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FAQ: Do service dogs have to be accommodated in a physician's office?

Physicians are asked to accommodate service dogs in their offices with increasing frequency. The law generally requires a place of public accommodation, like a physician's office, to permit service dogs where customers would normally be allowed so long as providing the accommodation is reasonable and necessary. However, what constitutes a service dog is not always obvious as many people also have companion animals or emotional support animals they wish to bring. The law does not require companion animals to be accommodated in the same way as service animals. To help ...

Act now to protect yourself under the Physician Payment Sunshine Act

By taking four easy steps now, you can make sure you're prepared when it's time to review your 2013 financial data before it's published online later this year.   Under the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, drug and medical device manufacturers started tracking their financial interactions with licensed physicians – including consulting fees, travel reimbursements, research grants and other gifts – beginning Aug. 1, 2013. Any payments, ownership interests and other “transfers of value” will be reported to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for publication in an online database ...

Medical board says it is not responsible for 'daily deal marketing cease and desist' letters sent to physicians

The Medical Board of California issued a statement last week that it did not author a letter apparently coming from its  Discipline Coordination Unit warning physicians to immediately "cease and desist " from conducting any daily deal marketing arrangements with sites such as Groupon, Living Social  and Amazon. A number of California physicians have called the medical board stating that they have received these letters dated November 6, 2013, on the medical board’s masthead.   These letters are fraudulent and were not generated by the medical board. When the medical board ...