When your patient brings a service animal into your practice, they have expectations that you’ll accept their animal in accordance with the Americans With Disabilities Act requirements, as well as state and local laws. However, other patients have expectations as well, and those may not align with seeing animals in your waiting room. To ensure you know exactly what’s required of your practice so you can avoid legal violations and fines, it’s important to understand your obligations.
Check out four do’s and six don’ts that will help you stay in line with the service animal and emotional support animal rules.
Do Treat the Patient the Same as Any Other
When a patient comes in with a service animal, you can acknowledge that they have an animal and even ask questions about it, but you definitely don’t want to make a big deal about it or treat the patient differently. Never seat the patient somewhere separately or exclude them from normal patient relationship building activities.
Do Expect the Patient to Be Responsible for the Animal
The patient handling the animal should be fully responsible for the care and supervision of the animal. They can’t come into your office, hand the leash to the receptionist and say, “Watch my dog while I get my treatment.” They need to be taking care of their animal, including cleaning up after it at all times.
Do Require That the Service Animal Is Leashed
Animals should be tethered or leashed at all times, unless these devices interfere with the service animal’s work or the person’s disability prevents use of these devices. If a patient walks in with a dog in their arms, and they don’t have a leash, it’s OK to ask them to leash the animal.
Do Ask the Patient to Arrange Care if Needed
In some cases, the patient is coming to your practice for treatment that may render them unconscious, or may be in an environment where the animal can’t accompany them (such as an MRI scanning machine). In these cases, it’s the patient’s responsibility to arrange for care for the animal. They can’t rely on your staff members to handle the animal, and if they do, it’s within your rights to board the animal and then charge the patient for the cost of that care.
Don’t Assume That Because You Can’t See a Disability, It Doesn’t Exist
Practices have gotten into trouble for telling patients they can’t bring service animals into appointments because the patient “looks healthy” or the practice employee doesn’t see a disability in the patient’s file. In some cases, you may not know that a patient has a disability, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have one.
Don’t Treat a Vest or Tag as Determinative
Some practices will only allow service animals into the office if the animal has a vest or tag announcing them as a service animal. However, such displays are not required under the law in most states, and in many cases, the patient may have a legitimate service animal who isn’t wearing any of the insignias you may expect.
Don’t Ask to See the Animal Perform a Task
You should never ask the patient to have the service animal demonstrate the task it’s been trained to do. In some cases, the service animal is only trained to react in an emergency situation, and it’s impossible to make that happen. In other instances, the animal may not even know what it’s supposed to do—it only reacts when a particular stimulus occurs, such as if the patient is having heart palpitations.
Don’t Ask for Certificates or Registrations
Patients may not necessarily have gotten a service animal trained at a particular licensing agency, so you should never ask to see certificates or registrations. You can ask to see vaccination papers if your local area requires animals to be vaccinated for the health and safety of everyone, but don’t ask for service animal training certifications.
Don’t Segregate Patients With Service Animals
Although it may seem like you’re helping by having patients and their service animals sit in an area other than where your other patients are, that could be seen as discrimination in the eyes of the law. Unless there’s a specific problem caused by the animal being in your main waiting area (for instance, you’re an allergist’s practice and some patients are allergic to dogs), then these patients should be with everyone else.
Don’t Pet the Service Animal or Offer it Treats
Because the animals are there to provide a service, they shouldn’t be treated as pets. They need to focus and be focused on, so you don’t want to distract them.
Seeking more clarity on how to deal with service animals at your medical practice? Attorney Diana Trevley, JD, can walk you through every step of the process during her online training, Meet Emotional Support Animal Legal Requirements to Avoid Practice Nightmares. During this one-hour event, Diana will share every detail you need to avoid scrutiny and comply with the laws. Register today!
 |
Subscribe to Healthcare Practice Advisor |
| Get actionable advice to help improve your practice’s reimbursement, compliance, and success in this weekly eNewsletter. | |
|
|