New Policy: Guidelines for Self/Peer/Family Treatment

As a health care employee, you may sometimes get requests for advice or treatment from family and friends.

Treatment of yourself, your coworkers or your family members poses a number of risks and ethical questions. We now have a Self, Peer, Family Member Treatment and Urgent/Emergency Treatment policy that clarifies how we should handle these requests.

Here are a few key takeaways:

• Self-treatment is not permitted.
• You should not provide services or treatment to family members unless it is impossible for another provider or employee to perform the treatment and/or the treatment cannot be delayed.
• If family member treatment is necessary, or if you are providing treatment to a coworker:
  • Treatment provided must be within your scope of work and applicable licensure.
  • Routine treatment/services can only be provided during normal operating hours. The patient should always have an appointment, unless it is a medical emergency situation. 
  • Employees who are receiving treatment at the site where they work should not be clocked in during their appointment, when care is provided.
  • There should always be proper documentation and orders placed in the patient’s electronic medical record.
  • Treatment must always be properly charged and billed.
• If you are providing urgent/emergency treatment:
  • An appropriate practitioner-patient relationship and medical record documentation requirements must be met. 
  • Practitioners should not treat themselves or family members unless it is an emergency situation, it is an isolated setting where no other practitioner is available to the patient, or it is for a single episode of an acute illness through one prescribed course of medication.
  • Practitioners are not permitted to prescribe controlled substances (exception is Schedule VI drugs) for themselves or their family members.
• A bona fide practitioner-patient relationship must exist prior to prescribing or refilling medications for family members, and a patient record must be maintained documenting this relationship and all treatment provided.

The policy is available under the Downloads header below and is also available on PageCenterX. The policy applies to all clinical and non-clinical employees at Carilion.

If you are unsure about what to do in a situation, help is available. Asking a question is always the right thing to do, and discussing the matter with your manager or with the Organizational Integrity and Compliance Department is encouraged.  You can reach the Organizational Integrity and Compliance Department at 540-510-4600, or, if you’d prefer your concern remain anonymous, you can contact our Integrity Help Line at 844-732-6232.

You can read more about this topic on the Organizational Integrity and Compliance hub.