Can a physician conduct a “meet and greet” interview prior to accepting a new patient into his/her practice?
Like any effective relationship, a patient-physician relationship is built on principles of trust and honest two-way communication, which should be established at the first meeting. While a “meet and greet” meeting is deemed acceptable practice for physicians to get to know a new patient and learn of his/her health concerns and history, it may not be used as a means to select the “easy patients” and screen out those with more difficult health concerns, such as chronic disease. In addition, a physician cannot refuse to accept patients based on human rights issues, such as age, gender, marital status, medical condition, national or ethnic origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status.
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