Hello everybody. We are back again with your five minute crisis response for chiropractors. As always, this is Eric Hoffman, executive director at Chiro Secure and today, we are actually going to review some of the questions that you all have been asking in the Facebook comments and some additional questions we’ve been getting just across the board that we wanted to help clarify, go through, and make sure you are all taken care of.
So without further ado, one of the questions we got on our last webinar was from a doctor saying, “I’m in Pennsylvania, but have seen patients who reside in other states, but who see me when they visit their home state of Pennsylvania. Can I offer telehealth to them without a license in their state of residence since they are recent patients of mine in my state?”
My answer to that was that in general, the rule of thumb is if you think about if this patient was in another state and you actually drove or flew to that state to perform a service, are you able to do that in person? And if you don’t hold a license in that state, the answer’s generally no. So telehealth is no different and in one of our shows with Mike [Misco 00:01:36], one of the attorneys we work closely with and have a great relationship with, he indicated that the originating site of the service is where the patient currently resides. And so if that is a place where you do not have an active license to practice, in general, that would be inappropriate. Obviously, we’re in unprecedented times and a lot of boards are creating more flexibility with what they are allowing doctors to do in regards to telemedicine. So the best we can share is to verify with your state board what you can and cannot do in this regard with your license to make sure you’re practicing appropriately.
Question number two asks, what if we are all cash for nutritional and functional medicine services? Do you have to worry about a secure platform? Does the location of the patient matter? Can you get around this by calling yourself a health coach and disclosing that you are not acting as a doctor and that they should consult their healthcare provider, et cetera. There’s a couple of points in this that I think are important and they’re great questions. So ultimately, with regards to worrying about a secure platform, you always 100% of the have to worry about a secure platform for both HIPAA reasons and cyber liability reasons. It’s crucial that you maintain that level of security for your patients. So make sure you’re getting a product if you’re using one for telemedicine services that achieves both.
Now the questions about, can you get around some of these rules by disclosing that you’re not acting as a doctor, you’re more of a health coach, the short answer is no. In general, you’re held to your highest standards. So if you do have an active license to practice chiropractic medicine in any given states, you’re held to the rules and regulations of that state, regardless if you do work anywhere else. So if something were to come up or a patient in another state you are working with letting them know you are a health coach, complains to the state where you have an active license, your board has the power to dictate what you can and cannot do, so they may punish you in one way, shape, or form. I’m not sure what that would wind up being, but you do always have to make sure you’re doing the right thing in accordance with the license that you hold. That is crucial.
The third question, does Chiro Secure have a telehealth informed consent form? Yes we do. In fact, you can text the word growth, G-R-O-W-T-H to (480) 500-6574 and you’ll be able to receive a copy of that.
Question four. What if any liability would we hold if our massage therapists only worked during off hours, meaning no one else in the office at the same time as him or her, and one client at a time? So we get this question periodically, less so lately, but our understanding is many of the massage boards have come out to state that they don’t deem massage therapists as a essential healthcare provider and as a result, they should not be practicing for the foreseeable future during this time. That being said, rules change state-by-state, as do state and city ordinances. So it’s always important to make sure that you either contact the state licensing boards if you do have a massage therapist in your office and/or check with your state… Or I’m sorry. Your state’s health department and/or your city ordinance to see what they allow for in this time.
The fifth question is how would anyone prove that they got COVID-19 from a specific chiropractor? We talked about this in the first episode, but it is a question that keeps coming up. So I felt it was important to reiterate and dictate what the situation is for that sort of thing. So as we’ve talked about, it would be extremely difficult to prove that as you would guess. So we are not expecting to see many of those issues come about in terms of legal matter or a claim or anything like that because it would, in my opinion, just be a wild goose chase. What is more concerning again is the negligence portion of things and as a result of that we can only stress incredibly, we can’t stress enough how important it is to keep following the CDC guidelines and the OSHA guidelines to keep both your patients and your staff safe and secure.
The OSHA guidelines, in particular, there are some resources on their websites that help you manage this, help you go through certain scenarios, et cetera. And one of the things that we recommend along with them is that you have a written protocol in your office for this situation in particular about how you’re cleaning the office, how you’re protecting patients, how you are taking patients in and out, things of that nature. It’s important to have these things in writing so that you can disperse them amongst your employees, amongst your staff, and have them be safe, secure, and aware of the protocols that are going on, so that they can be comfortable.
So it looks like we have one other question coming in. So one comment is that you can also get the telemedicine informed consent if you text the word COVID to the same number, (480) 500-6574, so it might be slightly different, but you can also get the transcript for the shows by texting that and you’ll see that at the bottom of the screen here. So keep that in mind.
And as always, we’ll be doing these Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the foreseeable future. So please feel free to tune in with us this coming Monday. We hope you all have a great weekend. Stay healthy, stay safe, and we’ll see you soon. Thank you.
Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/Chirosecure) Follow us on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/chirosecure/), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiropracticmalpracticeins/) Periscope (https://www.pscp.tv/ChiroSecure). Twitter (https://twitter.com/ChiroSecure) If you have any questions about today’s show or want to know why ChiroSecure is still the fastest growing malpractice carrier for over 27 years, then call us at (866) 802-4476. or find out just how much you can save with ChiroSecure by visiting: https://www.chirosecure.com/quick-quotes/malpractice-quick-quote/.