Is recommending specific medications &quot;practicing with a license&quot;? My wife and I are receiving counseling about some marital issues. We met one time with the counselor, and my wife told him I'm depressed. He took that as fact without investigating, and pressed me to consider medication, listing several. He also did not ask about existing medications to consider interactions. As far as I know, this person has no medical license, but I'm planning to ask. If it's the case there's no license, has this crossed the line into practicing without a license? If so, what's the appropriate action to take? More generally, is there a way to tell when the line is crossed?
There is a world of legal difference between a doctor or counselor "pressing" you to consider meds and even suggesting several and them actually writing a prescription. The line to cross is a non-doctor writing you a prescription for prescription meds; this has not yet happened. And 99.99% of the time, it won't happen. The counselor is licensed by the state and will clearly know their legal limits, which are an important part of their education and licensing; they are not going to risk their license or a lawsuit by doing something illegal. If the counselor is a doctor and is able to write prescription, then they will ask you about medical history and other meds during a formal clinical visit in order to write the prescription. If you feel the counselor may be pressing you too hard to consider meds, he may be crossing an ethical line, but that's entirely different than breaking the law. Determining if he crossed an ethical line is for his licensing board to consider, not you. You can ask the licensing board how to proceed. Ask the counselor for their license number; they will freely give it and tell you who to contact.
health care checks. Hotel check in. Employment? maybe. Background Checks? doesn't matter. It actually does matter, because there is sometimes a law governing the documents that may be shown for a given purpose. For example, the I-9 form, for verifying someone's eligibility to accept employment in the US, has a well defined lists of documents that an employer must accept, and the passport card is one of those documents. A similar situation exists for Transportation Security Administration screening of air passengers. On the other hand, laws concerning proof of age for buying various products will vary from state to state, and retailers may or may not be required to accept any particular document. In the case of alcohol sales in North Carolina, for example, there is a brochure that lists "acceptable forms of identification" on page 17 and explicitly says that "passports may be in the booklet or card form." But that does not seem to create a legal requirement for the retailer to accept passport cards, because page 19 outlines the retailer's right to refuse, saying among other things that "there is no legal recourse by a customer who you have refused a sale." US passport law (22 USC Chapter 4 and 22 CFR parts 51 and 53) doesn't have anything to say about the passport's or passport card's role as an identification document; it speaks only of the more specific role as a travel document. So the general answer to your question, appears to be no. There is no law generally requiring people to accept a passport card if they also accept passports or driver's licenses. But in most specific instances, there may be a general requirement such as "government-issued identification" that includes passport cards in addition to passports and driver's licenses, or there may be a list that explicitly includes passport cards along with driver's licenses and passports.
Any parent may leave a child in the care of another responsible person. There is no special license required. The parent may use sound judgement in selecting the caretaker. Nor does a caretaker even have to be an adult -- teens are often used as baby sitters. If a reasonable parent would have known that a particular person was not a safe caretaker, then selecting that person might be negligence or child endangerment. Nor is there any legal requirement in most US states that a child be under anyone's direct supervision at all times. See "Free range parenting". Again, if in particular circumstances a reasonable parent should know that supervision is needed, failure to provide it might be child neglect or endangerment. Some US states set minimum ages for children to be unsupervised. NJ is not one, to the best of my understanding.
Yes, it’s legal Homeopathic “medicines” contain no active ingredients so they are effectively placebos. Placebo work for some patients some of the time but they don’t work if the patient knows what they are. For them to be effective they have to be kept secret. Most doctors from time-to-time and for various reasons prescribe placebos. The ethics of this practice is debatable but the legality isn’t - it’s totally legal.
