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A carefully planned and executed patient notification process is the key to ensuring continuity of care and minimizing liability risk when retiring or closing a practice. The method by which you inform patients should be based on whether they are active or inactive. Consider the following recommendations:

Physicians’ and dentists’ personal interests and opinions can sometimes expose their practices to unwanted attention, particularly with the rate information travels today. For example, the recent negative publicity surrounding a Minnesota dentist whose hunting pastime made worldwide news, resulted in backlash that disrupted his practice. The overwhelming negative attention led to shutting down his professional social media accounts, practice website and the doors to his practice during this frenzy. The flood of negative comments online, directed at him personally, now sit side by side with reviews of his professional ability on third-party rating and review websites. This may be an extreme scenario, but it does illustrate the power of how online reviews and commentary can affect a physician and his or her practice. Because of this, proactive steps should be taken by health care providers to safeguard their practice from negative online publicity or comments that may occur.

A patient with a potential post-operative complication should not be terminated until the complication is resolved.

Although 30 days’ notice will be considered reasonable in most cases, ethical concerns can require a longer period. For example, physicians pledge to “do no harm” and also have an obligation to place patients’ welfare above their own interests.* Balancing patient and physician interests can get tricky when it will be difficult for the patient to find a new physician.

Terminating treatment of a chronic pain patient can become complicated, even when a patient agreement is signed and the termination letter is sent.¹