States move to crack down on nurses with bogus diplomas
ALBANY, N.Y. –
Medical licensing officers in a number of states are scrambling to cease nurses with fraudulent tutorial credentials from caring for sufferers, after three Florida colleges had been accused of promoting 1000’s of bogus diplomas.
New York regulators advised 903 nurses in current weeks to both give up their licenses or show they had been correctly educated. Delaware and Washington state officers have yanked dozens of nursing licenses. Texas filed administrative prices in opposition to 23 nurses. More actions in extra states are anticipated.
In some instances, legal professionals for the nurses contend states are questioning the credentials of caregivers who earned diplomas legitimately. But there’s broad settlement within the business that nurses with fraudulent levels must be rooted out.
“The public needs to know that when they’re the most fragile, when they’re sick, when they’re in a hospital bed, that the individual who is at their bedside has gone through the required training,” stated Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Association union.
States are performing within the wake of Operation Nightingale, a federal investigation into what officers say was a wire fraud scheme by which a number of now-closed Florida nursing colleges bought phony nursing diplomas and transcripts from 2016 to 2022. Twenty-five defendants, together with faculty house owners and alleged recruiters, have been charged, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Markenzy Lapointe introduced in late January. Those instances are pending.
About 7,600 college students paid a mean of $15,000 for bogus diplomas, in line with prosecutors. Around 2,400 of these folks then handed a licensing examination to acquire jobs as registered nurses and licensed sensible nurses or vocational nurses in a number of states, prosecutors say.
How did so many check takers move with out the required classroom and scientific work? In some instances, they had been skilled L.P.N.s looking for to turn out to be R.N.s. Some had been well being care suppliers in different nations.
The nurses acquired jobs throughout the nation, together with at a hospital in Georgia, Veterans Affairs medical facilities in Maryland and New York, a talented nursing facility in Ohio, and an assisted residing facility in New Jersey, in line with courtroom filings.
Students got here not solely from Florida, but additionally New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas and Delaware. Many of the scholars took their licensing examination in New York, the place they will sit it a number of occasions, in line with investigators.
Investigators recognized the Florida nursing colleges because the Palm Beach School of Nursing; Siena College, a college in Broward County that wasn’t associated to the school of the identical title in New York; and the Sacred Heart International Institute, which was additionally based mostly in Broward County and had no relation to a college with the same title in Connecticut.
It was not completely clear how lots of the roughly 2,400 nurses with credentials from these colleges are at the moment employed, or the place.
Federal officers shared info so states may pursue nurses with phony tutorial credentials. Some states have taken motion.
The Washington State Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission rescinded the R.N. licenses of 17 folks and denied license purposes for 4. The Delaware Board of Nursing annulled 26 licenses. The Georgia Board of Nursing requested 22 nurses to voluntarily give up their licenses.
The 23 nurses dealing with potential license revocations in Texas can proceed working whereas their disciplinary instances are pending. Texas Board of Nursing common counsel James “Dusty” Johnston stated extra prices may come as officers develop “the necessary information for each individual.”
A spokesperson for Veterans Affairs stated it eliminated 89 nurses “from patient care” nationwide final 12 months instantly after being notified by federal officers. The company has not discovered any situations of sufferers being harmed.
New York’s Office of the Professions posted on the state schooling division’s web site that it expects a number of the 903 licensees who attended the faculties “did, in fact, attend required hours and clinicals and are properly licensed.” Those persons are being requested to have a professional nursing program submit verification.
Attorneys for a number of the nurses in New York and Georgia say nurses who legitimately earned diplomas are getting caught up within the investigation.
“There are obviously people who bought transcripts who are fraudulent and should not be practicing nursing under any circumstances,” stated Atlanta legal professional Hahnah Williams. “But there are also people who went to those schools legitimately and did nothing wrong. And they are somehow being lumped together with the fraudulent nurses.”
Williams stated her purchasers are hardworking immigrants who went to varsities that had been accredited on the time and have since labored for a few years with out incident.
Similarly, legal professional Jordan Fensterman in New York stated he has purchasers who attended courses at one of many colleges to complete up their R.N. levels after which labored through the pandemic. He stated these nurses deserve due course of now.
The state board actions are going down as hospitals throughout the nation attempt to cope with persistent staffing challenges.
“Hopefully, the number is smaller once the authorities sort things out,” stated Kennedy, the American Nurses Association president.
