Case library / What happens after discipline
Seven years on probation and counting
In short
Probation extended in each case, by twelve to eighteen months
$3,432Three extension cases, and what an extension actually means.
Probation tolling sounds protective and is the opposite: the clock stops, the obligations continue, and the end date moves.
What happened
One licensee's probation was extended by eighteen months, with $3,432 of cost recovery from the original order still unpaid.
A second was extended by eighteen months with $4,040 in cost recovery outstanding.
A third was extended by one year. That probation began with a case filed in 2018 — by the extension, seven years under Board supervision, and still running.
A separate order in this group recites that cost-recovery obligations “remain in effect whether or not probation is tolled.”
What it was charged as
Extension rather than revocation is the Board's usual first response to a violation, and it resets nothing.
The outcome
Probation extended in each case, by twelve to eighteen months.
$3,432ordered in cost recovery under B&P §125.3 — and $4,040 outstanding in two of the three.What the rule actually says
Probation is tolled when you are not practicing, which sounds protective and is not: the clock stops, the obligations continue, and the end date moves. Combined with extensions, a five-year probation routinely becomes seven or eight years of quarterly reports, employer notifications, client notifications and monitoring fees.
Discussion
Analysis, not part of the decision
Three extension cases. One probation extended by eighteen months with $3,432 of cost recovery still unpaid, a second extended by eighteen months with $4,040 outstanding, a third extended by a year — and that third began with a case filed in 2018, which by the extension is seven years under Board supervision and still running.
Tolling is the mechanism most licensees misunderstand when they agree to a settlement. Probation is tolled when you are not practicing. That sounds like relief, and it is not: the clock stops, the obligations do not, and the end date moves out by however long you were away. One order in this group recites explicitly that cost-recovery obligations remain in effect whether or not probation is tolled.
Combine tolling with extensions and a five-year probation routinely becomes seven or eight years of quarterly reports, employer notifications, client notifications and monitoring fees of roughly $1,200 a year. None of it is insured. When a therapist weighs a settlement offer against the cost of fighting, this is the part of the ledger that usually goes uncounted.
Where insurance reaches, and where it does not
There is nothing to insure here and that is the point. The most expensive part of a disciplinary case is the years afterwards, and it falls entirely outside every policy sold to therapists.
What would have changed it
- When you model the cost of a disciplinary matter, model the probation, not the hearing. Monitoring at roughly $1,200 a year over seven years, plus ordered coursework that does not count toward your continuing education, plus the professional cost of telling every employer and every client.
Questions
For a law and ethics seminar, or for yourself
- Calculate the full out-of-pocket cost of a five-year probation that tolls for eighteen months and is then extended by a year.
- Tolling exists so that a licensee cannot run out the clock while not practicing. Is the current design fair? What would you change?
- How should the prospect of tolling and extension affect the advice given to someone deciding whether to settle?
Source. This write-up is drawn from the signed public decision in the case number above. Names, cities and employers have been removed — why. To pull the original, open the Board's quarterly newsletter archive, find the issue covering April 4, 2024, and match the case number in the Formal Disciplinary Actions section. Not legal advice.
