Complaints, Investigations, and Disciplinary Actions
Complaints, Investigations, and Disciplinary Actions
This domain tests the disciplinary process from complaint to sanction, plus the licensee's duty to cooperate and report.
Filing and investigation. Anyone may complain to the Board. Staff screen the complaint, and the Board may open an investigation, request records and interviews, or refer the matter for a formal adjudicatory hearing. The Board may impose a summary suspension where continued practice poses an immediate risk to the public.
Grounds. Common grounds include incompetence, negligence, fraud or misrepresentation, practicing beyond scope, unlicensed practice, substance abuse, failure to maintain records, and failure to cooperate with an investigation.
Sanctions. The Board may reprimand or censure, impose probation with conditions, fine, order remediation or CE, suspend, or revoke. It may also accept a consent agreement, which is a negotiated resolution with the same public consequences as an adjudicated order.
Reporting duties. Licensees must report certain adverse actions taken against them in other jurisdictions and must report suspected child abuse or neglect and elder abuse under the applicable Massachusetts reporting statutes.
Worked example. A patient complains that a dentist left a root canal unfinished and then refused to forward records. The Board may investigate both the clinical abandonment and the record refusal as separate violations, and sanctions can address each.
Traps. Ignoring a Board letter, which itself becomes a violation; assuming a consent agreement stays private; and treating a malpractice suit and a Board complaint as the same proceeding.