Act 6 of 2018 is a new law in 2018. It represents a fundamental shift in Pennsylvania licensees’ duty to report criminal charges and disciplinary actions filed against them in any jurisdiction in the entire country. The General Assembly passed the new law in anticipation of medical marijuana. The enforcement environment is getting much stricter in Pennsylvania. Every Pennsylvania professional licensee must report the misdemeanor and felony criminal charges to their respective board within 30 days receipt of criminal charges. It is a disciplinary offense for any licensee to not report within 30 days of receipt of criminal charges.

Act 6 of 2018 specifically authorizes the Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs (“BPOA”) to subscribe to JNET. My prior blogs discuss JNET, the criminal reporting database network to which the Nursing Board began subscribing. JNET now levels the reporting responsibility and Boards learning of its licensees’ criminal conduct. There was a significant difference between nurses and doctors, pharmacist, realtors, cosmetologists, and funeral directors (and all others) in their criminal charge reporting responsibilities. All licensees are now treated equal. Licensees can not wait to report – thinking at a preliminary hearing charges will be reduced to a summary offense, for which there is a guilty plea. The charging is the reportable event, not the end result.

This all began in 2014. In late 2014 the General Assembly modified Pennsylvania professional licensing regulations to require nurses to report criminal charges, not conviction, within 30 day days of charges being filing. The BPOA utilized the last several years to create a new enforcement infrastructure and mechanisms to insure disciplinary action is initiated against all nurses who either reported or they learned of criminal conduct or did not report at all. The reporting responsibility is in addition to reporting criminal charges upon licensee renewal.

Through JNET the Nursing Board became familiar with the criminal reporting subscription service and its information power. Obviously the Board created a flow chart starting at receipt of criminal information through to disciplinary charge initiation for failure to report. The Nursing Board worked out the differences between JNET and nurse reporting of charges. Steps between failure to report, Board investigation, document review, and charges have also been ironed out.

Apparently BPOA had a significantly positive experience with JNET’s notification process, allowing it to better enforce nurses’ reporting responsibility. Expanding 30-day reporting of criminal activity to all other 25 licensing boards will inundate the BPOA with information regarding licensees’ criminal behavior. This will produce some delays in failure to report and initiation of criminal charges.

The Act also gives the BPOA prosecutor not just the authority but the command to initiate within 30 days an emergent suspension if a licensee’s criminal acts reveal a clear and present danger to the public. The licensee is afforded a preliminary hearing to contest the automatic license suspension. This “automatic suspension process” is not new.

All licensees were spared the obligation to report summary Drug Act violations. By this I mean summary charges for disorderly conduct written by cops giving a break to licensees caught with illegal marijuana. This reporting requirement was in the original versions of the bill but stricken from the final version. The Act includes authority for every Board to institute a schedule of fines for escalating number of failure to report charges.

Act 6 includes a very limited right of expungement. This only for disciplinary action for failure to comply with continued education requirements. The law explicitly precludes any expungement of any disciplinary order by any board for any other offense. Aside from capping Board fines to $10,000, BPOA can enter a judgment against the licensee if the fine is not paid in 5 years.

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