Practice Management Alert

Question: Can I abstain from treating a patient whose treatment wants or requirements are against my religious beliefs?

New Hampshire Subscriber

Answer: Yes. As of Jan. 18, 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has created a new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division.

"The Conscience and Religious Freedom Division has been established to restore federal enforcement of our nation's laws that protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious freedom," according to an OCR press release. "OCR is the law enforcement agency within HHS that enforces federal laws protecting civil rights and conscience in health and human services, and the security and privacy of people's health information. The creation of the new division will provide HHS with the focus it needs to more vigorously and effectively enforce existing laws protecting the rights of conscience and religious freedom, the first freedom protected in the Bill of Rights."

"Laws protecting religious freedom and conscience rights are just empty words on paper if they aren't enforced," said Roger Severino, director of OCR. "No one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by one's deepest moral or religious convictions, and the new division will help guarantee that victims of unlawful discrimination find justice."