Be Mindful of Your Team’s Certification and Training Status—or Be Prepared to Pay the Price

An urgent care center in New Mexico is learning the hard way that ensuring all the i’s are dotted and t’s crossed matters, regardless of the expertise of your clinicians. Management has been quoted in local media saying that every member of their team is (and has been) up to date on necessary training, but the company still had to pay a $13,500 penalty to settle violations of state-mandated training requirements for x-ray technicians. The issue, according to the operator, was not disregard for those requirements but actually failing to ensure that x-ray techs’ training logs were kept up to date. It should be noted that the state’s complaint did not indicate any shortfall in patient care, or imply that any patient or staff member was endangered on site. The fact remains that they’ve been dinged with a fine and prospective patients may have gotten a poor first impression by virtue of negative press—something that can’t be undone with an explanation or rationalization.