Medical Assistants and the Law

Please Note: The information contained on this page is provided for information purposes only and should not be considered legal advice, nor is it a substitute or interpretation of regulations established by authorities having jurisdiction over practicing doctors, nurses and their medical assistants in your state. Please contact your State Board of Medical Examiners directly for specific advice, official business, or consult with your attorney. We cannot provide this information to you.

Things Medical Assistants Just Cannot Do

Preventable medical errors kill and seriously injure hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. An area that can quickly lead to potential legal implications is when a medical assistant attempts to make independent health care assessments, or independently does triage, or gives medical, and healthcare advice to a patient without the doctor's knowledge.

Medical Assistants and Giving Medical Advice

If Someone Asks for information...

It is not uncommon that a patient occasionally attempts to pull a medical assistant aside to ask their opinion, or advise about something that concerns their medical condition, medications, treatment regimen, or questions about instructions given by the doctor. When this happens, even if asked in confidence, such concerns must ALWAYS be submitted back to the healthcare provider (doctor, nurse, practitioner), who is in charge of their care, to be addressed directly by them!!! Furthermore, any such concerns should be carefully charted and become a permanent part of the patient's medical record.

For Example:
Medical assistants are not allowed to make independent medical assessments (triage), or give medical advice at any time under any circumstances. Should a patient ask a medical assistant for a opinion, or advice directly related to medical issues, or medications, even if it seems like a casual conversation, the medical assistant should not take it lightly, nor make her own recommendations. The message should be put in writing, dated and initialed, and brought directly to the doctor's attention, along with the patient's medical chart, to follow up, and respond.

Properly Following Up On Messages

Next, it is well within a medical assistant's scope of practice to relay the doctor's message and instructions back to a patient, or skilled nursing facility staff (e.g. regarding a patient in a nursing home). To protect all involved and for proper tracking of the message should be written out and initialed by the medical assistant and approved, and initialed by the receiving doctor when read. This note then becomes official part of the patient's medical record and should be filed directly into the patient's chart (i.e. NOT discarded, or left on the desk somewhere to get lost). Once executed, the medical assistant should briefly check the note and verify the date and initials before filing it away.