SPEAKERS: Karen A. Unver, Assistant Attorney General, State of Ohio Office of the Attorney General, Health and Human Services Section

• A state agency is a creature of the legislature that has been granted specific enforcement authority conferred by its creator, very often the executive branch of the state government. A state agency often has broad rule-making and investigatory powers conferred by the state legislature, including the ability to issue subpoenas to obtain information and documents relevant to the inquiry and conduct summary suspensions, limited only by specifi c overriding laws. We will explore a state agency’s scope of investigatory powers.
• There is a wide-range of a medical professional’s conduct and/or acts which can be subject to investigation and discipline by a state agency, ranging from criminal convictions to professional conduct, substance abuse to failure to acquire required continuing education credits. We will explore some of these areas of conduct that state agencies investigate and discipline.
• A state agency has power to act in a quasi-judicial capacity. In other words, the agency is granted statutory powers to exercise a discretionary act of a judicial nature, which includes investigating facts, weighing evidence, and reaching legal conclusions from promulgated statutes and rules as the basis for taking offi cial action against a licensed individual. We will explore a state agency’s quasi-judicial procedure and the various disciplinary methods used, including revocation, suspension, reprimands and fi nes. What challenges does a provider face in minimizing individual disciplinary actions and are there ways of minimizing the effects of individual licensing discipline on the provider?