An Ounce of Prevention
By Johanna Duncan-Poitier, Deputy Commissioner,
Office of the Professions, New York State Education Department
The New York State Education Department’s Office of the Professions has fully implemented a complaint resolution process that ensures a state-of-the-art process for prosecuting professional misconduct in 35 professions. We recognize, however, that any system for prosecuting misconduct has one drawback: it addresses harmful behavior after the fact. To address this, we broadened our efforts to prevent professional misconduct by educating consumers and professionals alike.
Prosecuting Professional Misconduct
The complaint resolution process was fashioned around two key elements:
The new process has achieved dramatic results. Under the old system, 80% of the most difficult cases proceeded to full discipline hearings. Now we resolve 88% of these cases through the settlement process—only 12% proceed to hearings. This is meaningful because "settlement" cases, on average, are resolved within 6 months at a cost of $500. Hearing cases, on the other hand, typically took 3 years to resolve—at a cost of $7,500. Beyond the significant savings in time and money (which are reinvested into the system), the new process provides swifter justice for licensed professionals and consumers.
These improvements have reverberated throughout the entire discipline process. We have reduced the average time to resolve the most serious discipline cases by nearly 30% since 1996. New York’s Board of Regents, which decides those cases, took 555 professional discipline actions in 1999, the highest total since 1993 and a 26% increase over 1998.
Likewise, the cycle time to resolve minor violations has been reduced from an average of almost one year in 1996 to just over seven months in 1999—a 34% improvement. These successes helped us earn legislative support to establish a roster of auxiliary members on the State boards for the professions. By serving on certain discipline-related panels, these members support the timely scheduling of cases that proceed through the hearing process.
In charting our existing professional discipline process, we gained a new perspective that led us to focus on what we could do to prevent misconduct and unlicensed practice.
Preventing Professional Misconduct
To prevent misconduct, practitioners and consumers must be knowledgeable about professional licensing and practice. We focused on distributing information in a variety of formats to a variety of customers, with an emphasis on accessibility—making important information easy to find and easy to understand.
Our consumer outreach efforts include our Consumer’s Bill of Rights and 29 brochures on the professions. Each brochure provides plain-language information on a profession or set of related professions, including who must be licensed to perform professional services, what services are offered by the profession, and how to verify a license and report professional misconduct and unlicensed practice.
We distributed the brochures and the Bill, in multiple languages, to professional associations, public housing authorities, consumer and community groups, consumer protection agencies, and more than 700 public libraries. In addition, a unique partnership with Bell Atlantic yielded public service announcements under 31 professional headings in the 2000 edition of the New York State Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages. These announcements, which reach consumers as they are seeking services, encourage consumers to verify licenses and learn more about who must be licensed.
Our outreach to practitioners includes a periodic newsletter for state board members, legislators, professional associations, and professional education programs. The reprinting of some articles in association newsletters extends readership, as does the Web version. Our annual Calendar & Information Guide, which we send to all currently registered professionals, highlights Office services and contact information. We also regularly produce special advisories on such topics as corporate practice and telepractice, as needed.
Above all, our Web site (www.op.nysed.gov) has dramatically boosted our capacity to reach professionals and consumers. Its ability to be revised quickly and to provide information and services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is a tremendous advantage. Our site is under continuous development as we adapt traditional products to the electronic environment—and create new opportunities for self-service.
On the Web, consumers head for our Consumer Checkpoint, a collection of consumer-related features. The Checkpoint includes online license verifications; discipline case summaries; the Consumer’s Bill of Rights and consumer brochures; information on how to recognize and report unlicensed practice and professional misconduct; and the professional misconduct complaint form. Licensed professionals and their employers are also key users of the online license verification and discipline case summaries: professionals can verify their registrations, and the case summaries illustrate actions that can lead to misconduct charges.
The online license verification, in particular, has established itself as the most popular feature on our site. Typically, consumers, professionals and employers perform over 150,000 license verifications per month via the service. We recently surpassed 5 million verifications—in just over 3.5 years since the service first became available.
Our site also features printable application forms, links to more than 100 professional associations (as a convenience to licensed professionals), reports on emerging issues in the professions, and listings of selected continuing education providers. We also feature information on the state boards for the professions, including their responsibilities, meeting information, current members, and the application for board membership.
Our site evolves continuously, and we are working towards an array of interactive online services—registration renewals, interactive forms, electronic payments, and more. The possibilities for providing useful, accessible information to practitioners and the public are limitless.
Of course, technology does not eliminate the need for face-to-face interactions. Our outreach strategy also includes events that forge connections with our customers. In October, for example, we will host the Regents Conference on the Professions for leaders in professional regulation. Other examples include an annual Regents Legislative Policy Conference and an annual Leadership Forum for State board and association leaders. Community events link students and communities with professionals to highlight information on professional careers and services.
Prosecution and Prevention
As regulators, we must have an effective system for professional discipline. We also believe, however, that we must win compliance. The key is to provide information to professionals and consumers that is useful, free of jargon, and easily accessible. In this way, they become our partners in ensuring the sound practice of the professions.