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Delicia M. Haynes, MD, wants the Florida Board of Medicine to take another look at how its licensing applications query physicians about their mental health history. Her state’s board is one of several nationwide that has, in recent years, mulled whether the phrasing of its questions poses an unintended hurdle for physicians who need help for conditions such as depression.
The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) recommends limiting such queries, if they must be asked, to questions about potential current impairment. But the Florida license application takes a more sweeping approach that may discourage physicians from seeking treatment, Dr. Haynes, founder and CEO of Family First Health Center in Daytona Beach, Fla., said in a video. She describes herself as a direct primary care physician.
In the video, which was posted on YouTube in January, 2019, Dr. Haynes discussed her own experience with having been treated for depression and then needing to report that to the state board. Florida’s license application asks if physicians have been treated within the past 5 years for a mental disorder that has impaired the ability to practice medicine. Those who have had such a condition may need to give the board an explanation providing the names of the physicians, therapists, and counselors they have seen, as well as details and dates for the institutions where they received treatment.
State medical boards play a critical role in protecting people from physicians whose current mental health conditions may risk harming patients, Dr. Haynes said. But they must balance that against the consequences of overly intrusive questioning. Florida’s current application wording may deter physicians from seeking care if they develop conditions such as depression, she said.
“It’s the fear of what’s going to happen if I have to check yes,” Dr. Haynes said in her YouTube video. Physicians will wonder how getting treatment could put their license and their employment at risk, she added.
“It’s really important that [state medical boards] are asking the questions that matter and those questions are questions that talk about impairment, and not just having a history,” Dr. Haynes said.
Members of Florida’s board of medicine last year favorably discussed making such a change during a rules/legislative committee meeting, but have not yet implemented it. The board has postponed further discussion of this topic until its December meeting, said Brad Dalton, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Health.
Dr. Haynes said in an email that she will continue to press for changes in her state’s licensing application.
There’s been a wave of reconsideration of these kinds of questions, spurred by FSMB efforts, which included the board’s offering specific advice to state medical boards about questions on licensing applications as part of a set of recommendations on addressing physician wellness and burnout last year in a report.
Boards have the option of omitting or dropping specific inquiries about mental health. But if they choose to retain this question, FSMB recommends using this phrasing: “Are you currently suffering from any condition for which you are not being appropriately treated that impairs your judgment or that would otherwise adversely affect your ability to practice medicine in a competent, ethical and professional manner? (Yes/No)” the report says.
The staff of the Medical Board of California cited FSMB’s recommendation in a January 2019 report about revising the state’s approach to asking physicians about their mental health. In May 2019, the board voted unanimously to revise its questions on physicians’ mental health, narrowing its inquiry on the licensing application to focus on current impairment.
“There are many doctors who do not seek treatment or find it threatening to seek treatment, because they are concerned that they may lose their license,” Peter Yellowlees, MBBS, MD, chief wellness officer and a professor of psychiatry at University of California, Davis, said in a public comment offered at the meeting. “This is ultimately all about patient safety.”
said Joe Knickrehm, a spokesman for the FSMB. Over the past few years, Kentucky, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Vermont and Washington have made changes to their licensing questions, he added.
Still, state boards are not moving quickly enough to remove or revise these questions about mental health, said Katherine J. Gold, MD MSW, associate professor in the department of family medicine at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has studied how these queries can deter physicians from seeking treatment for mental illness. A past treatment for postpartum depression may have no bearing on a physician’s practice, yet members of many state medical boards hesitate to alter their approach, she noted.
Groups including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association also have pushed in recent years for changes in state rules about what a physician has to disclose about mental health, with the FSMB taking a lead in these efforts. In many cases, physicians face questions about their mental health that are beyond the limits of standards set by the Americans With Disabilities Act, according to an article published this year in the FSMB’s Journal of Medical Regulation. As of 2017, a review of questions on initial licensure applications for all 50 states and the District of Columbia showed that 32 licensing boards ask questions beyond the limits of ADA standards, the article said.
Consequences of “reporting stable and easily treatable conditions such as anxiety or depression to a state licensing board can range from a physician simply being required to submit a letter from their primary care provider documenting fitness to practice, to a request to appear before the board, to being required to undergo and pay for an examination by a board-appointed physician,” wrote Catherine M. Welcher, an AMA senior policy analyst, and coauthors of the paper, including Humayun J. Chaudhry, DO, FSMB’s CEO.
