Nurses Legal & Compliance
Guidance
Guidance
Cohen Healthcare Law Group help Nursing practices and nurses who have built or plan to build their Professional Corporation, in these areas:
- IV Hydration Therapy Business Formation or Start-up
- IV Hydration Therapy Business Regulatory Compliance
- Employment Legislation
- Contract Drafting and Review
- Fee-Splitting
- Management Services Organization or MSO
- Practice Restrictions
- HIPAA
- Dispute Resolution
- Mitigation
The duties of Nurses include functions, such as basic health care requiring a substantial amount of scientific knowledge and technical skill, given to those people having difficulties living their normal life due to health problems, illness, or medical treatment that led them to that state. And this includes: (1) Direct and indirect care ensuring safety, comfort, hygiene, and protection, (2) Direct and indirect care that requires the administration of medications necessary, (3) Skin testing, immunization techniques, blood draw or venipuncture.
Nursing ethics revolve around 7 key principles and these are:
- Justice – Fairness. Nurses need to be fair, just and equitable when distributing care amongst their patients.
- Beneficence – They have to ensure that they demonstrate care only for the good and benefit of their patient.
- Nonmaleficence – Doing no harm whether it be intentional or unintentional based on their Oath.
- Accountability – Taking responsibility for his/her actions.
- Fidelity – Being true to their professional promises and responsibility, providing safe and high quality of care.
- Autonomy – Nurse accepts that each patient is their own person and that they need to make their own decision without constraint or interference from them.
- Veracity – Being completely truthful to their patients even when it leads to patient distress.
According to https://www.registerednursing.org/nclex/ethical-practice/, “The most commonly occurring ethical issues and concerns in healthcare include the allocation of scarce resources and end of life issues.
Bioethics is a subcategory of ethics. Bioethics addresses ethical concerns like those that occur as the result of advancing science and technological advances. Some of the most common, current bioethical issues revolve around stem cells, cloning, and genetic engineering.”
From medical practices and medical spas to medical devices and emerging healthcare technologies, our healthcare compliance attorneys not only closely monitor trends; we are also leaders in pioneering the way for our clients who are courageous healthcare innovators.
California Board of Registered Nursing: Assembly Bill 890
The requirements for nurse practitioners to be able to practice independently according to the law AB90 are: (1) NP passes national board examination, (2) Should be certified by a national certification body and that certification body needs to be accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies or the American Board of Nursing Specialties, (3) They must provide documentation that shows that the training they had is up to date and on par with the BRN standards, (4) The NP must finish a California transition-to-practice (TTP).
NP must practice in good standing for not less than three (3) years to be able to transition to his/her own practice. However, if the NP fails to do so, he/she needs to collaborate with other healing arts providers in congruent with the condition of the patient you’re providing care to.
You may read more about this here: California’s New Scope of Practice Law for Nurse Practitioners – Part One (link)
National Council Licensure Examination or NCLEX
The NCLEX® examination was made to serve as a guide to develop nurse candidates and to prepare them. The examination is taken by candidates who have finished Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) or a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing (BSN) to evaluate skills, knowledge and abilities that are essential for the entry-level nurse to be able to promote, maintain, and restore health to patients.
The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) continuously develops the NCLEX to gauge the level of competency of nursing school graduates, both in the U.S. and Canada or those who plan to practice nursing in the U.S. The exam has a minimum of 75 items and a maximum of 145 items that the candidates need to finish within a span of five hours. According to NCSBN, the national NCLEX first-time pass rate in 2020 was 86.5%, while 2021 had a lower pass rate of 82.48%. The Board of Nursing or BOR (per state), if supplied with complete and proper requirements, including proof of the candidates passing the NCLEX-RN, will then release the candidate’s RN state license. Candidates that do not pass the exam will receive an NCLEX Candidate Performance Report (CPR), which will help them prepare when they retake the exam. If candidates do not pass the NCLEX-RN within three years after graduating their degree, they would have to attend a nursing education program to be able to take the exam again. Anyone who are not a licensed nurse are not allowed to practice nursing.
