This article provides a brief summary of the veterinary complaint process implemented by the Arizona veterinary board as of 2023. Many people, including veterinarians, complainants, and politicians, often seem to have a cursory knowledge of the process. Here you can read a brief summary for yourself.
In the American system of veterinary regulation, complaints against veterinarians are handled by state veterinary boards broadly similar in construction and governing philosophy to the medical boards that regulate doctors. As with medical boards, the exact nature of the process varies from state to state. In California, for example, all complaints are prescreened by a government analyst who may do anything from throwing a complaint out to sending it to a Board Consultant for review (link). In Illinois, veterinary complaints are initially handled by the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which handles professions from nail technicians to veterinarians, and assigned to an investigator who performs an initial investigation and coordinates with board members (link). In Florida, complaints are handled by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which accepts a Uniform Complaint Form applicable to all regulated professions; the filed complaint is reviewed, examined, and if a "probable cause panel" determines your complaint is legitimate in their view, they turn it into a real complaint by way of their legal powers (link).
As our website currently focuses on Arizona for various reasons, we'll discuss in particular detail the process there. In Arizona all complaints against veterinarians are handled by the Arizona State Veterinary Medical Examining Board (link), which consists of five government-appointed veterinarians, three government-appointed public members (often with ties to the veterinary industry), and one government-appointed certified veterinary technician; these are all appointed by the governor and confirmed by a vote of the state senate. The Board also sets up Investigative Committees made up of a few veterinarians and a couple of public members each; the Board handles the appointments for these positions themselves with no outside oversight, and more than a few people appointed to the Investigative Committees end up with full appointments to the Board at a later date. The Board also has various state employees including a director and an investigator that handle many operational aspects. Complaints are handled in various capacities by all three groups (link).
While the board helpfully suggests that you start out by talking to your veterinarian, they say that you may also want to consider filing a complaint. Your first step is filling out their complaint form, listing the veterinarian, the clinic, your information, your pet's information, a list of other veterinarians, potential witnesses, and a free-form area where you can jot down the particulars of your complaint (link). These complaints get sent off to the Board and logged as they come in. A copy of the complaint you send to the Board is sent to the veterinarian you complained against so they know exactly what's coming at them and have plenty of time to determine the best way to get out of trouble.
At the same time the complaint is reviewed by the Investigative Division, a part of the veterinary board that broadly consists of a vet tech or two with some fancy titles. Often this Investigative Division is just Tracy Reindeau, a veterinary technician who started out as a volunteer investigator on an Investigative Committee and somehow turned it into a paying job and a Senior Medical Investigator title; in at least one case a respondent veterinarian went on the record that Reindeau was providing her legal advice about a complaint before it was even filed (link). The Investigative Division collects records and allegedly contacts the relevant parties in a complaint in order to put together some information; in some cases this is the end of the investigative portion, but generally this is subsequently reviewed by an Investigative Committee.
The Investigative Committee (as of this writing, there are two) takes a look at the complaint and the associated information. Investigative Committees are made up of veterinarians and public members appointed by the Board itself; there are often some interesting connections between many of these appointees and the Board members themselves, and some have turned their largely under-the-radar appointments to an Investigative Committee into a Board appointment or a full-time job (link). One of the Investigative Committee members is picked as the lead for the complaint in question; their initials, though never their full names for some reason, have historically been listed on Investigative Committee meeting agendas.
The Investigative Committee usually speaks with both the veterinarian and the complainant in a process knows as Executive Session. Originally set up as a mechanism for public boards to obtain privileged legal or personnel information, the Board employs it as a means of keeping interviews with veterinarians and complainants off the record; it has been heavily implied to complainants that they are forbidden from discussing the contents of these "interviews" with the Investigative Committees. The Investigative Committee discusses the complaint, often with varying degrees of fidelity to what was actually said in the complaint, and then votes to recommend an outcome for the complaint; roughly 80% of the time they vote to dismiss the complaint with no violations, sometimes using a variety of strawman arguments, logical contortions, or willful ignorance. Recordings of the Investigative Committee's public discussion about complaints are public record with a retention period of only 90 days, a rather short period compared to the years that recordings of Board meetings are kept online. A written summary of their discussion and findings of fact are also sent to the Board and eventually become public record.
At a subsequent Board meeting, the Board takes up the complaint and the recommendation of the Investigative Committee. During the open board meeting, the board hears a distilled version of the complaint, then proceeds to discuss the complaint. In some cases they may speak with the complainant, the respondent veterinarian, or an attorney, and in very rare cases may suspend their discussion to obtain more information. The Board may also enter executive session to discuss particulars of the complaint, notably with respect to obtaining legal advice from the Assistant Attorneys General assigned to handle legal matters for the Board. These matters can be handled as part of a discussion, an informal hearing, or a formal hearing, with the final disposition of a complaint then handled by a majority vote.
The Board's processing of the complaints often has no greater accuracy or apparent bearing on the actual context of the complaint, and a similar 80% of complaints are also dismissed with no violation by the Board. These are not, however, always the same 80% that were also dismissed by the Investigative Committee. The Investigative Committee report is not binding in any way; the Board can vote to do whatever it wants, and the Board and the Investigative Committee have disagreed on several occasions. When they disagree, they're required by law to put a piece of paper explaining why into the complaint's file. On rare occasions the Board may use the discussion to call for opening an investigation into someone else, and in other cases they may vote to send a letter of concern to the veterinarian but fall short of taking any actual action.
What of the few complaints that survive this process? The vast majority end with relatively minor penalties, typically no more than a fine of a few hundred dollars or a requirement to take some additional continuing education classes. With the penalties being so low, there's very little incentive for most veterinarians to continue to fight such a complaint. Instead, the complaint is basically plea-bargained out through what is formally known as a consent agreement, a legal agreement that the Board offers up requiring the veterinarian to abide by certain conditions or take certain actions without an appeal. The practical effect of this on a veterinarian's license or practice is essentially nonexistent, and taking away a veterinarian's license is almost unheard of. Even in the rare situation that a veterinarian's license is to be revoked, it's usually performed as part of a long process permitting them to wind down their practice; even in that exceptional situation, it's much more common to see the same veterinarian cycle through the system repeatedly with additional restrictions on their practice.
The veterinarians, however, have the right to turn down a consent agreement, and if they don't like the decision the Board makes, they can appeal it; you can't. It's possible in such cases for a complaint to go all the way to an administrative hearing, essentially a court-like proceeding complete with an administrative law judge overseeing the proceedings. The veterinarian can have their lawyer to go eyeball to eyeball with the veterinary board's Assistant Attorney General. If the veterinarian still doesn't like the outcome, they can appeal the ruling yet again to Superior Court and try to get the matter tossed out. You and your pets, however, have none of these rights; the smallest members of your family will continue to suffer, die, and subsequently be ignored or misrepresented using your own tax dollars to grease the skids and make the magic happen.
The veterinary board, of course, tells us that they're not just protecting the veterinarians. If you'd like to see how well they've been doing in recent years, you can visit our Tails of Woe and begin reading through veterinary board complaints and how they were handled. If you want to learn more about the interesting cast of characters allegedly protecting the public, visit our Roll Call.