The Arkansas Department of Agriculture revoked the license of Dr. Robert Czapecki, a Hot Springs Village veterinarian, after a Jan. 8, 2025 administrative hearing found he failed to comply with a May 23, 2022 board order.

The revocation followed evidence and stipulations about unpaid or incomplete requirements in two dockets, 2019-20 and 2020-4. Department counsel Tanner Thomas told the commission the department’s recommendation was revocation for noncompliance. "Our official recommendation is a revocation of Dr. Robert Czapecki’s license for noncompliance," Thomas said during the hearing.

The hearing, conducted under the Arkansas Administrative Procedures Act, was chaired by Hearing Officer Joshua Baxter. The board considered an earlier final order that had required Czapecki to complete 10 hours of continuing education in medical-records practices within six months, submit six medical records each month for 24 months, and pay civil penalties arising from findings of recordkeeping failures, malpractice or other unprofessional conduct in the underlying matters.

The department and the respondent stipulated several facts at the hearing. The parties agreed that one $5,000 payment called for in the earlier order had been made and deposited; they also stipulated that the required monthly record submissions had not been produced for the full 24-month interval ordered. Counsel for the respondent, Trey Kitchens, told the board that Czapecki had achieved 42 hours of continuing education since the 2022 order and that his client had submitted multiple checks to the department in attempts to satisfy the monetary obligations. "He will be in full compliance within 30 days of this hearing," Kitchens said, asking the commission for time to complete outstanding requirements.

Department witnesses and staff reviewed the records available to the Department and told the board that the department had received a packet in person on the Monday before the hearing that contained some records and a check the department objected to admitting immediately because it had not been delivered through the usual evidentiary process. Program manager Kara Mac testified that the department’s electronic database (LTRAC) showed some continuing-education credits (for example, a 20-hour AVMA convention credit dated Aug. 2, 2022) but did not show a complete set of the recordkeeping courses the May 2022 order required. Mac said she had not received documentation showing the required monthly medical-record submissions for the periods specified in the order.

Czapecki testified that he had been hospitalized multiple times for cardiac and related conditions in 2023 and 2024, and that health and subsequent financial decline affected his ability to comply. "Give me 30 days, and I'll comply with whatever's left on the order," Czapecki said during his testimony. He also described efforts to maintain practice coverage and to secure staff and associates.

After deliberation, the commission voted unanimously to revoke Czapecki’s license for failure to comply with the May 23, 2022 order. Hearing officer Baxter announced, "Let the record reflect that the decision was unanimous." The board directed staff to reduce the decision to writing and to serve the written decision on the parties. The hearing record was then closed.

The board’s action follows earlier findings in the May 23, 2022 order that included failures in required examination findings and surgical documentation and findings of malpractice or unprofessional conduct in the underlying complaints. That 2022 order had imposed the continuing-education and records requirements and civil monetary penalties now at issue. The transcript of the Jan. 8 hearing shows the parties debated whether additional time should be granted to allow the respondent to produce outstanding materials and fees; the board declined that request and imposed revocation.

The decision is administrative and may be appealed under the Arkansas Administrative Procedures Act; the hearing officer directed the parties on appeal rights and noted relevant statutory provisions cited in the record.

(For clarity: the board hearing record identifies the matters as docket numbers 2019-20 and 2020-4 and cites Arkansas statutes and administrative-procedure provisions in the record; the hearing also references evidence from the American Veterinary Medical Association continuing-education records and hospitalizations described by the respondent.)