Things You Can Do To Help
Being well prepared is the key to being exonerated of all accusations. Hopefully you are already prepared and doing the things you need to do to avoid a major conflict with a licensing board. See How to Avoid Using Our Services for more information. Here are some of the things you can do to help yourself win any conflict with any licensing board:
1. If you are not already using an informed consent form, do one of these things:
Take a correspondence course and learn how to write a powerful informed consent form and start using it right away.
Hire an attorney or coach to assist you with creating a powerful informed consent form and start using it right away.
If you don't know what to do, contact the NTCW Network and ask them to help you evaluate a course for creating informed consent forms you are considering.
2. If you are not already licensed or certified, do at least one of these things:
Become certified by an accredited certification board in your major specialty as quickly as possible. Just be aware that even if you are fully qualified, it may take 3-6 months or longer to become certified by an accredited board. Do it anyway!
If your profession is licensed in your state, province or district, certification in that profession will not help you avoid being prosecuted for practicing your profession without a license. You must be certified in a different profession that does not require a license. Or you must become licensed in your profession.
As of this writing there are still some jurisdictions that do not license alternative health, holistic health, homeopathy, naturopathy, natural health or nutrition. If you can qualify, and want to do so, become certified as a coach in one of these professions.
As of this writing, no jurisdiction in the world licenses acupressure, biofeedback, detoxification, hypnotism, life enhancement, natural therapies, pain management, peak performance, stress management, traditional homeopath or traditional naturopath. Become certified as a coach, specialist or therapist in one of these professions or become licensed (TLCTA) as a traditional homeopath or naturopath if that appeals to you. Caution: the word therapist may be a problem for non-licensed professionals in many jurisdictions. The certification board you choose can advise you concerning this.
3. If you are a spiritual healer, consider becoming licensed as a spiritual healer by an accredited and recognized spiritual healer licensing board. The Federation of Spiritual Healer Licensing Boards is generally considered to have the best list of spiritual healer licensing boards.
4. If you have not already done so, we strongly suggest you take courses, workshops or seminars in the following disciplines:
Anatomy and Physiology - if you help your clients detoxify, manage their stress or pain, address their emotional issues or improve their mental concentration, you need to know the basics of anatomy so you don't address the wrong part of the body.
Applied Kinesiology - learn how to muscle test yourself and how to teach your clients to muscle test themselves. This is the best method we've found for teaching clients how to diagnose their own conditions and select the remediation that will work best for them.
Coaching - you need to know how to help your clients without diagnosing, prescribing or treating them. Coaching is by far the best approach for doing this. We believe the NTCW Network of accredited educational organizations offers the best coaching courses for alternative, holistic and natural health professionals.
List of NTCW Network Educational Organizations
5. Arrange to have an attorney or conflict resolutions mediator present in person or by telephone at every meeting and on every telephone call with the investigator for the license board. We like to be involved at this level of the investigation because we have a high success rate in having the investigation closed and you being exonerated of any wrong doing at this point in the proceedings.
Levels of Protection
By now you should have a good idea of what you need to do to protect yourself and your future as a professional. Here's a synopsis of my recommendations to all non-licensed healthcare providers based on my experience as a conflict resolutions mediator:
- Use a well-constructed informed consent form such as the form taught by one of the groups within the Natural Therapies Coach Workshops Network (NTCW). The older disclaimers are difficult to defend today. The new informed consent forms are not only easier to defend, they are the strongest defense available to a non-licensed professional.
- Use coaching skills in your business to empower your clients to make their own decisions about their own healthcare. Coaching is the opposite of counseling though some counselors do both. Professionals who coach their clients avoid the trap of diagnosing, prescribing, treating, curing or attempting to cure any client of anything. All diagnosing, prescribing, treating and curing is done by the client or a properly licensed healthcare provider.
- If a license is not available for your profession in your state, then become certified by an accredited certification board in your profession. According to federal law, including rules and regulations enforced by the FTC and FDA, in the absence of a state licensing law then certification by an accredited nationally recognized certification board is just as legal and binding as a license would have been. For a list of currently accredited certification boards, see the Natural Therapies Conflict Resolutions Services (NTCRS) website.
- If a license is not available for your profession in your state, then in addition to being certified in your profession, another successful tactic is to become licensed by an spiritual healer license board. The spiritual healer licensing boards offering the best protection for the non-licensed healthcare provider are accredited by the Federation of Spiritual Healer Licensing Boards (FSHLB). The requirements for all of these boards are similar, so it pays in the long run to select a board that resonates with you. If you are a Scientologist, Divine Science Practitioner or Christian Science Practitioner, a valid license from one of these denominations is also accepted by FSHLB.
- Become licensed in your profession. Having a license issued by your state is required if your state licenses your profession. Having a license in any health profession licensed by your state is helpful even if that license does not cover your profession. If your state does not license your profession, then consider being licensed by The License Commission of the Americas (TLCTA). As far as we know, TLCTA is the only accredited license board in the healthcare professions at this time.
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