By Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — A contingent of mostly Kansas House Republicans launched an aggressive inquiry into the Kansas State Board of Nursing’s handling of licensure cases that prompted demands for firing state employees, halting coercive tactics, overhauling rules and regulations, and defunding the agency.
Cases brought to the attention of the House Select Committee on Government Oversight included the saga of a 32-year nurse practitioner who was pressured to sign a consent order declaring she was guilty of “unprofessional conduct” for accidently letting her license lapse while taking time off to care for her cancer-stricken husband. She said the ongoing investigation has left her unemployable.
Another involved an advanced practice registered nurse who was placed under investigation and blocked from issuing prescriptions for checking the wrong box on her online license renewal form. The inquiry wrecked her business and compromised care of her patients.
Augusta Rep. Kristey Williams, the Republican chair of the House committee, repeatedly challenged Board of Nursing leaders to answer a plain question: “Is that justice?”
Andrea Watson, the Board of Nursing president and a member of the volunteer board since 2018, came the closest to answering whether mistakes had been made adjudicating the few cases brought to the committee’s attention.
“We can always second-guess what happens,” she said. “I think there could have been different decisions made.”
Response to hours of questions directed at Carol Moreland, executive administrator of the Board of Nursing; assistant attorney general Rachel Kenney, who is assigned to the Board of Nursing; Adrian Guerrero, director of operations for the Board of Nursing, and Watson appeared to fuel frustration among legislators. The nursing board has responsibility for more than 70,000 licensees.
“It actually really does hurt me to hear that people here had bad experiences, because that is never the intent of our agency,” said Guerrero, who argued the agency was understaffed and sidestepped a question about whether mistakes were made. “I’m not sure I’m in the position to make that sort of determination for the board.”
Rep. Sean Tarwater, a Stilwell Republican, grew agitated as Board of Nursing officials sounded as if they were deflecting accountability for issues raised by lawmakers. Tarwater vowed to be heard on the subject when the 2026 Legislature convened in January.
“This is the most frustrating meeting I think I’ve ever been in,” Tarwater said. “I can’t wait until for … whenever we get sworn in, because I’m going to unfund this board. I fear this is just the tip of the iceberg. Can we fire people? Because people have to be fired over this. You are destroying peoples’ lives.”
Rep. Barbara Ballard, D-Lawrence, demanded to know who at the Board of Nursing was responsible for deciding punishment of nurses.
“Where does the buck stop?” she asked.
Sitting a few feet away in the Capitol, Rep. Susan Humphries, R-Wichita, asserted the Board of Nursing had a practice of coercing nurses to sign career-damaging consent orders, for which there could be no appeal, to end investigations.
“I don’t think inadvertently letting your license lapse falls under unprofessional conduct,” said Rep. Troy Waymaster, R-Bunker Hill. “Having that fall under a category with … sexual misconduct is abhorrent.”
Kansas nurse practitioner Amy Siple put her professional career on idle in early 2024 to care for her husband after he was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. Her focus on needs of her spouse marked the first time in her 32-year career that she wasn’t employed in patient care.
After her husband’s surgery and progression toward recovery, Siple began considering returning to work as a nurse. In October, she checked the Board of Nursing’s website and discovered she inadvertently forgot to renew her license by a May deadline.
Siple submitted evidence her continuing education credits and malpractice insurance had been current at the time of the lapse. She paid the required license renewal fee, but didn’t anticipate the Board of Nursing’s response.
“I was asked to sign a consent agreement akin to a guilty plea for ‘unprofessional conduct,’ for practicing without a license,” Siple said. “This is in spite of the fact that no billing will be found under my National Provider Identifier number during this period.”
Siple said she was not sent a reminder of the deadline to renew her license, but the Board of Nursing said it had a practice of mailing renewal postcard reminders 90 days in advance. Despite Board of Nursing pressure to do so, Siple declined to sign the consent order. She hired an attorney to represent her for an appeal to the Board of Nursing.
She said the dispute could end with her name included to three databases reserved for nurses who engaged in unprofessional behavior. Its the kind of scarlet letter that remained on a person’s regulatory record even after death, she said.
“The draconian rules and regulations of the Kansas State Board of Nursing threaten my professional future,” Siple said. “KSBN intends to engage in a public shaming process. I would prefer to be punched in the gut than to be labeled as an unprofessional nurse.”
Moreland, the Board of Nursing’s executive administrator, said she couldn’t speak about Siple’s case because it was still pending.
“We typically don’t discuss those while they’re still active,” she said.
Tarwater, the legislator who raised the possibility of firings and defunding the Board of Nursing, said the agency should dismiss Siple’s case.
“Do you feel like you’re dangerous now or might put someone’s life in jeopardy because you forgot to renew your license for a couple months?” he asked Siple.
Siple said the only danger to the public was the manner in which the Board of Nursing administered regulations.
“Please discipline nurses who are a threat to public safety, but do not take out those of us who commit clerical errors,” she said. “Since this experience, I am unemployable.”
Ana Ahrens, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and a licensed addiction counselor in Wichita, went online to renew her registered nurse license and the more specialized advanced practice registered nurse license in 2024. In the process, she accidently renewed her RN license twice. The Board of Nursing collected her duplicated fee payment, but didn’t inform her of the error.
“You can imagine how shocked I was when I was notified Feb. 6, 2025, by a phone call from a pharmacist that he could not fill the prescriptions I had written for my patient because my license was not active,” Ahrens said.
She stopped seeing patients and ordering prescriptions. She contacted the Board of Nursing to redo the RN and APRN license applications and paid both fees a second time. A few weeks later, she said, the Board of Nursing sent a letter saying she was being investigated for practicing without a license.
“I was informed by my attorney that if I reached out to any legislator, KSBN would retaliate against me,” Ahrens said. “During the investigation, I was told to sign a consent agreement admitting to unprofessional conduct or I would face consequences.”
She signed the document and the Board of Nursing added her name to the state database and two national databases identifying nurses who engaged in unprofessional behavior. She said it felt like the Board of Nursing “used tyranny as a form of punishment.”
“KSBN said they were protecting the public from me. In reality, they harmed my patients,” she said.
Rep. Sandy Pickert, a Wichita Republican and retired registered nurse, said it was odd the Board of Nursing took a harsh approach in licensing cases during a period in which Kansas was desperate for additional nursing professionals. For example, the state hospitals in Larned and Osawatomie spend about $50 million annually to hire contract nurses to fill gaps.
Pickert said she voted for bills to provide scholarships and other incentives for education of licensed practical nurses, registered nurses and other health workers.
“At the same time,” she said, “we’re at risk of decreasing patient access to care by losing experienced nurses by extreme punitive measures for minor nonclinical-related infractions.”
Pickert recommended the Legislature review the Board of Nursing’s policies and procedures for inconsistencies in implementation. The Board of Nursing should enact a policy to address clerical errors in licensing applications and to require contacting of nurses when mistakes were discovered, she said.
Penalties for nurses had to be commensurate with the gravity of the error in licensing, Pickert said.
“Stop coercion to sign a consent agreement with admission of unprofessional conduct for clerical errors,” she said.
She said nurses reported to the three databases for clerical errors in licensing should be removed from those registers and given a written apology.
In addition, she said, the state ought to provide restitution to nurses who suffered monetary damages as a result of licensing errors, including loss of employment and escalation of malpractice insurance rates.
