New TMDP Consent Form for 2020The Texas Medical Disclosure Panel (TMDP) has adopted changes to informed consent forms, which will take effect at the beginning of 2020. Ophthalmologists will use the new Disclosure and Consent for Medical Care and Surgical Procedures form. Beginning Jan. 1, a patient must sign the new version of the applicable form before a physician provides the care or procedure to have it presumed in a court proceeding that the physician obtained informed consent. The amended, adopted versions of the two forms, each in both English and Spanish, were published in the Texas Register on June 21. The 2020 English version of the medical care/surgical procedures form is available here, and the Spanish version is available here. The presumption physicians receive in court by having a patient sign the form is rebuttable in a court of law; if the patient did sign the applicable form prior to the care or procedure, the patient would have to prove in court that the information he or she received was insufficient. But if the physician does not get the patient’s signature on the informed-consent form beforehand, and the patient alleges that the physician didn’t make the required disclosures, the physician has the burden of proving he or she obtained proper informed consent. For the rest of this year, physicians must use the current versions of these forms to obtain informed consent and benefit from the presumption in court. Forms for both 2019 and 2020 are available on the Department of State Health Services' website here. In 2018, The Texas Medical Disclosure Panel (TMDP) approved changes to the lists of medical care and surgical procedures that require disclosure of specific risks and hazards. Effective August, 2018 as posted in the Texas Register on August 17, physicians providing these eye care services (list A, below) must disclose each of these specific risks and hazards to their patients or persons authorized to consent for their patients and to establish the general form and substance of such disclosure. List B names procedures requiring no disclosure of specific risks and hazards. Updated lists across all specialties are found on the Texas Department of State Health Services website.
RULE §601.2 Procedures Requiring Full Disclosure of Specific Risks and Hazards – List A (f) Eye treatments and procedures. (1) Eye muscle surgery.
(2) Surgery for cataract with or without implantation of intraocular lens.
(3) Retinal or vitreous surgery.
(4) Reconstructive and/or plastic surgical procedures of the eye and eye region, such as blepharoplasty, tumor, fracture, lacrimal surgery, foreign body, abscess, or trauma.
(5) Photocoagulation and/or cryotherapy.
(6) Corneal surgery, such as corneal transplant, refractive surgery and pterygium.
(7) Glaucoma surgery by any method.
(8) Removal of the eye or its contents (enucleation or evisceration).
(9) Surgery for penetrating ocular injury, including intraocular foreign body.
RULE §601.3 Procedures Requiring No Disclosure of Specific Risks and Hazards--List B (f) Eye.
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