Nearly 40% of physicians surveyed about medical licensing questions (2,325 of 5,829) indicated they would be reluctant to seek formal medical care for a mental health condition because of potential repercussions, Liselotte N. Dyrbye, MD, and coauthors reported in 2017 in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
“You’re sort of stuck. You recognize you have a problem and you want to seek care so that you can get better, but if you do that, you might have to tell the board,” Dr. Dyrbye said in an interview. “You could be mandated potentially to have an outside psychiatric evaluation, to have your personal medical records reviewed by people other than your personal physician.”
Rising levels of burnout among physicians make it critical to remove obstacles to care, said Arthur S. Hengerer, MD, a former chair of the FSMB who has been a leader in efforts to revise medical licensing questions.
“The only thing that really brings joy to medicine are the relationships you develop with patients, the trust that comes from that, and when you can’t develop relationships because you can’t spend the time, because you are clicking and documenting, it hurts,” said Andrew Lamb, MD, who aided in successful efforts to change North Carolina’s licensing questions.
North Carolina approached this issue in steps. In 2017, it removed a question about mental health from its annual physician license renewal form. In 2018, the North Carolina Medical Board voted to drop questions about mental and physical health from physician license applications.
“It’s hoped that removing this question will encourage clinicians to get the help they need, without fear it will compromise their chances to obtain a professional license,” the board said in an annual report.
Other states are retaining these questions, but allowing physicians to check “no” if they are in an approved program for mental health treatment. The North Dakota Board of Medicine took this approach.
“Because our mission is protection of the public, we didn’t feel that we could eliminate that question,” Bonnie Storbakken, JD, executive secretary of the North Dakota Board of Medicine, said in an interview.
The North Dakota board voted in March 2018 to change its question on mental health after the FSMB spurred a national dialogue on this issue, she said. The North Dakota board opted to allow physicians to check ‘no’ on the question about current mental health and or substance issues if they had voluntarily sought assistance from the North Dakota Professional Health Program or a professional health program in another state. The approach preserves anonymity. The question as previously phrased made some physicians feel they had to report their treatment, she said.
In Alabama, physicians also have the option to check “no” on questions about whether they are undergoing mental health treatment if they are participating in a professional assistance program. Mark Jackson, executive director of the Medical Association of Alabama, said he hopes more states give physicians this option for seeking help not only with mental health issues, but with addiction as well.
“You need to get people in and get them help and not jeopardize their career in the process. Society in general has got that problem going on and physicians are not immune from that,” Mr. Jackson said. “Hopefully other states will see that we need to do something to make sure that the physician population is taken care of.”
Pamela Wible, MD, an advocate for physicians’ mental health, did her own review of state board’s licensing questions. In an assessment posted on her website, Dr. Wible, who practices family medicine, gives 13 states an “A” grade for having no mental health questions or one or two straightforward current questions about impairment that do not mention mental health. “Connecticut, Hawaii, Michigan, and New York are the most physician-friendly of all states with no mental health or impairment questions,” Dr. Wible wrote.
The Texas Medical Board earned a “C” grade in Dr. Wible’s survey. In May 2019, that board’s chairman, Sherif Zaafran, MD, wrote about how his organization had taken a new look at the licensing questions, which were last revised in 2014. While the board has not decided on any immediate changes, it is “maintaining an open dialogue to address future concerns,” Dr. Zaafran wrote in the board’s bulletin.
The Texas Medical Board’s physician licensing form, as posted on its website, includes a broadly phrased question on mental health: “Within the past five (5) years, have you been diagnosed with or treated for any: psychotic disorder, delusional disorder, mood disorder, major depression, personality disorder, or any other mental condition which impaired or does impair your behavior, judgment, or ability to function in school or work?”
Physicians who have had treatment for mental health conditions then must submit another form. They may have to provide details on diagnosis, prognosis, and medications prescribed. Compliance requirements include counseling records, contracts with impairment support groups, and records on file with law enforcement agencies and licensing agencies.
State officials are trying to figure out how best to learn of potential impairments that could pose a risk for patients, without scaring physicians away from getting the care they themselves need said Stephen ‘Brint’ Carlton, JD, executive director of the Texas Medical Board.
