Busting Myths About Mandatory Reporting
About the Author
Dr Anne Tonkin AO is the Chair of Medical Board of Australia. In 2023, Dr Tonkin was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for her distinguished service to medical professional regulation, to tertiary education, and to clinical pharmacology.
There’s a lot of misinformation doing the rounds about mandatory reporting. But the facts are clear: managing your health condition by seeking care and help when you need it is the best way to avoid a mandatory report.
I am always disturbed to hear reports that any doctor has put off seeking health care, out of fear they will face a mandatory report to the Medical Board.
In reality, the opposite is true. It is much riskier to avoid seeking care than to get care when you need it. Not treating a health condition increases your risk of impairment – which is one of the few reasons a doctor with a health condition would need to be reported to the Medical Board.
Under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (the National Law), there are four concerns that may trigger a mandatory notification:
- Impairment
- Intoxication while practising
- Significant departure from accepted professional standards
- Sexual misconduct
Impairment is a long way from ill health. Seeking support and clinical care to help you manage your health condition early will help prevent it from escalating into an impairment that puts you and/or your patients at risk.
If you’re treating another health practitioner, there is a high threshold for making a mandatory report about them. The law was designed to give practitioners the confidence to seek help without fear.
The threshold for a treating practitioner to make a mandatory report is very unlikely to be reached by a doctor with anxiety, depression, diabetes, an eating disorder, or most other health conditions. While these conditions may well impact your professional and personal life and wellbeing, they rarely put the public at risk.
Only when your treating practitioner believes your ongoing practice poses a substantial risk of harm to the public (or when sexual misconduct is involved), are they obliged to make a mandatory notification about you. It’s worth noting that if you and your treating doctor decide you will not practise until you get well, no report will be required.
We all know the COVID-19 pandemic further increased the pressure on health practitioners and seriously challenged our health and wellbeing. Add to that workload pressures and budget constraints, and it takes a lot of effort to keep well.
So – my starting point is reassurance. I want to encourage you to seek the care and support you need to stay well. It is in everyone’s best interests – most importantly, your own. Seeking care is very, very unlikely to lead to a mandatory report.
My next point is reassurance. Even if (or when) you are the subject of a complaint – and this is increasingly common given the increased global rise in complaints (notifications) about health practitioners – the vast majority are closed with no regulatory action. What many practitioners fear as a threat to their career and identity, in most cases ends without any restriction on a doctor’s registration or practice.
My third point is reassurance. As a regulator, one of our important jobs is to keep patients safe and properly manage the issues that have brought practitioners in front of us. At the same time, we’re putting a lot of effort into making sure our processes don’t make it harder for practitioners. The regulatory scrutiny already makes it hard enough.
In 2022, AHPRA established a Health Management Team (HMT) to manage all health-related notifications, which is already resulting in significant improvements at crucial stages of the regulatory process.
My final point is a plea: Please seek professional care and support for your health when you need it.
As a profession, doctors are notoriously reluctant to seek help. To support doctors to manage their health, the Board funds Doctors4Doctors, an Australia-wide independent service for doctors, designed by doctors. It is dedicated to promoting the health and wellbeing of doctors and medical students across Australia.
Practising medicine can be both rewarding and tough. It is both responsibility and privilege. Taking care of our health and well-being is one of the best ways to get the most out of our work as doctors, and to give our patients the best care we can.
Stay well.
More resources for health practitioners are published here.
This article was written from an Australian perspective. Many, if not most, of the statements are mirrored with respect to the health of practitioners in New Zealand. Please view www.mcnz.org.nz for further details.