an inspection.
- The Board's investigator may request patient records, interview witnesses, and issue subpoenas. The licensee must cooperate truthfully; altering or withholding records is itself a violation.
- Possible outcomes include dismissal, a letter of concern, a consent order with conditions, or a formal administrative hearing. Emergency action may be taken if the licensee poses an imminent risk.
- Due process includes notice of charges, an opportunity to respond, the right to counsel, and a hearing before the Board or its designee.
- Grounds for discipline include fraud, gross negligence, practicing beyond scope, impairment, unprofessional conduct, confidentiality breaches, infection-control failures, criminal convictions, and failure to cooperate.
- Professional conduct requires informed consent, patient confidentiality, honest billing, appropriate boundaries, and avoiding practice while impaired.
Worked example
A patient complains that a hygienist posted a radiograph on social media with the patient's name visible. The Board opens an investigation. The hygienist must respond to the Board, preserve the post and records, and not delete or alter evidence. Even if the patient suffered no financial harm, the confidentiality breach can support discipline because the Board's conduct rule protects patient privacy. A prompt, truthful response and remedial action may mitigate but do not erase the violation.
Traps
Ignoring a Board letter; altering records after a complaint; discussing the case publicly; assuming HIPAA compliance automatically satisfies Board rules; thinking 'no harm' is a defense.