Delicia M. Haynes, MD, wants the Florida Board of Medicine to take another look at how its licensing applications query physicians about their mental health history. Her state’s board is one of several nationwide that has, in recent years, mulled whether the phrasing of its questions poses an unintended hurdle for physicians who need help for conditions such as depression.
The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) recommends limiting such queries, if they must be asked, to questions about potential current impairment. But the Florida license application takes a more sweeping approach that may discourage physicians from seeking treatment, Dr. Haynes, founder and CEO of Family First Health Center in Daytona Beach, Fla., said in a video. She describes herself as a direct primary care physician.
In the video, which was posted on YouTube in January, 2019, Dr. Haynes discussed her own experience with having been treated for depression and then needing to report that to the state board. Florida’s license application asks if physicians have been treated within the past 5 years for a mental disorder that has impaired the ability to practice medicine. Those who have had such a condition may need to give the board an explanation providing the names of the physicians, therapists, and counselors they have seen, as well as details and dates for the institutions where they received treatment.
State medical boards play a critical role in protecting people from physicians whose current mental health conditions may risk harming patients, Dr. Haynes said. But they must balance that against the consequences of overly intrusive questioning. Florida’s current application wording may deter physicians from seeking care if they develop conditions such as depression, she said.
“It’s the fear of what’s going to happen if I have to check yes,” Dr. Haynes said in her YouTube video. Physicians will wonder how getting treatment could put their license and their employment at risk, she added.
“It’s really important that [state medical boards] are asking the questions that matter and those questions are questions that talk about impairment, and not just having a history,” Dr. Haynes said.
Members of Florida’s board of medicine last year favorably discussed making such a change during a rules/legislative committee meeting, but have not yet implemented it. The board has postponed further discussion of this topic until its December meeting, said Brad Dalton, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Health.
Dr. Haynes said in an email that she will continue to press for changes in her state’s licensing application.
There’s been a wave of reconsideration of these kinds of questions, spurred by FSMB efforts, which included the board’s offering specific advice to state medical boards about questions on licensing applications as part of a set of recommendations on addressing physician wellness and burnout last year in a report.
Boards have the option of omitting or dropping specific inquiries about mental health. But if they choose to retain this question, FSMB recommends using this phrasing: “Are you currently suffering from any condition for which you are not being appropriately treated that impairs your judgment or that would otherwise adversely affect your ability to practice medicine in a competent, ethical and professional manner? (Yes/No)” the report says.
The staff of the Medical Board of California cited FSMB’s recommendation in a January 2019 report about revising the state’s approach to asking physicians about their mental health. In May 2019, the board voted unanimously to revise its questions on physicians’ mental health, narrowing its inquiry on the licensing application to focus on current impairment.
“There are many doctors who do not seek treatment or find it threatening to seek treatment, because they are concerned that they may lose their license,” Peter Yellowlees, MBBS, MD, chief wellness officer and a professor of psychiatry at University of California, Davis, said in a public comment offered at the meeting. “This is ultimately all about patient safety.”
said Joe Knickrehm, a spokesman for the FSMB. Over the past few years, Kentucky, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Vermont and Washington have made changes to their licensing questions, he added.
Still, state boards are not moving quickly enough to remove or revise these questions about mental health, said Katherine J. Gold, MD MSW, associate professor in the department of family medicine at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has studied how these queries can deter physicians from seeking treatment for mental illness. A past treatment for postpartum depression may have no bearing on a physician’s practice, yet members of many state medical boards hesitate to alter their approach, she noted.
Groups including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association also have pushed in recent years for changes in state rules about what a physician has to disclose about mental health, with the FSMB taking a lead in these efforts. In many cases, physicians face questions about their mental health that are beyond the limits of standards set by the Americans With Disabilities Act, according to an article published this year in the FSMB’s Journal of Medical Regulation. As of 2017, a review of questions on initial licensure applications for all 50 states and the District of Columbia showed that 32 licensing boards ask questions beyond the limits of ADA standards, the article said.
Consequences of “reporting stable and easily treatable conditions such as anxiety or depression to a state licensing board can range from a physician simply being required to submit a letter from their primary care provider documenting fitness to practice, to a request to appear before the board, to being required to undergo and pay for an examination by a board-appointed physician,” wrote Catherine M. Welcher, an AMA senior policy analyst, and coauthors of the paper, including Humayun J. Chaudhry, DO, FSMB’s CEO.
