The Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals, and Licensing oversees the Board of Behavioral Health Professionals and other licensing boards in the state.
The Iowa Board of Behavioral Health Professionals has stopped a social worker’s license for pretending to provide therapy to clients, including one who had already died.
In May 2023, the board accused Tina Miner from Ames of wrongly charging clients and their insurance companies for therapy sessions she didn’t conduct. Instead of deciding the case, the board handed it over to an administrative law judge named Rachel Morgan.
In October 2024, Morgan discovered that Miner had lied about records and charged for things incorrectly. Miner’s social work license was suspended for at least three years.
Miner challenged that ruling. She didn’t fight against the claims made against her but said that a suspension was too harsh. She believes that putting her license on probation would be a better choice for the board.
The board recently confirmed its earlier ruling and decided a three-year suspension was appropriate. The board said there was proof that Miner did not visit the patient at the places called “Humboldt, Friendship, and Laurens” that she claimed to have visited in December 2021. These names might be care facilities or group homes.
“Even though she didn’t meet with any clients, (Miner) wrote and changed notes to say that she had sessions with them,” the board said in its decision.
The board described Miner’s actions as “serious” and noted that during her meeting in October 2024, she presented documents with “misleading information.” This showed that she still did not fully understand the charges against her.
State jobless records show that Miner was employed by Bridges Community Services when the false billing occurred. Miner’s job involved going to nursing homes to offer mental health counseling to elderly residents.
One of the bills she filed was turned down because the man she said she had helped was already dead. Bridges investigated and reportedly found fake charges for services that Miner lied about providing to 17 nursing home inmates. She reportedly gave fake detailed notes about the services she said she provided for each of the 17 inmates.
The unemployment records show that Bridges found out Miner had a warrant for her arrest for allegedly stealing property from a tenant. An administrative law judge rejected Miner’s request for jobless benefits, stating that she had been fired for bad behavior at work.
State records show that Miner was fired from her job as social services director at Pinnacle Health Facilities, a nursing home company, in November 2019. The company claimed that after some windows at her home were broken, she went into her neighbor’s home, who was also her co-worker, thinking the woman was responsible for the damage.
The miner supposedly woke up the woman and her boyfriend, causing a fight, and then he was physically removed from the house. Miner was later guilty of trespassing, fined $200, and fired from Pinnacle. Her application for unemployment benefits was accepted because the judge noted that Miner’s co-worker was not fired because of the incident.
State records also show that in 2014, Miner was working for the company Life Connections as a mental health interventionist when she was fired for inappropriate contact with clients.
The company claimed that two boys, who were 7 and 8 years old at the time, told another counselor they had been to Miner’s house. The company claimed it then learned of several inappropriate, personal disclosures the claimant had made to clients, including that she was having surgery and was having difficulty in her marriage. The company said that Miner later confessed to six personal issues and then insulted the two brothers by saying she would never let them into her home because they were drug users and thieves.
Her request for unemployment benefits was rejected because of her misbehavior at work.
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