First off, and I mean no offense because this is not taught well in any residency I've seen---
Doctors do have a responsibility to fill out disability forms.
There's two approaches to this. There's the simple type of evaluation that literally only takes the amount of time needed to fill out the form if you already know the patient. This is all that should be expected in a clinical sense. I've done hundreds of these types of evaluations. They only take me about 15-20 minutes of time and you could bill the patient for this work. This is assuming you already know the patient well.
There's there's the drawn out forensic-level evaluation where you may have to do extensive testing. This type of evaluation is out of the field of expertise for most physicians and I would strongly argue that this type of evaluation should be done by a forensic psychiatrist or psychologist, while the type of eval mentioned in the above paragraph could be done by a clinical doctor.
I just had a stable patient ask me to sign a form that states she is unable to pay off student loans from 5 years ago. There was also another patient that wanted me to write a letter to get out of paying tuition for not showing up to classes this last semester
Whopper's generic form for this type of BS.
"To whom it may concern,
Ms. Sarah Quell asked me to write a letter stating she was unable to pay off her loans from 5 years ago. My field of expertise is not in the field of finances or paying off tuition. I have informed the patient of this and see no point in why I have to write a letter to you about it.
Regards,
Dr. Whopper MD
Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in General and Forensic Psychiatry
Fellow of the American Board of Disability Analysts
Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
St. Louis University School of Medicine
Department of Neurology and Psychiatry"
Okay generic form #2 for work excuse.
"To whom iy may concern,
Mr. Harold Doll (friends call him "Hal") asked me to write a "sick note" for him today as an excuse to not go to work. He requested I do this over the phone. I cannot verify with reasonable medical certainty that he is actually suffering from something that necessitates he be excused from work because I did not see him in person. I informed him of my limitations in this regard.
Wish you all the best,
Dr. Whopper, MD
Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in General and Forensic Psychiatry
Fellow of the American Board of Disability Analysts
Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
St. Louis University School of Medicine
Department of Neurology and Psychiatry"
Better yet you just tell them what you're going to write ahead of time so you don't even have to freaking write in the first place, cause when you tell them what you will write they'll tell you not to do it anyway.
And guess what? It's all the RIGHT THING TO DO because you're not supposed to give a work excuse unless you have reasonable medical certainty to believe them.
Repeat: you should be writing disability evaluations of the simple clinical sort that should only take a few minutes and you could have them come in for a visit to do this to follow proper billing guidelines.
