Professional Conduct, Ethics, and Mandatory Reporting
The conduct baseline
Alabama expects chiropractors to practice within scope, maintain competence, keep accurate records, obtain informed consent, and avoid exploitation of the practitioner-patient relationship. Boundary violations, including sexual contact with a patient, are among the most serious ethical breaches and are treated as unprofessional conduct. Financial arrangements that create conflicts, such as improper self-referral or fee-splitting, also draw scrutiny.
Mandatory reporting
Certain persons must report specified events. For licensees, the recurring themes are reporting suspected child abuse or neglect, reporting suspected abuse of vulnerable adults, and reporting to the Board matters such as impairment or serious misconduct of colleagues where the law or rules require it. Public health reporting duties, such as for reportable communicable diseases, also attach. Know that reporting duties are personal and are not satisfied by informing a supervisor.
Traps to watch
- Questions that treat confidentiality as a bar to reporting. Mandatory reporting statutes override ordinary confidentiality.
- Items suggesting a licensee may handle an impaired colleague informally and skip reporting. The safe course is to report and let the Board assess.
- Confusing the standard of proof in a Board matter with the criminal standard.
Rule of thumb
When a fact pattern raises a reporting trigger, choose the answer that reports to the designated authority within the required time. Silence is almost never the correct option in a mandatory reporting item.