SB 518

Under Wisconsin's physician informed consent law, a physician who treats a

patient has a duty to inform the patient about treatment options. A physician who

fails to so inform a patient about modes of treatment may be held civilly liable for

damages under tort law. This common law duty, as it relates to physicians, has been

codified as a statutory duty.

In the case

Hannemann v. Boyson

, 2005 WI 94, the Wisconsin Supreme Court

wrote that this duty to inform a patient about treatment options was not necessarily

limited to physicians, and the court held in

Hannemann

that a chiropractor had such

a duty to inform a patient. The duty, as it relates to chiropractors or any other types

of health care professionals other than physicians, has not previously been codified

as a statutory duty.

2013 Wisconsin Act 111

modified the codified duty of physicians to inform a

patient about treatment options in a number of ways, including: 1) providing that

the "reasonable physician standard," as defined in the act, is the standard for

informing a patient and 2) providing that the physician's duty does not require the

disclosure of information about alternate medical modes of treatment for any

condition the physician has not included in his or her diagnosis at the time the

physician informs the patient.

This bill codifies into the statutes a similar duty to inform a patient about

treatment options with respect to the following types of health care professionals:

1) chiropractors; 2) dentists; 3) podiatrists; and 4) optometrists.

Specifically, the bill provides that any chiropractor, dentist, podiatrist, or

optometrist who treats a patient must inform the patient about the availability of

reasonable alternate modes of treatment and about the benefits and risks of these

treatments. The bill provides that the reasonable chiropractor, dentist, podiatrist,

or optometrist standard, whichever is applicable, is the standard for informing a

patient under that duty. The bill provides that this standard requires disclosure only

of information that a reasonable chiropractor, dentist, podiatrist, or optometrist

would know and disclose under the circumstances. The bill provides that a

chiropractor's, dentist's, podiatrist's, or optometrist's duty to so inform the patient

does not require disclosure of any of the following:

1) Detailed technical information that in all probability a patient would not

understand.

2) Risks apparent or known to the patient.

3) Extremely remote possibilities that might falsely or detrimentally alarm the