Nearly 40% of physicians surveyed about medical licensing questions (2,325 of 5,829) indicated they would be reluctant to seek formal medical care for a mental health condition because of potential repercussions, Liselotte N. Dyrbye, MD, and coauthors reported in 2017 in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
“You’re sort of stuck. You recognize you have a problem and you want to seek care so that you can get better, but if you do that, you might have to tell the board,” Dr. Dyrbye said in an interview. “You could be mandated potentially to have an outside psychiatric evaluation, to have your personal medical records reviewed by people other than your personal physician.”
Rising levels of burnout among physicians make it critical to remove obstacles to care, said Arthur S. Hengerer, MD, a former chair of the FSMB who has been a leader in efforts to revise medical licensing questions.
“The only thing that really brings joy to medicine are the relationships you develop with patients, the trust that comes from that, and when you can’t develop relationships because you can’t spend the time, because you are clicking and documenting, it hurts,” said Andrew Lamb, MD, who aided in successful efforts to change North Carolina’s licensing questions.
North Carolina approached this issue in steps. In 2017, it removed a question about mental health from its annual physician license renewal form. In 2018, the North Carolina Medical Board voted to drop questions about mental and physical health from physician license applications.
“It’s hoped that removing this question will encourage clinicians to get the help they need, without fear it will compromise their chances to obtain a professional license,” the board said in an annual report.
Other states are retaining these questions, but allowing physicians to check “no” if they are in an approved program for mental health treatment. The North Dakota Board of Medicine took this approach.
“Because our mission is protection of the public, we didn’t feel that we could eliminate that question,” Bonnie Storbakken, JD, executive secretary of the North Dakota Board of Medicine, said in an interview.
The North Dakota board voted in March 2018 to change its question on mental health after the FSMB spurred a national dialogue on this issue, she said. The North Dakota board opted to allow physicians to check ‘no’ on the question about current mental health and or substance issues if they had voluntarily sought assistance from the North Dakota Professional Health Program or a professional health program in another state. The approach preserves anonymity. The question as previously phrased made some physicians feel they had to report their treatment, she said.
In Alabama, physicians also have the option to check “no” on questions about whether they are undergoing mental health treatment if they are participating in a professional assistance program. Mark Jackson, executive director of the Medical Association of Alabama, said he hopes more states give physicians this option for seeking help not only with mental health issues, but with addiction as well.
“You need to get people in and get them help and not jeopardize their career in the process. Society in general has got that problem going on and physicians are not immune from that,” Mr. Jackson said. “Hopefully other states will see that we need to do something to make sure that the physician population is taken care of.”
Pamela Wible, MD, an advocate for physicians’ mental health, did her own review of state board’s licensing questions. In an assessment posted on her website, Dr. Wible, who practices family medicine, gives 13 states an “A” grade for having no mental health questions or one or two straightforward current questions about impairment that do not mention mental health. “Connecticut, Hawaii, Michigan, and New York are the most physician-friendly of all states with no mental health or impairment questions,” Dr. Wible wrote.
The Texas Medical Board earned a “C” grade in Dr. Wible’s survey. In May 2019, that board’s chairman, Sherif Zaafran, MD, wrote about how his organization had taken a new look at the licensing questions, which were last revised in 2014. While the board has not decided on any immediate changes, it is “maintaining an open dialogue to address future concerns,” Dr. Zaafran wrote in the board’s bulletin.
The Texas Medical Board’s physician licensing form, as posted on its website, includes a broadly phrased question on mental health: “Within the past five (5) years, have you been diagnosed with or treated for any: psychotic disorder, delusional disorder, mood disorder, major depression, personality disorder, or any other mental condition which impaired or does impair your behavior, judgment, or ability to function in school or work?”
Physicians who have had treatment for mental health conditions then must submit another form. They may have to provide details on diagnosis, prognosis, and medications prescribed. Compliance requirements include counseling records, contracts with impairment support groups, and records on file with law enforcement agencies and licensing agencies.
State officials are trying to figure out how best to learn of potential impairments that could pose a risk for patients, without scaring physicians away from getting the care they themselves need said Stephen ‘Brint’ Carlton, JD, executive director of the Texas Medical Board.
