A couple of weeks ago, I shared about a scam taking place against nurses in Idaho and which now has spread to Missouri.  What is happening is that nurses are alerted by a phone call and letter purportedly from the state Board of Nursing telling the nurse that they are being investigated and required them to provide a payment in the form of a bond to keep their license active during the investigation. The premise on this scam is that someone had used an advanced practice nurse’s NPI number to … [Read more...]

Every couple of years, the Nursing Service Organization (“NSO”) publishes a claim report and their most recent one is the 4th edition and some interesting things surfaced.  Since NSO provides insurance for nursing representation for medical malpractice and for the Board matters, the claims report is split into 2 sections: malpractice defense claims and license defense claims.  You can check out the claims report here. Of interest is that the number of medical malpractice claims have increased … [Read more...]

Each year 7,000 nurses have some type of discipline put on their license. When a Board disciplines a nurse, it can usually do 1 of 4 things. Give the nurse a reprimand which is like a slap on the wrist. Place the nurse’s license on probation. Suspend the license. Revoke the license. The most common option seems to be placing the nurse’s license on probation.  This is called an encumbered license which will be noted in the public records.  A nurse on probation may have a … [Read more...]

In Midland, Texas, 6 nurses who contracted with Midland County Detention Center were criminally indicted recently for manslaughter, criminal negligent homicide and tampering with a governmental record allegedly failing to keep proper records and possible false charting.  There is not much information in the media to glean except that it involved nebulizer treatments.  There is no mention of the medication in the nebulizer treatments. This is very concerning that nurses are being indicted … [Read more...]