It is prudent to always ask for a copy of the divorce decree or custody agreement when treating children of divorced or divorcing parents. In addition, information regarding a specified age over which a minor could consent for treatment was also included in the data if it was specified by the state.2 If a state specified an age cut-off for minor consent, the law was classified as minor consent; however, parents must provide consent for children younger than the age cut-off. Parent = Parental consent only required; Minor = Minor consent only required; Either= Either parental or minor consent; Both= Both parental and minor consent required; No Law Found = No specific law was found addressing that particular form of treatment. Minor consent was more frequently required for inpatient and outpatient drug abuse and outpatient mental health treatment relative to parent consent. An adult son or daughter who has attained the age of majority has the right to control the privacy of their health information, including making decisions about who can receive health information about them which was created when they were minor children. All questions are reviewed by the editors and are selected based upon interest, timeliness, and pertinence, as determined by the editors. (a) A minor may consent to the minors medical care or dental care if all of the following conditions are satisfied: (1) The minor is 15 years of age or older. It is a well-established principle that before treating a patient, a physician or other healthcare provider must obtain the consent of that patient.1 What is a relatively simple proposition becomes less so when treating minors. Florida Caregiver Consent regarding Medical and/or Emergency Treatment Diese new change to the mental health parental consent law (Florida Regulation 61.13(2)(b)3.a. A short-term longitudinal analysis of friendship selection on early adolescent substance use. Exactly how parental notification influences minors seeking of treatment is unknown, however. What is not clear is whether a physician is required to get written consent for providing health care services and a separate consent for prescribing a medicinal drug during the treatment of the minor. Similarly, we excluded laws designed specifically for wards of the state. We know that there are gaps between laws on paper and laws in practice (Melton, 1981; Poncz, 2008). It also includes states with laws allowing minors to consent for diagnosis and treatment of infectious, contagious, or reportable diseases, which would include COVID-19 testing. After the state laws were located, the laws regarding consent for a minor to receive drug and mental health treatment were first coded into the following categories: Parent Consent Only (i.e., only the parent could consent for the childs treatment), Either Parent or Minor Consent (i.e., either the minor or parent could consent for treatment), Both Parent and Minor Consent (i.e., both the parent and the child are required to provide consent for treatment), or Minor Consent Only (i.e., only the minor could consent for treatment). Does the requirement that parental consent be in writing mean that the physician has to maintain paper records of such consent? Compared to investigating how parents might contribute to their teens problems, relatively little attention has focused on how parents are affected by their teens substance use. HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help dcma@miamimed.com Medical or health services required in case of birth control, pregnancy or family planning except for the purposes of sexual sterilization; 3. Wordfence is a security plugin installed on over 4 million WordPress sites. A minor 14 years of age or older who is living separate and apart from his or her parent, parents, or legal guardian, with or without the consent of his or her parent, parents, or legal guardian, and is managing his or her own financial affairs, regardless of the source of his or her income may give consent to the furnishing of hospital, medical, dental, emergency health, and surgical care to himself or herself. INDIANA. Child-initiated care: The use of school nursing services in an adult-free system. Parent and Adolescent Decision-Making Authority for Inpatient and Outpatient Drug and Mental Health Treatment. FOIA HB 241 is silent on this issue. N/A. For example, in a state in which either a parent or minor may consent for treatment, do health care professionals require a minor to consent because this consent indicates recognition of a problem and motivation to change? I have previously advised therapists in such situations to continue to treat the minor patient if the minor and the other parent want treatment to continue and if the therapist feels that a sudden termination would negatively affect the well being of the patient. Note: The information and recommendations in this article are applicable to physicians and other healthcare professionals so clinician is used to indicate all treatment team members. A minor has the same capacity as an adult to consent to medical or dental treatment if the minor is living separate and apart from the minors parent, parents, or guardian, whether with or without consent of the minors parent, parents, or guardian and is selfsupporting, regardless of the source of the minors income. Most recently, he was a consultant to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and has written articles regarding legal and ethical issues for their Family Therapy Magazine. The site is secure. NSDUH Series H-38A, HHS Publication No SMA 10-4856. An argument in favor of continued treatment would be that the one parent is demanding a termination of treatment, but the court order requires the consent of both parents with regard to the major health care decisions affecting the child. In one state, there was consistency across the outpatient modality (FL), in another the consistency was within mental health treatment (WI), and in the last state (GA), inpatient drug abuse treatment and outpatient mental health treatment were consistent. In addition, parents may punish their child for drug use, whereas, this is less likely to be the case with mental health problems. These findings bolstered the argument that minors may have more capacity for informed decision-making than had previously been allowed (Lewis, Lewis, Lorimer, & Palmer, 1977; Melton, 1983; Poncz, 2008; Scott & Steinberg, 2009). Minors are often allowed to consent to treatment for such things as substance abuse, mental health care, and birth control. