State announces discipline involving Benton County health care workers

State health officials have announced discipline action involving some Benton County health care workers.

▪  The chiropractor credential of Jeffrey A. Sullivan is reinstated with conditions, including that he be placed on probation for six years.

For the first three years, he can’t treat minor patients and may only treat female patients in the presence of an approved assistant.

His credential was suspended for at least four years in 2008 after he was accused of an inappropriate relationship with a 12-year-old patient, including taking her hot tubbing and kissing her on the lips multiple times.

He eventually pleaded guilty to communication with a minor for immoral purposes, a gross misdemeanor, and was sentenced to a year behind bars and sexual offender treatment, documents said.

▪  The credential of registered nursing assistant Carolyn Jean Talley has been indefinitely suspended after the state Department of Social and Health Services imposed conditions and a stop placement order on her adult family home following an inspection that revealed repeat deficiencies.

▪  The credentials of Natosha Danielle Percifield, a registered and certified nursing assistant, are indefinitely suspended. She admitted to police that she stole narcotics from residents of the adult family home where she worked and she didn’t respond to the health department’s statement of charges, documents said.

▪  The credential of Penny L. Spencer Carey, a pharmacist, is indefinitely suspended. She tested positive in 2013 for some controlled substances, including hydrocodone, and admitting to taking prescription hydrocodone but not the others, documents said. About two years later, she admitted to pocketing a few oxycodone tablets she was supposed to help dispose of, documents said. She returned them.

▪  Officials reinstated the massage practitioner credential of Fiona Lu Hearne. The credential was suspended last year after Hearne gave up her Florida license over alleged incomplete and potentially false information in her application to practice in that state, documents said.

This story was originally published June 25, 2016 at 7:09 PM with the headline "State announces discipline involving Benton County health care workers."