Late to the party, but I'll answer anyways. In general, providers have a lot of wiggle room when sharing information with parents, on condition that the patient hasn't explicitly objected despite having opportunity to do so. HIPAA allows the provider to make a judgment call on whether such information can be shared without explicit consent: Quoting Title 45 § 164.510 : (i) Obtains the individual's agreement; (ii) Provides the individual with the opportunity to object to the disclosure, and the individual does not express an objection; or (iii) Reasonably infers from the circumstances, based the exercise of professional judgment, that the individual does not object to the disclosure. HHS does discuss disclosure to family members in their FAQ : A covered entity is permitted to share information with a family member or other person involved in an individual’s care or payment for care as long as the individual does not object. A parent of a child who has just turned 18 is likely still somewhat involved in the child's care, so, absent either an objection or a reason to believe the child would object if asked, sharing is probably not a violation.
We can look at Missouri law as an example. Missouri Statutes §577.029 says A licensed physician, registered nurse, phlebotomist, or trained medical technician, acting at the request and direction of the law enforcement officer under section 577.020, shall, with the consent of the patient or a warrant issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, withdraw blood for the purpose of determining the alcohol content of the blood, unless such medical personnel, in his or her good faith medical judgment, believes such procedure would endanger the life or health of the person in custody. Blood may be withdrawn only by such medical personnel, but such restriction shall not apply to the taking of a breath test, a saliva specimen, or a urine specimen. In withdrawing blood for the purpose of determining the alcohol content thereof, only a previously unused and sterile needle and sterile vessel shall be utilized and the withdrawal shall otherwise be in strict accord with accepted medical practices. Upon the request of the person who is tested, full information concerning the test taken at the direction of the law enforcement officer shall be made available to him or her. &quot;Shall&quot; means &quot;must&quot; – if there is a warrant (we assume there is no consent). Then the question is, what happens if the phlebotomist (etc) refuses? First, §577.031 immunizes the medical-person from legal liability when they act in compliance with a request from a LEO (a simple request, not necessarily accompanied by a warrant). §577.033 says that being dead, unconscious or otherwise incapable of refusing does not constitute withdrawal of consent (which is implied, by law). No specific penalty is prescribed for refusal to administer a court-ordered blood draw. There is no penalty for complying, there is no prescribed criminal penalty for refusing to comply with a court order (there is the possibility of a finding of contempt of court). Not every state is Missouri: I understand that Utah is different.
Not in jurisdictions I am familiar with. A "Power of attorney" is a power to act as an attorney-in-fact, not to act as an attorney-at-law. A layperson practicing law for someone other than herself is usually the unauthorized practice of law and is illegal in most jurisdictions. It would be permissible if a jurisdiction carved out an exception for a particular kind of case, but they generally don't and are very unlikely to do so in a criminal case. For example, in Washington State "Limited Practice Officers" can assist people with one of a very limited set of civil legal forms that do not need modification. There may be some exceptions, but they would be more likely to occur before a matter becomes criminal. For example, the accountant who represents a taxpayer before the IRS, or the agent who files a form containing perjury to a federal agency like the post office or homeland security on your behalf. So it is very unlikely, but if it is important to you you can ask someone familiar with your kind of case in your jurisdiction.
Health care providers in the US may send protected patient records to other health care providers for the purposes of treatment, either of the patient whose information it was or of a different patient (for instance, a doctor could send a chart of a different patient with a similar issue). This can be done without patient authorization, except for two cases: if the patient has requested more restrictions on use of their information and the provider agreed to those restrictions, and with psychotherapy notes. Source: HHS. WhatsApp specifically does not appear to be compliant with HIPAA, which is the US medical privacy law. However, there are many similar systems that are compliant. The body of your question asks about taking a smartphone screenshot; with many secure messaging systems, this is perfectly acceptable, and the principle of a doctor consulting with another doctor about a patient is actually encouraged. HIPAA violations do not by themselves result in any action against a medical license, nor can anyone besides the US government file suit based on a violation (everyone else is limited to complaining to the US government). Private lawsuits and (especially) license consequences are determined by state law, and are state- and situation-dependent. A doctor who calls a press conference to announce that this patient of his has HIV is more likely to face sanctions than a doctor whose violation was just not using a secure enough messaging client. HIPAA violations like this are not that uncommon, and generally result in at most a fine against the practice.