Legal Fees

Hi my name is Sarah and I'm here to ask for help. Doing this makes me want to vomit because I don't ask for help easily but I am now out of options and out of time so here I am.

Let me introduce myself to those who don't know me. I am a nurse practitioner on the Central Coast of California. I work to help people with autoimmune diseases and chronic illnesses as well as hormone and nutritional deficiencies. I am a functional medicine provider of which there are very few here. I hold a master's and a doctorate degree from Vanderbilt University. And I have practiced on the Central Coast for the last 10 years. During that 10 years I received my doctorate degree and this is where the problem is.

When I received my doctorate, my patients were so proud of me that they started calling me Dr. Sarah. The last physician that I worked with also told me that I needed to own my degree and had his staff call me Dr. Sarah with patients and the name stuck.

We opened a clinic in Arroyo Grande in 2018. We had a thriving practice helping a lot of patients. One day I received a visit from an investigator from the DCA (with the governing agency over many professional groups here in California, including the medical and nursing boards). He stated that they had had a phone call from someone saying that I had been presenting myself as a physician because I was using the term Dr. Sarah. This started a long investigation on me because according to the California Medical Association no one in this state can use the term Doctor if they are in healthcare with the exception of physicians no matter whether they have the degree or not.

During this time, I basically lost everything. Because of the investigation I was advised to close our clinic and we did for days at a time which was our only sense of source of income. In the end I had to close our clinic and join with another physician here. I am still building my practice there and because of that my income is dramatically less than it was with our clinic. We’re struggling to pay the bills.

But that is not why I'm here. After the months and months of the investigation, the Medical Association chose to go to the Deputy District Attorney in our county who has charged me with fraud for calling myself Dr Sarah even though I hold the degree and stated that I was a nurse practitioner to everyone.

I have Never I presented myself as a physician. Everything that was public stated that I was a nurse practitioner... my website, my business cards, everything. I am proud of being a nurse practitioner and have never presented myself as a physician... ever. Two weeks ago, I received a settlement letter from the deputy District Attorney stating that I need to do pay almost $20,000 to pay for my fraud. That doesn't include my attorney fees. I've been advised to fight this in court will cost more than $50,000. I have been trying to process what to do until receiving an email from my attorney that I can't wait and process anymore. This settlement also includes me agreeing to never use the term doctor again.

There are literally hundreds of people in our county who use the term Doctor who are not physicians. They hold a doctoral degree.... Chiropractors, optometrists, naturopathic doctors, acupuncturists, physical therapist, psychologists, all have their titles on their websites and yet when we presented this to the Medical Association and the District Attorney we were told that they would go after those people as well but I have to address this for myself. I feel I’m being singled out and do not understand this.

They are asking me to not use my title of doctor on anything. I can put my title DNP after my name, but can't use Dr. Sarah. Not just in healthcare, they have told me I have to take it off my blogs, any writing I do and anything else. I don't have to state how much this tears me up inside. I worked very hard for this degree while I was working at CHC seeing 25 patients a day. I am very proud of my accomplishments with my degree and to be told I cannot use the title or I endanger my license here is very demoralizing.

To be asked to settle & sign this document stating I have committed fraud which is plain not true is even worse. In the evidence that they presented of the pictures of my website where I had Doctor Sarah Erny, the first line literally stated that say I am a nurse practitioner. You can see it in the picture that they presented as my fraud. When the investigation started, we took all of that down.

If I don't pay this, I will lose my license as a nurse practitioner in California, making it difficult for me to get a license in other states as well. We literally have nothing to pay this with at all and I have to agree to pay it within the next couple of days.

So, I'm here to ask for help to pay this settlement fee and my attorney fees so that I can clear my license and make decisions of where we go from here. My life is all about my patients and leaving the ones that I had to leave when we closed our clinic was very difficult. Losing my license would mean that I couldn't help anyone.

Would you please consider helping me? And if I can just ask one more thing, would you please share this so that I can possibly get this taken care of right away and get on with the rest of my life?

Thank you for reading this far and for your thoughts and prayers along with any help that you can give.