Abstract
Healthcare professionals can be confronted with a wide range of ethical and regulatory issues in today’s ever-changing practice environments. While achieving best practice standards, physical therapists may need to compromise what is best for patients due to fiscally driven rules, regulations, and limited benefits. Scenarios may surface where ethical issues and associated dilemmas become paramount between what is versus what should be. A challenge that should be in the forefront of professional endeavors is staying current with published rules, regulations, and conditions of participation, as applied to various practice models and environments while still adhering to ethical codes. Knowing and utilizing available resources especially American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), websites, documents, and references can strengthen practice patterns and treatment options.
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References
Guide to physical therapist practice 3.0. American Physical Therapy Association. http://www.apta.org.
Code of ethics for the physical therapist. American Physical Therapy Association. http://www.apta.org.
Medicare claims processing manual. Chapter 5 part B outpatient rehabilitation and CORF/OPT services, http:www.cms.gov/Medicare/Billing/TherapyServices/downloads/clm104c05.pdf
Final 2015 Physician Fee Schedule and Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) Measures. APTA Inf Bull. October 2014.
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Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. http://www.cms.gov/RegulationsandGuidance/RegulationsandGuidance.html.
Compliance with Ethics Guidelines
Conflict of Interest
Robert W. Richardson declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent
This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.
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APTA.org and CMS.gov are valuable resources for physical therapists. The following documents and publications can help you avoid fraud, waste, and abuse and gain an understanding of the changing regulations [1–4, 9]
• APTA core documents www.apta.org/Policies/CoreDocuments—This site features links to the code of ethics, Guide to Physical Therapist Practice and Guide for Conduct and Professionalism.
• APTA coding and billing www.apta.org/Payment/CodingBilling—This site includes links to courses (also see http://learningcenter.apta.org and http://www.apta.org/Courses/Online/NavigatingCompliance).
• Compliance http://www.apta.org/Compliance—This site offers information on fraud and abuse and Medicare audits.
• The federal government’s websites and the Federal Registry publish changes in rules and regulations that affect physical therapy. For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Medicare and publishes documents that provide an overview of facts and laws regarding Medicare fraud and abuse. Changes are also published in other forms in the public record. Government websites can be useful, but be forewarned that most will induce sleep with a full dose.
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Richardson, R.W. Ethical issues in physical therapy. Curr Rev Musculoskelet Med 8, 118–121 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12178-015-9266-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12178-015-9266-y