Nursing Corporation
The general corporation law as stated by the Moscone-Knox Professional Corporation Act of California, allowing professionals that are licensed by the state to perform their professional trade and are the only ones allowed to incorporate their practice as a Professional Corporation.
More about this topic here: California’s New Scope of Practice Law for Nurse Practitioners – Part Two
FAQ
Great! Let us know and we’ll do a conflicts check and then send you an engagement letter. Typically we want to know if we are going to represent you as an individual, or your entity (corporation or LLC); we’ll also want to know your website and some basic contact information.
Review our legal services to see some of the areas we like to work in; check our testimonials, client roster, and experience; read some of our blog posts; check out our Linked In community; or just call or email us to explore. Put simply, we represent health and wellness products, technologies, practices and ventures that accelerate health and healing.
We are very comfortable working with clients via phone and email. You can sign, scan and email the engagement letter, and submit the advance by check or online.
The answer depends on the complexity of the project. Each client’s situation is different. We want every client to receive the best possible advice, and so we want to be in a position to devote as much time as is required to do that. Look to our testimonials, client roster, and experience. We work with our clients effectively and efficiently and build long-term relationships based on mutual trust. We bill hourly and do not offer project or flat fees. Lawyering is an art, not a science – we’re intuitive as well as skilled lawyers.
Yes, like most law firms, we require an advance against fees and costs. Our typical advance ranges from $3,500 – $10,000. We offer our expertise and savvy and work hand-in-hand with you toward your goals. Occasionally, we will offer you a one-hour consult as a way to jump-start our work together, and give you an overview of critical issues, with guidance on the critical business cross-roads you’re facing. We do not take equity or deferred compensation.
Our Firm doesn’t quite “quotes” or answer “how much does it cost.” Through long experience, we’ve found that the answer is pretty much meaningless. Some lawyers and law firms give quotes, but if you read the accompanying disclaimer, you’ll see that the disclaimer basically says that you can’t depend on the quote for anything. In our long experience, “how much it costs” depends on a lot of variables, including:
- What the client is asking for
- What the client really needs
- What the client doesn’t know they don’t know
- What we discover as we dive into the legal research and analysis
- How complicated the problem really turns out to be
- How much client will want to do on their own
- Whether we can find some elegantly simple solutions to sub-parts of the puzzle
- What decisions we make together, and separately, as we explore the puzzle and put solutions and strategies together
In many cases, we might think a project is very complex but then as dig in, we can make executive decisions and recommendations that save the client dozens of hours of lawyer time and tens of thousands of dollars. This happens a lot with our clients. In other cases, the client might think the problem is simple but as we start to review it, the puzzle is much larger; sometimes the client throws in extra facts and complications at the last minute, and that will increase the expense and work; sometimes we’ll give the client “homework” so they can DIY a piece, taking it outside the need for lawyer time.
One thing we do is get our clients frequently on the phone. We find that the Legal Strategy Session often cuts through the fog. Where we need to do a chunk of written legal work, we’ll do so and let you know that’s what we think is needed. Where we can be more efficient with a call, we’ll tell you that as well.
Many clients come us after having wasted tens of thousands of dollars with other lawyers. Read our testimonials. We’re here to provide a lot more value than the retainer—our business model and Firm policy is to provide at least 3-5 times the value back to you. That’s our model and we’re sticking to it. We’re not trying to sell you on a “cheap retainer” or promise of discounts. We’re here to solve a big hairy problem and get you where you need to go, as efficiently and productively as we can.
Typically, assessing feasibility involves legal and strategic advice, which we provide in the 45-minute consult, in a way that is appropriate to the time we have together there.
The only way to know is to jump into the process. If you want to know more about us and how we work, browse our testimonials, look at our client rolodex, or review our experience on our website.
Work with us and find out how efficient and engaged we are with your business. We like to work with clients for life. It is a deep and trusting relationship.
Michael’s bio is online here. He has written books on healthcare law and policy, taught healthcarelaw as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, garnered NIH and other medical research grants, and published over 100 articles in legal and medical journals. Michael speaks all over the world on healthcare topics.