Liaising with Health Professionals

Liaising

When treating clients who are currently receiving medical treatment it is sensible and responsible to liaise with their doctor or consultant plus any health professional or complementary therapists they are seeing. So, when do we liaise or not and how?

If you were to send away every client who is unwell until a doctor’s letter of consent to massage is returned you would lose a lot of clients and you might even wait forever. If you are presented with red flags then yes, an absolute must to receive consent. The only problem is many doctors don’t know the effects of massage therapy. Informing or consulting with medical practitioners and other therapists about our practice or requesting advice, puts us in a position where we take ourselves seriously and expect to be taken seriously by other professions.

Reasons for liaising

1. Courtesy
2. To foster good relations between professions
3. To work as a team for the client’s best interests
4. Possible insurance purposes
5. To request information

Communicating is a good way to build strong relations, informing other practitioners you are working with the client. The client then gets the best possible care. You may want to ask for advice and ask their opinion or contact the practitioner to discuss your treatments (obviously getting consent from the client).

For insurance purposes liaising with a medical practitioner can protect you especially if there was a claim that your treatment aggravated a medical condition. The counter claim could be argued more effectively if there had been medical contact.

How to liaise

Bearing in mind all information given to you is confidential. If you decide to communicate with another practitioner, you must discuss this with your client, giving clear reasons for your decision and gain your clients consent.  You could ask your client to inform their GP that they have started massage treatment. This is however very informal and can be a problem. You will have no written evidence of this, merely work of mouth.

You could write to the practitioner as a standard letter with the information that you are currently seeing their patient and to request if there are any reservations or observations. Keep a copy on file and copy any responses. Another approach is to write a more comprehensive letter requesting information about the advisability of massage e.g. a stroke case or recent heart attack.

If a client refuses permission to liaise you have two choices.

Choice one, don’t treat the client if you have serious doubts either about the advisability of massage for a particular medical condition or have doubts about your own experience and competence to massage safely. Explain your reservations and possibly refer to another practitioner.

Choice two, ask the client to sign a medical disclaimer, to the effect that they refused permission to consult with their doctor and they take full responsibility for their medical condition and any changes resulting in having a massage. Be aware, you will have responsibility for the treatment including anything detrimental that could happen and a written disclaimer holds no weight if a malpractice case was to be brought by the client.

When to liaise

Using your common sense in each situation will determine this.  Your course will have covered contraindications and conditions needing the advisability of massage. If in doubt ask an experienced colleague, professional organisation or your training college and of course ask your client’s consent.

Some examples when to inform the doctor:

• Unhealed fractures
• Muscular Dystrophy
• Severe widespread skin disorders
• Severe respiratory disorders
• Nervous system disorders
• Emotionally vulnerable
• Cancer
• Diabetic, thyroid and other endocrine disorders
• Disorders of large intestines
• Gall and kidney stones
• Heart/circulatory disorders

By liaising with other professionals you will in still confidence in your clients of your ability and add a new dimension to your treatments. You can never stop learning.