Terminating the Physician-Patient Relationship

Consultation 026

About the standard

The Terminating the Physician-Patient Relationship standard was last updated in 2014. As the healthcare landscape in Alberta is always evolving, it’s important to ensure our standards are up-to-date, reflect current language and are consistent. The standard outlines circumstances under which physicians can dismiss patients from their practice.

What’s changed?

  • Proposed name change to Ending the Physician-Patient Relationship to soften the language;
  • Added a preamble to address protected classes and discrimination, as well as identifying regulated members to whom the standard would not apply;
  • Added a requirement that the regulated member must make reasonable efforts to resolve issues and cannot delegate ending the relationship to someone else;
  • Added the acknowledgement of patient autonomy; and
  • Addressed reducing a panel size.

Your opinion matters

Changes to CPSA’s Standards of Practice impact your day-to-day practice. Your feedback is important to us, as it helps us develop clear, reasonable expectations and helpful, applicable resources. We appreciate the time you took and the input you provided.

CPSA regulated members, partner organizations, other healthcare professionals and Albertans were invited to provide feedback from June 5 to July 5, 2023.

Anonymized feedback will be considered by Council at their September 2023 meeting. Once amendments are finalized and approved by Council, members will be notified by email and The Messenger newsletter.

We respect your privacy

All feedback is subject to CPSA’s Privacy Statement. CPSA reviews all comments before publication to ensure there is no offensive language, personal attacks or unsubstantiated allegations.

Other feedback on this standard

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