Delicia M. Haynes, MD, wants the Florida Board of Medicine to take another look at how its licensing applications query physicians about their mental health history. Her state’s board is one of several nationwide that has, in recent years, mulled whether the phrasing of its questions poses an unintended hurdle for physicians who need help for conditions such as depression.
The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) recommends limiting such queries, if they must be asked, to questions about potential current impairment. But the Florida license application takes a more sweeping approach that may discourage physicians from seeking treatment, Dr. Haynes, founder and CEO of Family First Health Center in Daytona Beach, Fla., said in a video. She describes herself as a direct primary care physician.
In the video, which was posted on YouTube in January, 2019, Dr. Haynes discussed her own experience with having been treated for depression and then needing to report that to the state board. Florida’s license application asks if physicians have been treated within the past 5 years for a mental disorder that has impaired the ability to practice medicine. Those who have had such a condition may need to give the board an explanation providing the names of the physicians, therapists, and counselors they have seen, as well as details and dates for the institutions where they received treatment.
State medical boards play a critical role in protecting people from physicians whose current mental health conditions may risk harming patients, Dr. Haynes said. But they must balance that against the consequences of overly intrusive questioning. Florida’s current application wording may deter physicians from seeking care if they develop conditions such as depression, she said.
“It’s the fear of what’s going to happen if I have to check yes,” Dr. Haynes said in her YouTube video. Physicians will wonder how getting treatment could put their license and their employment at risk, she added.
“It’s really important that [state medical boards] are asking the questions that matter and those questions are questions that talk about impairment, and not just having a history,” Dr. Haynes said.
Members of Florida’s board of medicine last year favorably discussed making such a change during a rules/legislative committee meeting, but have not yet implemented it. The board has postponed further discussion of this topic until its December meeting, said Brad Dalton, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Health.
Dr. Haynes said in an email that she will continue to press for changes in her state’s licensing application.
There’s been a wave of reconsideration of these kinds of questions, spurred by FSMB efforts, which included the board’s offering specific advice to state medical boards about questions on licensing applications as part of a set of recommendations on addressing physician wellness and burnout last year in a report.
Boards have the option of omitting or dropping specific inquiries about mental health. But if they choose to retain this question, FSMB recommends using this phrasing: “Are you currently suffering from any condition for which you are not being appropriately treated that impairs your judgment or that would otherwise adversely affect your ability to practice medicine in a competent, ethical and professional manner? (Yes/No)” the report says.
The staff of the Medical Board of California cited FSMB’s recommendation in a January 2019 report about revising the state’s approach to asking physicians about their mental health. In May 2019, the board voted unanimously to revise its questions on physicians’ mental health, narrowing its inquiry on the licensing application to focus on current impairment.
“There are many doctors who do not seek treatment or find it threatening to seek treatment, because they are concerned that they may lose their license,” Peter Yellowlees, MBBS, MD, chief wellness officer and a professor of psychiatry at University of California, Davis, said in a public comment offered at the meeting. “This is ultimately all about patient safety.”
said Joe Knickrehm, a spokesman for the FSMB. Over the past few years, Kentucky, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Vermont and Washington have made changes to their licensing questions, he added.
Still, state boards are not moving quickly enough to remove or revise these questions about mental health, said Katherine J. Gold, MD MSW, associate professor in the department of family medicine at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has studied how these queries can deter physicians from seeking treatment for mental illness. A past treatment for postpartum depression may have no bearing on a physician’s practice, yet members of many state medical boards hesitate to alter their approach, she noted.
Groups including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Psychiatric Association also have pushed in recent years for changes in state rules about what a physician has to disclose about mental health, with the FSMB taking a lead in these efforts. In many cases, physicians face questions about their mental health that are beyond the limits of standards set by the Americans With Disabilities Act, according to an article published this year in the FSMB’s Journal of Medical Regulation. As of 2017, a review of questions on initial licensure applications for all 50 states and the District of Columbia showed that 32 licensing boards ask questions beyond the limits of ADA standards, the article said.
Consequences of “reporting stable and easily treatable conditions such as anxiety or depression to a state licensing board can range from a physician simply being required to submit a letter from their primary care provider documenting fitness to practice, to a request to appear before the board, to being required to undergo and pay for an examination by a board-appointed physician,” wrote Catherine M. Welcher, an AMA senior policy analyst, and coauthors of the paper, including Humayun J. Chaudhry, DO, FSMB’s CEO.
