218. Are There Laws Prohibiting Discrimination Against Patients Who Are Part of a Protected Class?
219. Must I Treat Patients With HIV, HCV, or Other Infectious Diseases?
220. Can I Ask a Patient If He or She Has Any Infectious Diseases — HIV in Particular?
221. What Are the Rules About Managing an Obese Patient?
222. How Do I Handle a Drug-Seeking Patient — One I Suspect May Be Calling Around for Prescriptions?
223. How Can I Learn More About My Responsibilities in Regard to Infection Control?
225. What Should I Do If a Patient Leaves My Practice in the Middle of Treatment Against My Advice?
Chapter 30: Terminating the Relationship
227. I’m Closing My Practice. What Must I Tell My Patients? How and When Do I Tell Them?
1. Checklist of Questions to Ask When Forming a Group Practice
2. Buy-Sell Agreements (Background)
3. Sample Employee Associateship Agreement
4. Sample Independent Contractor Associateship Agreement
7. Sample Website Development Agreement
8. HIPAA Business Associate Checklist
9. Selecting an EHR Program for Your Dental Practice
10. Service Animals in the Dental Office
11. Sample HIPAA Business Associate Agreement
12. What Did the U.S. Supreme Court Decide in North Carolina State Board v. FTC (2015)?
Introduction
Chapter 1: How to Use This Book
Chapter 4: The ADA Legal Division
Chapter 1.
How to Use This Book
A wide array of legal issues confronts dentists and their dental teams during the course of their day-to-day practices. Sometimes these issues involve particularly thorny questions about practice management or patient care. This book is here to help. It provides basic legal information on questions that oral health care practitioners have about their practices.
No book could possibly cover every dental legal issue. The topics covered here are those that dentists have frequently asked us over the years.
It’s important for you to know both what this book is and what it is not:
• The purpose of the publication is to provide basic answers to frequently asked legal questions. Its focus is on issues confronting dentists and their dental teams in private practice. However, we believe that many of the questions and answers in this book will also be useful for dentists who work in different arenas of the profession, including education and research.
• The answers to the frequently asked questions are informational only, and not a substitute for legal advice. Laws change, and, even more importantly, legal advice requires a careful assessment of the facts of a particular situation, which is then measured against all applicable laws. We don’t have all the facts about cases you may be wondering about, and we are not experts in, or able to provide legal advice about, your state law. Indeed, we are not license to practice law outside of Illinois, and we cannot provide personal legal advice with respect to Illinois law, for that matter. We will give you as much information as we reasonably can, but you must consult your lawyer for legal advice.
• Our focus in this book is on federal law. The book references state law in general terms where appropriate, but it is important for you to turn to your state dental society or personal attorney — or perhaps your malpractice carrier — for specific federal, state and local legal information that may apply to you.
• Oftentimes, dentists will ask ADA attorneys questions such as “Should I sign this contract?”, “Should I join this plan?”, or “Should I fire my HIV-infected hygienist?” This book answers questions from a legal frame. It does not focus on “shoulds” in the sense of ethical, business, or practice considerations. By telling you what the law says, we hope you will have a better context for factoring in
