Rhode Island General Laws 5-35.1-18. Refusal, suspension, or revocation of license for unprofessional conduct
In addition to any and all other remedies provided in this chapter, the director may, after notice and hearing in the director’s discretion, refuse to grant, refuse to renew, suspend, or revoke any license provided for in this chapter to any person who is guilty of unprofessional conduct or conduct of a character likely to deceive or defraud the public, or for any fraud or deception committed in obtaining a license. “Unprofessional conduct” is defined as including, but is not limited to:
(1) Conviction of one or more of the offenses set forth in § 23-17-37;
(2) Knowingly placing the health of a patient at serious risk without maintaining proper precautions;
(3) Advertising by means of false or deceptive statements;
(4) The use of drugs or alcohol to an extent that impairs the person’s ability to properly engage in the profession;
(5) Use of any false or fraudulent statement in any document connected with his or her practice;
(6) Obtaining of any fee by fraud or willful misrepresentation of any kind whether from a patient or insurance plan;
(7) Knowingly performing any act that in any way aids or assists an unlicensed person to practice in violation of this chapter;
(8) Violating or attempting to violate, directly or indirectly, or assisting in, or abetting, the violation of, or conspiring to violate, any of the provisions of this chapter or regulations previously or hereafter issued pursuant to this chapter;
(9) Incompetence;
(10) Repeated acts of gross misconduct;
(11) An optometrist providing services to a person who is making a claim as a result of a personal injury, who charges or collects from the person any amount in excess of the reimbursement to the optometrist by the insurer as a condition of providing or continuing to provide services or treatment;
(12) Failure to conform to acceptable and prevailing community standard of optometric practice;
(13) Advertising by written or spoken words of a character tending to deceive or mislead the public;
(14) Practicing his or her profession under any oral or written contract, arrangement, or understanding where anyone not licensed to practice optometry in this state shares, directly or indirectly, in any fees received by that licensed optometrist;
(15) Grave and repeated misuse of any ocular pharmaceutical agent; or
(16) The use of any agent or procedure in the course of optometric practice by an optometrist not properly authorized under this chapter.
History of Section.
P.L. 2008, ch. 305, § 2; P.L. 2008, ch. 433, § 2.
Terms Used In Rhode Island General Laws 5-35.1-18
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- Director: means the director of the department of health. See Rhode Island General Laws 5-35.1-1
- Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
- Optometrist: means a person licensed in this state to practice optometry pursuant to the provisions of this chapter. See Rhode Island General Laws 5-35.1-1
- Optometry: means the profession whose practitioners are engaged in the art and science of the evaluation of vision and the examination of vision and the examination and refraction of the human eye that includes: the employment of any objective or subjective means for the examination of the human eye or its appendages; the measurement of the powers or range of human vision or the determination of the accommodative and refractive powers of the human eye or the scope of its functions in general and the adaptation of lenses, prisms, and/or frames for the aid of these; the prescribing, directing the use of, or administering ocular exercises, visual training, vision training, or orthoptics, and the use of any optical device in connection with these; the prescribing of contact lenses for, or the fitting or adaptation of contact lenses to, the human eye; the examination or diagnosis of the human eye to ascertain the presence of abnormal conditions or functions; and the application of pharmaceutical agents to the eye, provided, that no optometrist licensed in this state shall perform any surgery for the purpose of detecting any diseased or pathological condition of the eye. See Rhode Island General Laws 5-35.1-1
- person: may be construed to extend to and include co-partnerships and bodies corporate and politic. See Rhode Island General Laws 43-3-6