This article will discuss the steps a health care provider should take to terminate services to a patient without committing patient abandonment. The patient will not pay his or her bills. The patient is unruly and obnoxious to the point where it is in the best interests of all concerned for the provider to quit providing services. Reimbursement for services has been denied or the provider has ceased to be a Medicare or Medicaid provider. Abandonment generally means a unilateral severance of the professional relationship between a health care provider and a patient without reasonable notice at a time when there is still a need for continuing health care.
Court decisions involving patient abandonment generally deal with abandonment by physicians.
Still, the legal principles established by those cases are instructive for other providers. WHAT TO DO Because the issue of patient abandonment arises in a situation in which the health care provider, itself, desires to unilaterally terminate services at a time when there is a need for continuing care, the key to avoiding patient abandonment is to give reasonable notice of the termination of services. If reasonable notice is given, that critical second element for patient abandonment does not exist. If a patient is in the midst of ongoing care by the provider and is unable to find comparable care or has not been given adequate notice of the provider's intention to discontinue services, then the provider should not discontinue services without pursuing the remainder of these steps. The physician may be able to intervene to correct the problem or to assist the patient in finding another provider that will provide services comparable to those provided by the provider terminating services.