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This new change to the intellectual health parental consent law (Florida Statute 61.13(2)(b)3.a. An exploration of the legislative history of each states minor consent law for drug treatment revealed no consistent pattern in the rationale for choosing one age over another age (Weisleder, 2007). The safest course of conduct is to get consent in writing for the examination and treatment, and a separate consent for any prescription written. A parent's right to give consent, or be informed, before their minor child undergoes medical treatment. For example, the provider may have to hire a lawyer and lose substantial time away from practicing to defend attacks in custody disputes. When Do Minors in Therapy Have a Right to Confidentiality? While the law has traditionally considered minors to be incompetent to give consent for medical treatment, most states now have statutes that give minors the right to consent to treatment in specific situations.2 Examples of these are as follows: Court-ordered emancipation. Parents may have only a few options available. PDF When Your Child, Teenager, or Adult Son or Daughter has a Mental In other words, it is possible for co-parents to share legal custody but not share . For minors who refuse testing, it is rarely, if ever, appropriate to test, except in the emergency situations mentioned above. Notably, the majority of the states failed to indicate what happens when a parent and child disagree about the need for treatment. These are but some of the questions that arise in such situations. Finally minor consent only places the decision-making authority wholly and completely with the minor (Parent consent is not sufficient or required). Presumably physicians will be able to maintain a record of parental consent electronically as part of the patients electronic medical record. Can Therapists in Florida Treat A Minor Without Both Parents' Permission? After a psychiatrist refused to admit her son to a residential treatment facility because the son refused treatment, she resorted to legal action. Santelli JS, Rosenfeld WD, DuRant RH, Dubler N, Morreale M, English A, Rogers AR. Carmel Barrau, MD, installed as president of the Dade County Medical Association, State releases emergency rules on mandatory masking in health care settings, 2023 DCMA Continuing Medical Education Course. As summarized in the table below, mental health treatment providers generally may accept informed consent by only one parent to mental health treatment.. 5 states require the parent of a minor consenting to an adoption to be notified before the adoption takes place or to consent to the adoption. Council for Scientific Affairs, American Medical Association. Stat. Another future area for research is how to design and create treatment options that are effective and appealing to adolescents. As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. Adolescent health care: A practical guide. Does the requirement that parental consent be in writing mean that the physician has to maintain paper records of such consent? While there, he also served as their director of Government Relations and tirelessly advocated for due process and fairness for licensees and applicants. In these instances, it is often a state agency that has legal custody of the minor and is the legal guardian. Parents should be aware, too, that legal custody is separate from physical custody. These four categories represent a continuum of parental authority. 1 attorney answer Posted on Nov 2, 2019 The parent with sole legal custody is permitted to make decisions affecting the child such as enrolling them into therapy. Placing high dependence on adolescent decision-making may pose problems when there is little incentive for the adolescent to seek treatment on his or her own. Other risk management consulting companies or insurance carriers may provide different advice, and readers should take this into consideration. Written consent must be obtained from any child age 12 years or older. With respect to joint legal custody, both parents will typically share the right and responsibility to make the decisions related to the health, education and welfare of the child. If you think you have been blocked in error, contact the owner of this site for assistance. For legal advice, contact your personal attorney. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the followingminorsmayconsentto have services provided by health professionals in the following cases: 3. 1For ease of presentation, drug treatment was used for drug and alcohol treatment and parent(s) was used to represent parents and guardians. Informed Consent with Children and Adolescents | Society for the Do Both Parents Need to Consent for Therapy in FL? Consent to Therapy A chi-square analysis across the four combinations of treatment and modality was statistically significant when parent or minor consent was required (2 (3) = 15.5, p= 0.001). It is unclear how representative this parents experience is with respect to seeking help for her child; however, there may be a variety of avenues of legal influence that could potentially be a fruitful area for future research. The FMA has identified the following state statutes as those that would allow a physician to treat a minor without first obtaining written parental consent as required in HB 241 (the full text of each statute is included in the Appendix). Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America. State laws clearly favored the rights of minors to independently access drug treatment compared to mental health treatment. English A. Common law exceptions for parental consent, and any applicable federal laws, will be examined in a later article. Our results revealed that just over one third of the states had consistent consent laws across treatment types and modalities. does not give either raise a right to engage . and transmitted securely. The fourth restriction specified that a minor could consent to treatment alone if the health care provider determined that involvement of the parents would be detrimental to treatment. Arguably, this could include referring a patient to a specialist, participating in the transfer of a minor patient to a different health care facility, or requesting a consultation or second opinion from another health care provider. Weisleder P. The rights of minors to confidentilaity and informed consent. This research is supported in part by a grant (P50-DA027841) from National Institute on Drug Abuse. Effects of a state law permitting minors to consent to psychotherapy. Florida Mental Health Treatment Providers & Informed Consent Requirements, Parental Responsibility and Decision Making. Since these laws permitting adolescents to seek help for reproductive health, substance use, and mental health concerns were enacted, the legal system has grappled with the competence of a minor to provide informed consent for treatment. When Parents Disagree on Vaccinating Children Against COVID-19. Guidelines for adolescent health research: A position paper of the Society for Adolescent Medicine. Stated otherwise, the general rule is that either parent may authorize or consent to treatment of their minor child unless the court order specifies otherwise. Another option for a parent may be to transport their child to a state that allows parental consent only so that the minor does not need to consent and cannot refuse treatment. This document is not legal advice and should not be used as a substitute for obtaining professional legal advice. The purpose of this paper was to provide an up-to-date report examining consent and decision-making authority for adolescent drug treatment and to expand on Lallemont et al. To show this consent, the minor may provide a letter from a governmental or nonprofit homeless service agency, local educational agency McKinney-Vento homeless liaison, school social worker or counselor, or an attorney, among other forms of proof. Presumably, the laws that qualify for the except as otherwise provided by law exception are federal and state laws, both constitutional, statutory and common. Utilization of private child and adolescent services: Ethical considerations. Unaccompanied homeless status can be documented by a local educational agency McKinney-Vento homeless liaison, shelter, social worker, or court. The limitation was noted in the results for the following three restrictions: 1) minor consent was allowed for treatment, but parental notification of the minors admission was required; 2) minors consent for drug treatment was allowed but only for observation and diagnosis or for a specified period of time after which parental consent was required; and 3) minor or parent consent was allowed; however, if parents requested admission for their children, both the minor and parent had to consent for treatment. A minor may consent to the minors own health care if the minor is: (ii) Not dependent on a parent for support; (iii) Living apart from the minors parents or from an individual in loco parentis; and. Holder AR. Continuing the discussion: A commentary on Wilderness therapy: Ethical considerations for mental health professionals. 5 states require the involvement of legal counsel or a guardian ad litem. State Laws on Minor Consent for Routine Medical Care Consentto the performance upon or for anyminorby any licensed medical, surgical, dental, psychological or osteopathic practitioner or any nurse practitioner/clinical nurse specialist or any hospital or public clinic or their agents or employees of any lawful medicaltreatment, and to the furnishing of hospitalization and other reasonably necessary care in connection therewith, may be given by: (5) Aminoror by any person professing to be serving as temporary custodian of suchminorat the request of a parent or guardian of suchminorfor the examination andtreatmentof (i) any laceration, fracture or other traumatic injury suffered by suchminor, or (ii) any symptom, disease or pathology which may, in the judgment of the attending personnel preparing suchtreatment, if untreated, reasonably be expected to threaten the health or life of suchminor; provided, however, that theconsentgiven shall be effective only after reasonable efforts shall have been made to obtain theconsentof the parent or guardian of saidminor. Even more troubling, a child caught in the middle who needs mental health treatment may not get it timely or effectively. A parent who does not have legal custody, whether sole or joint, will generally have limited rights with respect to their minor child such as limitations regarding the authorizing or consenting to care and accessing the medical or mental health records of the child.
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