Nearly 40% of physicians surveyed about medical licensing questions (2,325 of 5,829) indicated they would be reluctant to seek formal medical care for a mental health condition because of potential repercussions, Liselotte N. Dyrbye, MD, and coauthors reported in 2017 in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
“You’re sort of stuck. You recognize you have a problem and you want to seek care so that you can get better, but if you do that, you might have to tell the board,” Dr. Dyrbye said in an interview. “You could be mandated potentially to have an outside psychiatric evaluation, to have your personal medical records reviewed by people other than your personal physician.”
Rising levels of burnout among physicians make it critical to remove obstacles to care, said Arthur S. Hengerer, MD, a former chair of the FSMB who has been a leader in efforts to revise medical licensing questions.
“The only thing that really brings joy to medicine are the relationships you develop with patients, the trust that comes from that, and when you can’t develop relationships because you can’t spend the time, because you are clicking and documenting, it hurts,” said Andrew Lamb, MD, who aided in successful efforts to change North Carolina’s licensing questions.
North Carolina approached this issue in steps. In 2017, it removed a question about mental health from its annual physician license renewal form. In 2018, the North Carolina Medical Board voted to drop questions about mental and physical health from physician license applications.
“It’s hoped that removing this question will encourage clinicians to get the help they need, without fear it will compromise their chances to obtain a professional license,” the board said in an annual report.
Other states are retaining these questions, but allowing physicians to check “no” if they are in an approved program for mental health treatment. The North Dakota Board of Medicine took this approach.
“Because our mission is protection of the public, we didn’t feel that we could eliminate that question,” Bonnie Storbakken, JD, executive secretary of the North Dakota Board of Medicine, said in an interview.
The North Dakota board voted in March 2018 to change its question on mental health after the FSMB spurred a national dialogue on this issue, she said. The North Dakota board opted to allow physicians to check ‘no’ on the question about current mental health and or substance issues if they had voluntarily sought assistance from the North Dakota Professional Health Program or a professional health program in another state. The approach preserves anonymity. The question as previously phrased made some physicians feel they had to report their treatment, she said.
In Alabama, physicians also have the option to check “no” on questions about whether they are undergoing mental health treatment if they are participating in a professional assistance program. Mark Jackson, executive director of the Medical Association of Alabama, said he hopes more states give physicians this option for seeking help not only with mental health issues, but with addiction as well.
“You need to get people in and get them help and not jeopardize their career in the process. Society in general has got that problem going on and physicians are not immune from that,” Mr. Jackson said. “Hopefully other states will see that we need to do something to make sure that the physician population is taken care of.”
Pamela Wible, MD, an advocate for physicians’ mental health, did her own review of state board’s licensing questions. In an assessment posted on her website, Dr. Wible, who practices family medicine, gives 13 states an “A” grade for having no mental health questions or one or two straightforward current questions about impairment that do not mention mental health. “Connecticut, Hawaii, Michigan, and New York are the most physician-friendly of all states with no mental health or impairment questions,” Dr. Wible wrote.
The Texas Medical Board earned a “C” grade in Dr. Wible’s survey. In May 2019, that board’s chairman, Sherif Zaafran, MD, wrote about how his organization had taken a new look at the licensing questions, which were last revised in 2014. While the board has not decided on any immediate changes, it is “maintaining an open dialogue to address future concerns,” Dr. Zaafran wrote in the board’s bulletin.
The Texas Medical Board’s physician licensing form, as posted on its website, includes a broadly phrased question on mental health: “Within the past five (5) years, have you been diagnosed with or treated for any: psychotic disorder, delusional disorder, mood disorder, major depression, personality disorder, or any other mental condition which impaired or does impair your behavior, judgment, or ability to function in school or work?”
Physicians who have had treatment for mental health conditions then must submit another form. They may have to provide details on diagnosis, prognosis, and medications prescribed. Compliance requirements include counseling records, contracts with impairment support groups, and records on file with law enforcement agencies and licensing agencies.
State officials are trying to figure out how best to learn of potential impairments that could pose a risk for patients, without scaring physicians away from getting the care they themselves need said Stephen ‘Brint’ Carlton, JD, executive director of the Texas Medical Board.