Question: Our hospital is about to enter into a professional services contract with an anesthesia group. Can we require, as a part of this contract, the anesthesia group to test its physician employees who will be providing care at our hospital for drugs and alcohol?
Answer: A hospital can require testing for drugs and alcohol in hospital-based contracts, such as professional services contracts with anesthesia groups. However, since hospital-based contracts are usually between the hospital and the group/corporation and not with the individual physicians of the group, any requirement in the hospital’s professional services contract with the group may not be enforceable against the group’s individual physicians. Specific contract language can address these difficulties and ensure that the group is requiring drug testing for its individually employed physicians. For example, the hospital’s contract with the group can state that each of the group’s physicians, as a condition of providing services at the hospital under the contract, shall be free from the influence or presence of alcohol or drugs and that this shall be determined by the group testing the physicians at the time of conditional offer of employment, following a reasonable suspicion of use or abuse, and upon return to work after a leave of absence for drug or alcohol treatment. This approach can be reinforced by requiring every member of the group to sign an agreement to be bound by all the terms of the hospital’s contract with the group.
A hospital and its medical staff can achieve a similar result by having drug and alcohol testing requirements in the bylaws or another medical staff policy. Since a group’s physicians would have to be appointed to the medical staff and granted clinical privileges to practice at the hospital, the group’s physicians would have to comply with any requirements in the bylaws or other policies, including those for drug and alcohol testing.
For further discussion of this issue and others related to drug testing physicians, join Linda Haddad and Charlie Chulack for the audio conference “Drug Testing Physicians: Does Physician Privacy Trump Patient Safety?” on October 29, 2013 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time.