State government agencies tasked with investigating alleged misconduct in health care generally follow proscribed steps in investigating the misconduct.  This can include agencies with authority over individually licensed health care practitioners or with authority over the administration of government health care programs – whose budgets are in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Gathering (and even seizing) evidence and interviewing witnesses – such as former employees (and even current employees) – is a little-known process to the health care practitioner.  Civil investigations obtain documents and records easily with nothing more than a piece of paper – an administrative subpoena.  Criminal investigations more often use a search warrant authorized by a judge in court – and are sometimes carried out with a fork-lift and a moving van as the agency hauls away original documents, records, computer equipment, and other evidence.

But one thing in common with all these investigative techniques is their openness and transparency.  What does the government do when it undertakes a secret, covert, and undercover investigation?  What patient may actually be an undercover government agent recording your every conversation?

This webinar dispels the uncertainty about how investigations are conducted by a state government agency and focuses most on the individual health care practitioner in a licensure investigation when undercover sleuthing is done.  Health care practitioners who are fully informed about these procedures may better defend their actions and work successfully through the investigative process knowing their patient may be an undercover plant.

Course Objective:

Learn the general steps a state government agency undertakes to conduct investigations into misconduct in health care practice with a focus on undercover investigations of various health care practitioners.  Cover the differences between civil and criminal investigations with the differing goals of each, and understand how criminal rights span both kinds of investigations.

Investigations either exonerate or implicate licensed health care practitioners for potential violations of law for which their license to practice is at stake.  Investigations may include undercover exposes – know the limits and boundaries of what the government may do in an undercover investigation.  Is the government allowed to lie?  To uncover the truth?

This program offers an objective, thorough review of undercover investigations conducted by the government against a licensed health care practitioner.  Review the different standards and rights of the accused under investigation by the state against an individual health care practitioner.  Recognize the basic difference in civil and criminal investigations – where both may be carried out by the same agency using undercover, secret operatives often posing as a patient.

Course Outline:

• Legal standards for undercover investigations;
• Due process rights and procedures;
• Government remedies carrying out the objectives of a secret investigation;
• Defenses to the civil investigative process;
• Select case law review of applicable undercover fraud and licensure cases, and;
• Ethical obligations of the government attorney advising the government agency carrying out an undercover investigation.

This program offers an objective, thorough review of the state licensure board investigations conducted by the government against a licensed health care practitioner using undercover tactics.  Review the different standards and rights of the accused under investigation by the state against an individual health care practitioner who is the subject of a secret investigation. 

Understand and overcome roadblocks to your defense of the agency’s investigating and prosecuting an administrative disciplinary action based on a secret investigation where complex rules of attorney ethics often constrain the attorney’s advice and participation in the undercover investigation.

This program covers the undercover state agency investigative procedures that are applied against a licensed health care practitioner for alleged health care fraud or licensure violations when an undercover investigation is conducted.

What You Get:

• Training Materials
• Live Q&A Session with our Expert
• Participation Certificate
• Access to Signup Community (Optional)
• Reward Points

Who Will Benefit:

Health care law attorneys; licensed health care practitioners in private practice; medical directors of health facilities; office managers and medical directors of private medical offices; health care managers and executives; corporate counsel in health care; health care administrators; university faculty in health care; allied health professionals in graduate-level medical education across the many health care professions