Practical, Personal, Professional

Helping You With Your Nursing License Defense

In recent years, the field of nursing has seen a significant shift. Unfortunately, this shift does not benefit nurses or even the patients they serve. Nurses have committed themselves to providing evidence-based care that prioritizes the patient’s health and well-being. That doesn’t always mean doing what the patient wants or providing care in the way that the patient prefers. This used to be fine, since nurses were tasked with providing the best care—not catering to a patient’s preferences.

Now, though, the difference between what a patient needs and what a patient wants may cause problems for nurses. Healthcare administrators have started to treat health care the same way they treat a customer service business. Nurses’ performance is based on patient surveys, and unhappy patients are far more likely to fill out these surveys than patients who are happy with their care. As a result, nurses are often punished for being unable to placate a difficult patient or for providing necessary care. Healthcare facilities do not provide customer service, and nurses need to be able to focus on providing excellent care, not trying to avoid negative marks on a survey that treats patients as customers.

Additional changes have also made this field very difficult for nurses. In order to minimize their liability and capture costs to pass on to patients, administrators have ramped up documentation requirements. These requirements have slowly encroached on the time a nurse has for patient care. Instead, nurses are required to spend less and less time with patients and more time sitting in front of a computer. When this leads to negative outcomes, the nurse is often blamed.

If your license is threatened because of a complaint, Forshier Law, LLC is here to help. We will look at the complaints against you, get your side of the story, and provide advice regarding your next step. We will handle the situation with the seriousness it deserves and give you a realistic view of possible outcomes. We will also guide you through any hearings you have in front of the Minnesota Board of Nursing or investigations by the Office of the Attorney General.