Dobbs Decision and Impact on Clinicians

Given the evolving legal landscape, Envision will be updating these summaries on a periodic basis to take into account important developments and changes.

2. Expectations regarding clinical documentation have not changed. Please continue to accurately document any medical encounter.
We remind clinicians that documentation is generally discoverable and may be used against clinicians, patients or others in litigation. Our guidance is, and always has been, to document clearly and accurately the patient’s presenting medical condition and relevant history and not to editorialize, speculate or comment on issues unrelated to patient care.

We remain committed to providing quality, compassionate care, which includes thorough and accurate documentation of the relevant clinical presentation and history of the patient.

3. Clinicians are expected to respect patient confidentiality as required by HIPAA.
The doctor-patient therapeutic relationship is paramount. Although state laws may incentivize “bounty hunters” to report private information about patients, information gathered from doctor-patient interactions is confidential and protected by HIPAA. All Envision employees complete HIPAA training every year and should understand that HIPAA breaches are extremely serious. Occasionally, we learn things about patients in a healthcare setting that fall into the category of “mandatory reporting.” However, absent an express state law, disclosure of events involving spontaneous or induced termination of pregnancy outside of the limited exceptions for disclosures of PHI under HIPAA violates federal law, and may violate state law, and will be treated accordingly. If you believe your state law expressly requires such reporting, please contact either your hospital or the Envision legal department before taking any action. You can also access federal guidance here and Envision’s policies regarding HIPAA compliance at Envision Physician Services.