Understanding Licensing and Case Management
A license provides proof of legal permission to work in a profession (inspector), own something (a firearm), or do something (drive a car or fish). A license typically consists of a piece of paper, a tag, or plate that the license issuing authority signs or stamps to indicate license legitimacy and license currency.
Many professional fields, such as engineering, medicine, and education, require that individuals obtain a specific level of education to become a licensed practitioner. Many of these occupations require licensed practitioners to receive regular continuing education, with acceptable scores on certification level exams, to maintain their certification.
Example Use Case
To perform work, an electrician needs an electrical license and a refrigerator repair man needs a mechanical license. A pharmacist must have a license to dispense medications with the additional requirement of continuing education to keep the license current. A business owner must have an operating license, and everyone who drives needs a drivers license.
Civic Platform provides the ability to define relationships between record types and license types so that Civic Platform can track and manage tasks related to issuing licenses. These tasks include creating new license applications, renewing existing licenses, editing application specific or contact information, associating reports and documents to a license, checking the workflow and condition history, and viewing parcel and address information. In addition, Civic Platform can invoice fees, accept payment and check payment history. Civic Platform provides agencies with the ability to track the education, continuing education, and examination requirements related to professional or occupational licensing and renewal.
If your agency implements Citizen Access, you can extend the licensing process to public users online. With Citizen Access or Civic Platform, you can initiate a license renewal, pay the fees associated with the license renewal, and complete the transaction for the license owner. This entire process can occur within the agency, online, or a combination of both.
Example Use Case
A public user starts their business license renewal process by completing an application online. The public user visits the agency to provide supporting documents, pay the fees, and complete the transaction. Conversely, a customer comes into the agency to start the renewal process. Then, the public user returns home or to their business office to upload supporting documentation, attach the supporting documents to their application, pay the fees online, and complete the transaction.
Topics
Expired Licenses and Insurance Coverage Verification
Agencies can use Civic Platform to set permissions on application types based on license or insurance status. This feature extends to Citizen Access so you can limit the availability of certain application types online to applicants. When you define permissions for application types based on a license or insurance status, you enable only the individuals or companies with a current license and proper insurance coverage the capability to view certain information and proceed with the application process.
Your agency can provide a service to remind stakeholders to keep the licenses current or maintain proper insurance coverage by sending email reminders to individuals or companies requiring license or insurance renewal. If your agency implements Citizen Access, the email notifications function together with the expiration notifications for licenses or insurance that occur after logging in.
Record Type and License Type Expiration Settings
You can configure Civic Platform to verify the status of a license type against a record type so that administrators can control permissions to information or to an application. This is particularly useful when a licensed professional has a license, business license, or insurance coverage that expired.
Example Use Case
In the State of New York, general contractors and home improvement contractors require a home improvement license (HIC) and proper insurance coverage. Insurance includes liability, worker’s compensation, and disability. Agencies in the State of New York define a relationship between the building permits, insurance, and license type status so that only contractors with a current license and proper insurance coverage have access to building permits.
Provider Records
Civic Platform manages authorized lists of providers that provide services in satisfaction of requirements for education, continuing education, and examinations. Providers offer professional educational degrees, continuing education, or certification examinations. These offerings take many forms, including accredited colleges, universities, trade schools, professional development conferences, workshops; trade journals, state agencies, local agencies, and so forth.
Education
Education requirements for a particular profession varies across industries. Strict degree requirements apply to some highly specialized professions, such as nurses or lawyers. Degree requirements for other professionals may be common to multiple career paths, such as for teachers or those in the engineering trades.
Civic Platform provides agencies with a convenient method of collecting and tracking educational credentials, including degree, program of study, and educational institution. Civic Platform associates those credentials with the corresponding professional license. Associating an education record with the record types to which it applies allows you keep track of both the specialized and the general education degrees obtained by licensed professionals.
Continuing Education
Many professionals, such as doctors, teachers, architects, and electricians, require regular continuing education to maintain their professional or occupational licenses. Requirements vary widely across professions, but typically include completion of a specified number of continuing education units. Acceptable units may include specific courses, a certain number of private or informal study hours, practical work hours within a given period, and so forth. The applicable licensing board or agency sets the requirements.
Civic Platform allows your agency to track continuing education requirements and progress toward their completion. You can associate license types with continuing education requirements and tie the renewal process to a workflow.
Examinations
Many programs rely on certification level exams to demonstrate a practitioner's level of competence. Lawyers must pass their state bar exam, nurses must pass the nursing level exam for their accreditation, such as RN or LPN. Other occupations may demand acceptable scores on periodic recertification examinations as part of the license renewal requirements.
Civic Platform allows your agency to receive exam scores directly from the testing provider, record those scores, and apply them to the requirements for licensed professionals who seek to obtain or renew their professional licenses. You can associate examination requirements with the license type tie it to a workflow tasks.
Examinations, Education, and Reference Contact Information
When citizens file applications online to obtain a new license or renew a license, they typically need to provide information about education, continuing education, and/or examinations that are requisite to obtaining a license.
After a Civic Platform user approves newly-entered and approved education, continuing education, and/or examinations data, the new data becomes part of the contact reference record (provided it has passing scores) so that it is available each time an individual files a new application. Registered users do not need to re-enter the information each time they apply for and renew a license because Civic Platform now pulls the education, continuing education, and/or examination data from the contact reference record. Before this enhancement, users had to enter this data for each new application or renewal, and Civic Platform stored the data as part of each application record.
A public user can now enter education, continuing education, and/or examination data as part of the application process and have that data become a part of his user account data. He can also enter this data apart from the application process. After the public user submits the data, it synchronizes with Civic Platform, where an authorized Civic Platform user can review and approve the education, continuing education, and/or examination records. This approval ‘validates’ the education, continuing education, and/or exam records and this validation syncs back to the public user’s account, where it is available for future applications.
After an agency accepts an application or approves the education, continuing education, and/or examination submittals, the education, continuing education, and/or examination records become read-only because the data is a part of an existing application record.
Civic Platform users may also enter education, continuing education, and/or examination data via Civic Platform. After an authorized Civic Platform user approves the data, it synchronizes with the public user’s account on Citizen Access.
You can view and work with education, continuing education, and/or examination data via the Education, Continuing Education, and Examination tabs on the record detail portlet or via the Education, Continuing Education, and Examination tabs on the contact reference detail portlet.