IPN FL question

MaryB43 · Jul 5

YES

SheelaDavis · Jul 6

No, they don't and they can't. No state can legally force you to do ANYTHING with another states license. Now, they can and will make you a single state license and non compact. You also can't "inactivate" your license once you get into trouble.

SheelaDavis · Jul 6

For example, Alabama can't say, you must inactivate, surrender, keep, upgrade, downgrade or do ANYTHING to your Oregon license. They have no jurisdiction and that's illegal. Now, Alabama can and will tell Oregon all about your mishap in Alabama. Alabama can tell Medicaid, they can tell the NPDB, they can tell Nursys system about what you did in Bama, but they can not Force the nurse to do ANYTHING to the nurses license in other states. That's Illegal. So, wanted to clear up that misconception.

Misconception About Inactivating Licenses. When a nurse gets in trouble. Let's say they are licensed in 5 states and their home state is Kansas. They get in trouble inside the state of Kansas. You have a fine window of time to make your license inactive in the other 4 states. Once the other 4 states are aware you are in trouble in Kansas, they do NOT let you inactivate your license 99 percent of the time. They also put you under investigation pending the results of what your home state (Kansas) BON finds and decides, then they do disciplinary action also.

About 45 out of 50 states in 2025 now ASK you on the inactivate license application if you are under any investigation or pending disciplinary issues from any other state BON or a court, DUI pending court date, etc. If you answer yes, they don't deactivate. They investigate. If you answer no and they find out later (which they easily will through Nursys), then your license usually gets suspended or possibly revoked and you risk OIG stuff and career disaster.

It would be nice to be licensed in 5 states, get in trouble in one state, and quickly "deactivate" or go "inactive license" in the 4 other states so you only have to deal with 1 state. That's a pipedream. That's nurse break-room gossip that is spread, repeated, accepted as true because it's repeated over and over, BUT its NOT true. In reality, Nurses are usually dealing with 5 states and discipline stuff.

Exception to the Above. Read Carefully. 99.9 percent of nurses who have never been in trouble don't know this, nor should they know it. Let's say you are diverting in your homestate of Kansas and you are licensed in 4 other states as well. You get caught on June 1st for diverting and fired. Obviously, you are going to be reported to the BON and an investigation opened followed by discipline, consent order, monitoring, etc. If the nurse on June 2nd, very very soon after getting caught and before the BON contacts her places her licenses in Inactive Status in the 4 other states, then it's very possible to take these 4 states off the table and not have to deal with them and actually pull it off. Technically, the nurse is Not under investigation yet and there is no pending disciplinary issues, UNTIL the nurse receives that letter, thats when it becomes official. This is that fine window where the nurse can deactivate in other states and often pull it off (legally). They are not lying on the inactive license application because technically, they are not yet under investigation.

What usually happens in the real world? Nurse panics, has the usual emotional breakdown the day she is fired, lays in beds for days, talks to friends, convinces herself the BON may not contact her, she may go to rehab, but time passes by to where the nurse ultimately receives notification from the BON and then the nurse repeats the cycle above with more panic and anxiety when she gets the letter saying an investigation is opened. Through that whole time, if she would have had the knowledge to go online and make a couple of clicks of the mouse to make the other 4 licenses inactive during that small window, her Hell-experience from 5 states over the next 5 years could have been taken down to only dealing with 1 state. Again, most nurses don't know this, and they can't be expected to know it. For the ones that do find out this info early on and act on it early and go inactive, it actually works for them.

Common sense folks. If you are setting on a BON and you have 20 years of nursing practice and 10 years of BON experience, and a 30 or 40 or 45 year old nurse sends a request to make their license in inactive status, what are one of the things that will go through your head? Remember, its another human on the other end of that application reading it at the BON. It's not a robot or an object. What would any half-way reasonable human with common sense think,......"damn, that's weird, why doesn't she just let it expire next year and not renew it"? She is awful young to "retire." See my point? They kind of start to look around and ask questions on WHY are you doing this. It's different if the nurse is 50 or 55 or 60 plus I age. That happens all of the time. There are other reasons a nurse places their licenses in inactive status. It happens for sure, but it is NOT Common for younger nurses or middle age nurses. That clues them to look. But, if you get into trouble and immediately go inactive license application Before you get that letter notifying you of a pending investigation, it will be approved as Inactive. There is nothing in nursys yet. The nurse hasn't been notified yet. It's completely legal.

Insert Here For Reply Post...........Nurse A "knows" another nurse who knows another nurse who got to go inactive in other states even after she was under investigation. It's a given. There's always one poster who thrives on that "exception to the rule post." It's not about what is the exception to the rule. It's about what is More Common. What's more common is what I wrote above. Get into trouble in 1 state, and odds of going inactive license in other states are LOW, very, very, low unless you go inactive Very quickly. Odds of having disciplinary issues from the other states are the common norm, not the exception to the rule.

Mel1210 · Jul 9

MaryB43 said:

YES

Thank you. Sounds like the nightmare never ends. I will just never ever get a license in FL and focus on working in NY or TX then. It makes no sense to jump through all the loops.