Opinion ID: 4534155
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: unauthorized practice of a health profession

Text: Under MCL 333.16294, “[e]xcept as provided in section 16215 [known as the delegation exception], an individual who practices or holds himself or herself out as practicing a health profession regulated by this article without a license or registration . . . is guilty of a felony.”15 The practice of medicine is a “health profession” within the meaning of MCL 333.16294 because it is regulated and licensed under the Public Health Code.16 The delegation exception outlined in MCL 333.16215(1) provides that a licensee who holds a license other than a health profession subfield license may delegate to a licensed or unlicensed individual who is otherwise qualified by education, training, or experience the performance of selected acts, tasks, or functions where the acts, tasks, or functions fall 13 4 Michigan Pleading & Practice (2d ed), § 36:313, pp 69-70 (citations omitted). 14 Id. at 70. 15 Emphasis added. 16 MCL 333.1101 et seq. The “practice of medicine” is defined as “the diagnosis, treatment, prevention, cure, or relieving of a human disease, ailment, defect, complaint, or other physical or mental condition, by attendance, advice, device, diagnostic test, or other means, or offering, undertaking, attempting to do, or holding oneself out as able to do, any of these acts.” MCL 333.17001(1)(j). 8 within the scope of practice of the licensee’s profession and will be performed under the licensee’s supervision. A licensee shall not delegate an act, task, or function under this section if the act, task, or function, under standards of acceptable and prevailing practice, requires the level of education, skill, and judgment required of the licensee under this article. Defendant argues that the delegation exception permitted her conduct in this case. But the delegation exception has no application here because defendant engaged in the performance of functions that could not be delegated. Specifically, the delegation exception does not countenance defendant’s issuance of prescriptions for controlled substances. Simply stated, defendant’s act of prescribing Ambien, a Schedule 4 controlled substance,17 to Bates was a nondelegable action as a matter of law. Michigan statutory authority, while sometimes difficult to parse, supports this conclusion. A “prescription” in this state generally “means an order by a prescriber to fill, compound, or dispense a drug or device . . . .”18 A prescriber, critically, means a licensed dentist, a licensed doctor of medicine, a licensed doctor of osteopathic medicine and surgery, a licensed doctor of podiatric medicine and surgery, a licensed physician’s assistant, a licensed optometrist . . . , an advanced practice registered nurse . . . , a licensed veterinarian, or another licensed health professional acting under the delegation and using, recording, or otherwise indicating the name of the delegating licensed doctor of medicine or licensed doctor of osteopathic medicine and surgery.[19] 17 Mich Admin Code, R 338.3123(1)(hhh); Bloomfield Twp, 302 Mich App at 184. 18 MCL 333.17708(3) (emphasis added). 19 MCL 333.17708(2). 9 Defendant stipulated that she was not licensed to practice a health profession in 2014 or 2015.20 Thus, under Michigan law, defendant was categorically not authorized to dispense prescriptions to patients. When she prescribed Ambien to treat Bates’s reported difficulty sleeping, she attempted to perform a task that “requires the level of education, skill, and judgment required of” a licensed physician.21 Such tasks are nondelegable, and the lower courts therefore did not err by determining that there was sufficient evidence to convict defendant of the unauthorized practice of a health profession.22