Contacting the IL Board of Nursing: Help Please

Gompers, BSN, RN · Sep 28, 2006

I'm really surprised to hear that people are having a hard time getting a human on the phone at either office. I had to call them back in May regarding my license renewal and was able to get through pretty easily to both the Chicago and Springfield offices. I believe the Chicago number is the one to call to talk specifically to the board of nursing, while Springfield has more to do with actual paperwork type stuff.

Definitely don't call on Mondays as that is their busiest day of the week. Try calling at different times of the day on Tues-Fri and hopefully you'll get someone soon. Or if it's not a pressing matter, maybe sending a letter to BOTH addresses is a good idea because then you're not wasting your own time.

I was shocked when I went to renew my license on May 31st. YES I did it on the last day! I had some issues with the post office returning my original renewal and then I wasn't able to renew online because I was changing my name, too, so I had to drive down there at the last minute. I expected to wait in line for hours and for it to be a hassle. Instead, my friend and I got there at about 11am and found tons of street parking right outside the door - then it only took something like ELEVEN minutes from the time we left the car until the time we got back into it with my paperwork! I know this because we had 20 minutes left on the meter from the previous parker, and there was still time left when we drove off! They run a tight ship there.

romie · Sep 28, 2006

Gompers, you have given me a sense of hope! I am so glad that you have had positive experiences. You story about taking only 11 minutes reminded me of the time I renewed my drivers license at the DMV in Manhattan when I lived in NYC. There are literally lines everywhere you go in NYC, be it at CVS, post office or DMV, so I had set aside a couple of hours and armed myself with lots of time-killing reading materials. I was floored when I got to the DMV, there were only about four other people there and I completed everything in roughly 15 minutes! I talked about this experience for weeks and nobody believed me!

Roy Fokker, BSN, RN · Sep 28, 2006

To anyone trying to call the BON - early morning if your best shot. They open for business on weekday mornings. 0830 hrs Central Time. Call later than 0900 and you can forget it...

Gompers, you have given me a sense of hope! I am so glad that you have had positive experiences. You story about taking only 11 minutes reminded me of the time I renewed my drivers license at the DMV in Manhattan when I lived in NYC. There are literally lines everywhere you go in NYC, be it at CVS, post office or DMV, so I had set aside a couple of hours and armed myself with lots of time-killing reading materials. I was floored when I got to the DMV, there were only about four other people there and I completed everything in roughly 15 minutes! I talked about this experience for weeks and nobody believed me!

I have a similar experience - only he DMV is Illinois. I got the license the SAME day - no, actually in 20 minutes... post test and everything!

My personal experiences with the Department of Professional Regulations in general have left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

I managed to get in touch with a human today and guess what?

Them: Sir, you're paperwork and aplication have been processed, we're waiting for the payment

Me: What? I sent a personal check for the amount requested along with my paperwork! Have you not recieved it?

They gave me some fib about changing systems and that there was no way to track the check. They couldn't tell me if it was recieved, if it was being processed... nothing. (Yet somehow they could tell me my application had been processes?)

*sigh*

So I have to wait another week and call back to see if they managed to "find" my check. I'm so frustrated - but what can you do? You're at their mercy!

Jolie, BSN · Sep 28, 2006

So I have to wait another week and call back to see if they managed to "find" my check. I'm so frustrated - but what can you do? You're at their mercy!

Roy, can't you check with your bank and see if the check has cleared? I can't imagine that IDPR wouldn't have deposited it immediately.

Gompers, BSN, RN · Sep 28, 2006

To anyone trying to call the BON - early morning if your best shot. They open for business on weekday mornings. 0830 hrs Central Time. Call later than 0900 and you can forget it...

Come to think of it, I think that's when I got through to both offices as well. I started calling five minutes before they were scheduled to open and just kept hitting redail and I got through pretty quickly. One morning I called the Chicago office, the next the Springfield one.

Roy Fokker, BSN, RN · Sep 28, 2006

Roy, can't you check with your bank and see if the check has cleared? I can't imagine that IDPR wouldn't have deposited it immediately.

I check my bank acocunt each morning - nope, check has not been cleared!

I can't imagine it either - which is why I suspect that they've "lost" my check but just won't tell me so :nono:

If they don't fess up by next week, I'm driving down there and I'm not leaving untill they show me either my license or proof that it has been issued!

Gompers, BSN, RN · Sep 28, 2006

I check my bank acocunt each morning - nope, check has not been cleared!
I can't imagine it either - which is why I suspect that they've "lost" my check but just won't tell me so
If they don't fess up by next week, I'm driving down there and I'm not leaving untill they show me either my license or proof that it has been issued!

They annoyed me, too. After I got my license renewal returned to me from the post office (forgot to add the few extra cents, had used an old stamp ) I sent it back to them but it didn't get there in time. Then, on the morning of May 31st I logged on and saw that my NAME was changed, but my renewal date was still 2006 and hadn't been updated to 2008 yet. But they HAD to have received my renewal by then because otherwise they wouldn't have had the copy of my marriage license to get my new name from! I called (first thing in the morning, of course) and asked what was up with that! They said they HAD received my renewal and that a name change was an easy thing for them to do - but the actual license renewal took longer to show up on the ILDPR website! Grrrrrrr! So I did have to drive down, and what they did was they gave me an official letter saying that they had received my renewal and my check, and that I was indeed legally renewed even though the website didn't reflect that yet. I had to bring the letter with me to work (that night at 11pm) in order to take an assignment.

It was quick, though, like I said. The drive down was cake and then like I said, something like 11 minutes in the building and that included printing out that letter! We had planned on being there for hours, and we decided that we weren't going to just get back in the car and go home after all the driving. So we went on a tour of the capital building, because I'd never been there! Then we went and saw the Lincoln statue where people rubbed his nose shiny. On our way home, we hit Sonic for a ton of food and frozen drinks, because we're from Chicagoland and are so tired of seeing the commercials but not being anywhere near an actual Sonic!

Roy Fokker, BSN, RN · Oct 3, 2006

*sigh*
So I have to wait another week and call back to see if they managed to "find" my check. I'm so frustrated - but what can you do? You're at their mercy!

STILL no change....

cheers,

fuming in central IL :madface:

romie · Oct 18, 2006

I finally managed to speak to a real human being by using the advice given here. I called at excatly 8:30 AM, did not get a dial tone but was put on hold by the automated system for about 5 minutes. When a human started talking on the other end I stuttered in disbelief! Thanks for everyone's good advice.