Recently Livescan Fingerprinted and Now Received an Intervention Letter from the BRN?
If you are a California registered nurse and have recently been required to submit a new set of fingerprints to the BRN and you have a past conviction that you did not disclose, you will likely receive an intervention letter from the BRN that looks like this:
I’ve had a number of nurses contact me in the last few weeks with questions about how to respond to or deal with this intervention letter. Most of these Rns have a DUI conviction from years ago that they did not disclose on previous license renewals and now the BRN is finding out about with the new fingerprints.
This intervention letter is typical and standard. The “Intervention Program” is the same thing as the Diversion program and these offer letters go out to every nurse as soon as the BRN is notified of an alcohol related arrest. If you’ve not submitted fingerprints for years, then the BRN had no way of being notified of your arrest until now. That is why you are now receiving this letter.
This offer letter sounds pretty enticing: join the “intervention program”, its confidential, you meet with the nice people from a committee then the records are destroyed. The alternative is disciplinary action against your RN license. Well that sounds like a no-brainer huh? Sign me up!
NOT SO FAST! As I said the Intervention program is Maximus’ Diversion program, make no mistake. That means your RN license goes inactive and is suspended the moment you join and is returned to active status no sooner than 6 months. When you do return to active work, you are severely restricted and under strict supervision. In addition, you have to attend mandatory nurse support groups, sign up for random urine tests and call in every single day for 3-5 years. NOT so enticing now is it? Oh… and it costs about $500.00 per month, for the entire 3 years. You can read more about the diversion program elsewhere on the blog.
The alternative is exactly what the letter states:
But here’s the deal: there is nothing to “investigate.” You have a conviction for a DUI. This is a violation of the Nurse Practice Act and the BRN will discipline your license, BUT that disciple could very likely be in the form of a citation and a fine (like a traffic ticket for your RN license and not even disclosable to employers) or it could be a formal Accusation against your RN license. The Accusation is terrifying in theory, because it calls for your RN license to be revoked, so the Intervention still sounds like a better deal, right?
Not really. We’ve never had a client have their RN license revoked for a DUI. The result of every DUI related accusation we have defended has been a citation and fine, a letter of reprimand or probation, probation being the worst outcome and guess what? Probation looks a whole lot like the “Intervention Program,” except that your license stays active the entire time, you can work the entire time and your work itself is not severely restricted nor do you require strict supervision.
Finally, if the DUI is more than 5 years old and you haven’t had any other issues and your work performance has been great, then the likelihood of a citation and fine or letter of reprimand increases. So if you’ve recently received this intervention letter and you aren’t ready to give up your RN license and career for 6 months or more and pay the BRN $18 grand over the next 4 years, give me a call. I will listen to the details of your specific case, explain what the possible outcome can be as it relates to you and answer any questions that you have.