Today’s blog is about whether licensed medical professionals—those licensed by the North Carolina Medical Board—are required to cooperate with a medical board licensed complaint investigation. This means whether PAs and MDs have to provide documentation to the Medical Board when a complaint is filed against them, whether they have to provide a written statement, and whether they have to cooperate with an investigator. The short answer to that is yes, they do have to per administrative code and statute.
Let’s take a physician for example. A physician receives a letter, typically by email, notifying them of a complaint. If you don’t have, or if you’re not sure if your contact information is up to date with the Medical Board, go ahead and do it to make sure that you would receive any and all notices from the Medical Board because you’ll get that email. If you do not respond to that email, they will try a couple more times to email you, and they will eventually send it via certified mail. The letter will tell you they want a response from you regarding the allegations within a certain number of days and there will most likely also be an order from the Board outlining what documentation you will also need to provide to them. There will be a set timeframe for the production of those documents as well. [21 NCAC 32N .0107].
Usually, it will be medical records, but it could be something a little bit else like correspondence, if it is applicable to your case. Now, the written response is going to be required within 30 days of when the licensee receives the notification from the board. There is a possibility of an extension, but there has to be good cause for it.
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