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Do Advocates Have a Duty to Report Dangerous Patients?
Warning! This will be one of those posts you think back to from time to time, because the answers aren’t clear or easy, and the stakes are so high. A few weeks ago we all watched the news about 150 people who lost their lives as their plane crashed into the French Alps; a tragic loss of life which we learned later was caused by the co-pilot, who had intentionally crashed the plane – suicide by one – mass murder of 149 others. Horrible, tragic, and just so very, very sad. It’s easy, of course, to dismiss the young pilot as crazy – depressed, suicidal, truly an example of mental health gone awry. But if you’re like me, the next thought that pops into your head is a question, “Could it have been prevented?” Once I learned of the pilot’s mental health issues, and the fact that his doctor had written a note to keep him from working, I wondered how exactly that had taken place. Writing a note isn’t the same as actively reporting to the authorities (whoever those authorities might be) unless a copy of the note was delivered to those authorities… (And as an aside, I wonder if the doctor stopped at handing the patient-pilot a note telling him not to fly, and didn’t report it to the right authorities, and if so, how does he sleep at night?) But even more importantly, what are the rules or laws in the US? Is there any responsibility to report a patient who is dangerous to himself, or certainly others? Could a provider be held legally responsible if he did – or didn’t – report? How does HIPAA affect the assignment of responsibility? If there is a duty to report such a patient, where is the line drawn? How does that reporting take place? And how does one decide whether a patient is truly dangerous to someone else, or just him/herself – or even truly dangerous at all? …..(sidebar) I’ve been there. I’ve reported. When I was a first grade teacher, many (many!) moons ago, teachers were mandated to…