AN ACT to cLARIFY the penalty for the unauthorized practice of medicine.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1.  G.S. 90‑18(a) reads as rewritten:
"§ 90‑18.  Practicing without license; penalties.
(a)	No person shall perform any act constituting the practice of medicine or surgery, as defined in this Article, or any of the branches thereof, unless the person shall have been first licensed and registered so to do in the manner provided in this Article.  Any person who practices medicine or surgery without being duly licensed and registered, as provided in this Article, shall not be allowed to maintain any action to collect any fee for such services. Any person so practicing without being duly licensed and registered in this State shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. Any person so practicing without being duly licensed and registered in this State and who is falsely representing himself or herself in a manner as being licensed or registered under this Article or any Article of this Chapter shall be guilty of a Class I felony. Any person so practicing without being duly licensed and registered in this State and who is an out‑of‑state practitioner shall be guilty of a Class I felony. Any person who has a license or approval under this Article that is inactive due solely to the failure to complete annual registration in a timely fashion as required by this Article or any person who is licensed, registered, and practicing under any other Article of this Chapter shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor."
SECTION 2.  This act becomes effective December 1, 2011, and applies to offenses committed on or after that date.
In the General Assembly read three times and ratified this the 14th day of June, 2011.

	_____________________________________
		 Walter H. Dalton
	 President of the Senate

	_____________________________________
		 Thom Tillis
	 Speaker of the House of Representatives

	_____________________________________
		 Beverly E. Perdue
	 Governor

Approved __________.m. this ______________ day of ___________________, 2011