Palliative Care Information Act: Practitioners REQUIRED to Provide Info and Counseling
Recently a SHARE volunteer on the Hotline had this story shared with her by a patient caller. The woman had received a phone call from her health care practitioner indicating that her blood tests had come in and that because of damage to her liver, she had only six months to live. She was devastated -- not only because of the news, but because of the callous way it was conveyed. By not taking into account timing, method, and place of delivery of the message, the health care provider failed a basic humanity test. And by not giving her any other information, he also failed to comply with the law.
The Palliative Care Information Act, effective February 9, 2011, amended the Public Health Law by adding a section requiring physicians and nurse practitioners to offer information and counseling concerning health care treatment to all terminally-ill patients expected to succumb within six months. This information they should provide should cover interdisciplinary end-of-life care to prevent or relieve pain and suffering and to enhance the patient's quality of life, including hospice care.
The information and counseling may be provided orally or in writing. If the attending health care practitioner isn't willing to provide the patient with information and counseling, he/she must arrange for another physician or nurse practitioner to do so, or must refer or transfer the patient to another physician or nurse practitioner to provide information regarding:
• Prognosis;
• Range of options appropriate to the patient;
• Risks and benefits of various options;
• Patient's "legal rights to comprehensive pain and symptom management at the end of life."
When the patient lacks medical decision-making capacity, the information and counseling must be provided to the person who has authority to make health care decisions for the patient. The law, however, is unable to predict the physician's ability to deliver the required information so that the patient can absorb and process it in a useful fashion while dealing with the feelings it might raise.
Posted September 1, 2011.
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