If you haven’t noticed, the number of Emotional Support Animals (ESA) is skyrocketing, along with owner expectations to bring their animals with them everywhere. This includes your practice.
How you and your staff handle an ESA in your waiting room can dramatically affect your practice. Handled poorly, ESA owners can file a discrimination lawsuit, make a scene, or plaster negative comments across the web. Or, if you incorrectly turn away a service dog, you’ll have to deal with an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) violation.
The answer to protecting your practice against allegations of discrimination or legal violations is to have a clear policy in place and to train your staff on how to enforce it effectively. This is where healthcare compliance attorney Diana Trevley, JD, CCEP-I, can help.
Diana is presenting a 60-minute online training specifically designed to help you effectively handle patients who want to have service and Emotional Support animals accompany them to their appointments. You’ll learn practical strategies to avoid legal violations, litigation, dissatisfied patients, and reputational damage.
Here are the critical Emotional Support Animal compliance takeaways you’ll receive by attending this expert-led online training:
- Quickly differentiate between service and emotional support animals
- Implement an ADA-compliant policy for service animals that works for your practice
- Identify when it is really okay to refuse an animal into your practice
- Avoid the most common service animal errors that can lead to an ADA lawsuit
- Effectively communicate your ESA policy to patients without causing a scene
- Successfully navigate patient complaints due to allergy concerns and the ADA
- Defeat disruptions due to ESAs (barking, pet messes, etc.) without violating applicable laws
- And so much more…
Many patients believe that their Emotional Support Animals are the only thing that allows them to function normally. This makes how you manage these patients even more complex. Without a clear policy in place, it’s easy to make an innocent mistake that can lead to a patient filing a costly, stressful discrimination lawsuit. Or, just as damaging, your patient could wage a negative online campaign against your practice, which tarnishes your reputation and drives new patients away.
By attending this online training, you will receive practical, step-by-step solutions to be prepared or the next time a patient and their Emotional Support Animal walks into your waiting room. Don’t wait, sign up today.
Diana Trevley, JD, CCEP-I, CIPP/E is an attorney and consultant specializing in business law, compliance, and privacy. Her focus is on providing practical solutions for companies that meet business objectives and regulatory requirements while enhancing operational efficiencies.
Diana’s career includes acting as the outsourced CCO for Ethico, a whistleblower hotline company with a focus on healthcare clients; advising global organizations on compliance and data privacy best practices; working in-house as compliance and privacy counsel for publicly traded companies; and serving as the international representative to the U.S delegation to ISO TC 309, the global initiative to create international standards on corporate governance, compliance and whistleblowing.
