Expired License, a Mocking Video, and an OWI
Tasha is an RDH whose license expired on March 31. The front desk told her renewal was “in process,” so she worked full schedules in April, May, and June. In May she posted a TikTok mimicking a patient with severe halitosis and calling him “Mr. Gingivitis”; several patients recognized the operatory and the patient's jacket. In July she was arrested for operating while intoxicated (first offense) and mentioned it to no one at the practice or at LARA. For the current three-year cycle she has 36 hours of continuing education, but 20 of them came from a vendor's “implant bootcamp” that is not board-approved, and her CPR card expired in February. She is now trying to renew and asks you, her coworker, whether she should “just check the box and sort it out later.”
1. Is practicing on an expired license a paperwork problem? Explain the exposure for Tasha and for the employer, and what she must do now.
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No. A license is the legal authority to practice; when it expires, that authority ends. “Renewal in process” is not a status Michigan law recognizes.
Exposure for Tasha: practicing on an expired license is unlicensed practice. Each appointment during April, May, and June is a potential violation in an administrative complaint, with fines and possibly probation or suspension layered on top of the renewal problem. Michigan also treats unlicensed practice as a criminal misdemeanor in its own right.
Exposure for the employer: aiding and abetting unlicensed practice, and billing insurers for services rendered by an unlicensed person - which invites recoupment demands and fraud exposure. The practice's professional liability carrier may also decline coverage for treatment rendered without a license, which converts a regulatory problem into an uninsured one.
What she must do now: stop seeing patients immediately, complete the renewal (late renewal exists, but the license is not valid until it issues), be truthful on the application about the dates she worked, and get advice before volunteering anything further. She should assume LARA will find out - licenses are verified electronically, and a payor credentialing check, routine audit, or single complaint will surface the gap. The instinct to minimize the employment gap on a renewal form is exactly what turns a lapse into a fraud count.
2. Analyze the TikTok post, the OWI, and the proposed renewal attestation as unprofessional conduct. What counts, and what sanction range is realistic?
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Three distinct problems with different gravity.
- The TikTok. Mocking a patient is the classic unprofessional-conduct fact pattern: it invades privacy, humiliates someone who cannot meaningfully consent, and damages public trust. Whether or not a name appears, patients recognized the operatory and the jacket. Expect a complaint from the patient or a coworker and expect discipline.
- The OWI. A conviction is not automatically a license-killer, but it must be disclosed in the renewal and application process, and Michigan's criminal background check will surface it. The Board weighs the offense's relationship to practice - impaired judgment in safety-sensitive work is a harder sell - rehabilitation evidence, and candor. Failure to disclose is a separate violation, and misrepresentation is often treated more harshly than the underlying event because it goes to honesty.
- The attestation. Checking the box with 20 of 36 hours from a non-qualifying vendor and an expired CPR card is falsification. That is the count that can convert a manageable case into a serious one.
Realistic range: reprimand and fine at the low end; probation with conditions (CE, ethics course, monitoring, random testing) in the middle; suspension for aggravating factors such as the unlicensed practice period; revocation reserved for serious or repeated conduct. The consistent theme in Michigan discipline is that the cover-up is penalized more than the mistake.
3. Walk through Michigan's complaint-to-sanction process, and explain where the CE shortfall fits into it.
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The process: a complaint - from a patient, employer, coworker, insurer, or by self-report - goes to LARA's Bureau of Professional Licensing, Enforcement Division, which screens and investigates, requesting records and interviewing the licensee. If the investigation supports probable cause, the Department files an administrative complaint alleging specific violations of the Public Health Code and Board rules. The licensee answers, and the matter goes to a contested case hearing before an administrative law judge in the Michigan Office of Administrative Hearings and Rules. The ALJ issues a proposal for decision containing findings of fact, conclusions of law, and a recommended sanction. The Board of Dentistry, through its disciplinary subcommittee, reviews the proposal and imposes discipline, and LARA's director issues the final order. Further review is by circuit court. Available sanctions include reprimand, probation with terms, limitation of practice, suspension, revocation, restitution, administrative fines, and costs.
Where CE fits: the 36 hours per three-year cycle count only if the sponsor and program qualify, and current BLS is a separate requirement - the implant bootcamp hours and the expired card mean Tasha does not actually hold a compliant cycle. The remedy is to complete qualifying hours before attesting, not to attest and “sort it out later”; a false attestation is a falsification count that upgrades a routine CE audit into a discipline case. If a renewal has already been filed with a false attestation, the least-bad path is a prompt correction to LARA, with counsel, before an audit finds it.