Five Essential Tips to Protect Your Healthcare License in Texas
Your healthcare license represents years of education, training, and dedication—but how much do you know about protecting it? In this powerful episode of Know Your Regulator, we reveal five crucial strategies Texas healthcare professionals need to implement immediately to safeguard their careers.
Drawing from conversations with regulatory experts and real-world cases, host Cimone Murphree delivers actionable insights that go beyond generic advice. You’ll discover why something as simple as keeping your address updated with your board could prevent a career-ending oversight, and why responding to complaints without first requesting the investigative file puts you at a significant disadvantage. We explore the often-overlooked importance of comprehensive liability insurance with board defense coverage—a protection many professionals don’t realize they need until it’s too late.
Perhaps most compelling is our candid discussion about mental health as a license protection strategy. Expert guest Dr. Brian Russell explains why “white-knuckling it” through stress and burnout creates substantial risks to your practice and how recognizing when you need support demonstrates professional strength, not weakness. We close with powerful guidance on knowing and using the specific regulations that protect you in challenging workplace situations, complete with real examples of how to professionally invoke these protections to maintain both patient safety and your professional standing.
Whether you’re a nurse, doctor, pharmacist, dentist, or other licensed healthcare provider in Texas, these five essential strategies will transform how you approach license protection. Subscribe to Know Your Regulator and don’t miss our new weekly series, launching June 27th, featuring focused content specifically for healthcare professionals. Your career deserves this protection – tune in now.
Transcript
Speaker 1: 0:01
This podcast is for educational purposes only, does not constitute legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal assistance about a legal problem, contact an attorney. Welcome back to Know your Regulator, the podcast that inspires you to engage. I am your host, simone Murphy, and today’s episode is a quick but powerful one, especially if you are a nurse, doctor, pharmacist really any medical professional who holds a license here in Texas. We’ve pulled together five of the most important things that you need to know to protect your license, based on real conversations with our guests. Now, these are not just tips. These are the takeaways that professionals wish they had known sooner. So let’s get into it. Tip number one don’t miss the mail.
Speaker 2: 0:49
Our doctors will always be notified of a complaint by a letter that they’re going to receive in the mail. That kind of shows the importance right there of keeping your contact information up to date with us, because if we have an old, out-of-date mailing address on file, you’re not going to get the notice of complaint and then you’re not going to be able to respond, which means you can’t defend yourself.
Speaker 1: 1:07
You don’t want to find out about a complaint after a decision’s already been made. The board still use physical mail, so make sure if you move, you keep your address up to date. It’s one of the simplest ways to stay protected. Tip number two ask for the investigative file.
Speaker 3: 1:22
With the board of nursing you’re going to get the notice and a lot of people don’t know. But now you know that you need to ask for the investigative file. They call it the investigative file, but it’s basically all the evidence that the board has received against you. Unlike a lot of boards, unfortunately, in Texas with the board of nursing you are entitled to all those records. So a lot of times nurses you know might hire us after they’ve already responded and they haven’t even gotten the evidence, which is kind of like you know, if you’ve seen any like law drama. That’s not what you want to do. You want to know what the facts are, what the evidence is against you, and then you respond.
Speaker 1: 2:00
Don’t try and explain yourself without knowing what the board’s looking at. You have a right to the evidence they have against you, and that’s where your defense begins. Moving on to tip number three, get legal coverage in your liability plan.
Speaker 4: 2:13
The best tip that I was ever given was with my partner in crime during our internship. We had just graduated. So I’m looking at liability plans and I’d always had my own in grad school because I didn’t trust my grad school at liability plans. And I’d always had my own in grad school because I didn’t trust my grad school valid. And she was just like make sure you get the representation part of your liability plan. And I was like what? And she goes, yeah, they’ll do board defense or any time that you know if you’re sued, they’ll help pay for the lawyer legal protection isn’t just for lawsuits.
Speaker 1: 2:43
If a board complaint is filed against you, you may need a defense attorney, and good insurance can help cover that. Tip number four take care of your mental health.
Speaker 5: 2:53
It’s sometimes the case, kind of paradoxically, that the strongest person is the person who does recognize that they need some help and is willing to avail themselves of the help that’s out there, whether it’s from an EAP or a professional assistance program or just their own psychologist or their own doctor, at least as a place to start. I think sometimes the person who recognizes that it’s a long game that you’re playing and even if you could continue to sort of white knuckle it which is a common thing, people struggling tend to kind of tell themselves well, it’s going to get better, if I just go on a little bit longer, then I’ll get a breather and I’ll be able to sort of reset and retool and really that’s sort of some denial talking there. So I think the folks who actually are strong enough to say you know, what I want is a sustainable practice. I don’t want to help you know relatively small number of folks over the next little while and then burn out or wash out or get kicked out of the profession.
Speaker 1: 4:00
I want to help a relatively large number of people over a period of years or decades going forward. Caregiver fatigue is real. Don’t ignore the stress, the sleepless nights, the self-doubt. Protecting your license starts with protecting your health. And our final tip, tip number five know the rules that protect you and how are you going to do that?
Speaker 6: 4:11
Because it’s easy for us to sit here and talk about that, right, but what are you going to use? You’re going to use what we’re going to. We’re telling you the rules and regulations. When I show up to my job and they’re trying to give me, let’s just say, an unsafe assignment, what am I going to say? Well, okay, you’re not going to get animated and activated. I have concerns about this. Not right to safe Harbor, let’s talk about this.
Speaker 6: 4:33
So two, 17, 11, one S says making an unsafe assignment, me, you making that and tease me accepting that. So if I don’t have the education, training and knowledge is that that regulation says, how can I accept this unsafe assignment? And then, if we look at civil litigation, the definition of medical malpractice is no only willing to take on an unsafe assignment. So, before I do that, can we, you know, use the chain of command? Can we get the charge nurse here? Can we maybe get the house supervisor? Maybe there’s a nurse in pre-op or somewhere else that can come here and help task to alleviate things. But that’s going to be in part of your nursing foundation and your nursing portfolio that you’re going to build for yourself.
Speaker 1: 5:16
You are allowed to speak up. You don’t have to accept an unsafe assignment or break the rules to meet the moment. Know the rules, know the language and don’t be afraid to use it. We’ve heard from so many of you in the medical field and one thing is clear you want more focused content that speaks directly to your profession. So we’ve listened. Want more focused content that speaks directly to your profession. So we’ve listened. We’re excited to announce a brand new weekly podcast series, launching this Friday, June 27th. This series is going to spotlight timely issues, helpful reminders, real-world guidance for medical license holders, delivered in quick, digestible clips so you can catch it right here or on social media. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. We can’t wait to begin charting this course with you and, as always, stay inspired and continue engaging with your regulatory agency.
Speaker 3: 6:02
Know your Regulator. The podcast that inspires you to engage.