As a healthcare professional, staying informed about ethical and legal responsibilities is not just a requirement, but a crucial aspect of providing the best care for your patients. I instruct a remote course that tackles these difficult issues - my course, Ethical Considerations from a Legal Lens is a comprehensive remote course taking place on November 17, 2024, that will delve into these important topics from the perspective of the pelvic health rehabilitation field.

Why does this topic matter?
Navigating the complex legal and ethical landscape can be challenging for healthcare providers, particularly in specialized areas like pelvic rehabilitation or even more niche subsets within pelvic health. This course is designed to help practitioners gain a deeper understanding of ethical decision-making while helping a provider feel more legal compliance to safeguard the patient’s well-being and the integrity of a provider’s practice.

During this course, you’ll interactively explore key concepts including:

• Patient confidentiality and informed consent in sensitive treatments like pelvic health
• Legal obligations that impact your practice and decision-making process
• Practical case studies to strengthen ethical problem-solving skills
• Strategies to reduce legal risks while delivering high-quality care

Whether you’re a physical therapist, occupational therapist, or another healthcare provider working in pelvic health, this course is an excellent opportunity to sharpen your ethical compass and protect your practice from potential legal pitfalls.

Who Should Attend?
This course is designed for all pelvic health professionals who want to:

• Refresh their understanding of ethical standards
• Stay updated on legal obligations
• Ensure compliance with state and federal regulations
• Strengthen their ethical decision-making skills

Whether you're new to the field or a seasoned professional, this course offers valuable insights that will enhance your ability to care for patients ethically and legally. This class offers a “think tank” of your peers to help problem-solve real-time ethical or legal issues you may be experiencing in your practice.

With evolving legal and ethical complexities, staying educated is key to practicing responsibly and avoiding potential issues. Join us on November 17 for this impactful course that will empower you with the tools to uphold ethical excellence in pelvic health.

Ready to take your practice to the next level?
Register today and ensure you’re prepared to navigate the ethical and legal challenges in your profession.

AUTHOR BIO:
Mora Pluchino, PT, DPT, PRPC

Mora Pluchino, PT, DPT, PRPC (she/her) is a graduate of Stockton University with a BS in Biology (2007) and a Doctorate of Physical Therapy (2009). She has experience in a variety of areas and settings, working with children and adults, including orthopedics, bracing, neuromuscular issues, vestibular issues, and robotics training. She began treating Pelvic Health patients in 2016 and now has experience treating women, men, and children with a variety of Pelvic Health dysfunction. There is not much she has not treated since beginning this journey and she is always happy to further her education to better help her patients meet their goals.

She strives to help all of her patients return to a quality of life and activity that they are happy with for the best bladder, bowel, and sexual functioning they are capable of at the present time. In 2020, She opened her own practice called Practically Perfect Physical Therapy Consulting to help meet the needs of more clients. She has been a guest lecturer for Rutgers University Blackwood Campus and Stockton University for their Pediatric and Pelvic Floor modules since 2016. She has also been a TA with Herman & Wallace since 2020 and has over 150 hours of lab instruction experience. Mora has also authored and instructs several courses for the Institute.

Faculty member, and Sr. TA, Mora Pluchino, PT, DPT, PRPC is a graduate of Stockton University with a BS in Biology (2007) and a Doctorate of Physical Therapy (2009). Mora authored and instructs Ethical Concerns for Pelvic Health Professionals and  Ethical Considerations from a Legal Lens.

• "I want to start my own practice but I'm not sure if I need to hire a lawyer to help!"
  
• "I have a problematic patient that I want to discontinue seeing, but don't want to be guilty of abandonment of care."
• "I am so confused by the types of clinical insurance that I am required to have!"
• "I want to hire an employee and include a non-compete clause in their employment contract!"
• "I want to start my own cash-based practice and need help with this process!"
• "I plan to market my practice for THIS population, is it legal to exclude THAT group of people?" 

With the end of 2022 approaching, now is the perfect time to take a pelvic health-focused ethics class. For many states, licensed professionals have to fulfill an ethics continuing education requirement, including physical therapists, occupational therapists, mental health, and many other healthcare providers. 

I started writing this series a year ago. I struggled to find a class to meet my biannual ethics requirement for New Jersey that was related to my practice in pelvic health. I soon realized that as a pelvic health provider and educator, the most popular questions that come up for practitioners, secondary only to specific treatment interventions, are ethical in nature. 

• "Is ________ ok?" 
• "What happens if ________ happens?"
• "Can a patient sue me for ______?"
• "How do I do ________ legally?"

Providers want to know that they are providing services that are legal and ethical. Even if you have never considered yourself as being overly concerned with the topic of ethics, you have probably had these thoughts. That was certainly the case for me! The further I fell down the rabbit hole of ethics, the more I realized it affects our day-to-day clinical life minute by minute. Ethics is the study of right versus wrong and how we make those personal qualifying decisions. So this covers everything from cleaning procedures, scheduling, patient care, and more!

Practitioners want to know that they will not be open to any legal action for the care and services provided. This usually requires more awareness and knowledge than just purchasing an annual liability insurance policy. Each provider and clinical environment has their own ethos, policies, and procedures, but there are also larger existing rules and laws to help guide providers to provide the best possible care.

In Ethical Concerns for the Pelvic Health Professional, we discuss the basics of doing no harm to our patients, obtaining informed consent, and decision-making based on different ethical models. The goal here is to send you to work immediately following this class feeling more confident in ethical labeling and decision-making. This class is a more global and essential look at the concept of ethics as applied to pelvic health. 

The sole purpose of Ethical Considerations from a Legal Lens is to explore the ethical challenges pelvic health practitioners may experience from a health law perspective. This course is for any pelvic health professional looking to build skills for ethical evaluation, problem-solving, and derivation of solutions with a specific focus on legalities and related concepts.

This series of ethics-related classes is meant to build your clinical character and problem-solving abilities in what feels like "sticky" situations and help to guide you to clinical and business decisions that make you feel comfortable at the end of a work day. 

To sweeten up this class series, each offering has an expert join the discussion on certain topics and case studies, to offer additional perspectives and points of view to the discussion. 

I am looking forward to having an open discussion about the ethical and legal considerations for our profession at the next offered class on December 10th, 2022!

Ethical Considerations from a Legal Lens

Course Dates:
December 10, 2022
June 3, 2023
November 12, 2023

Price: $175
Experience Level: Beginner
Contact Hours: 6

Description: This one-day remote course covers ethical considerations from a legal lens for professionals working in the area of Pelvic Health. In general, Health Care Professionals have many day-to-day ethical considerations to “do no harm.” This includes basic decisions for billing, patient care, safety, and compliance. Pelvic Rehabilitation comes with additional layers of vulnerability and ethical challenges, and the legalities of pelvic health can add further complications for patient care, business, and clinical practice decisions.

The purpose of this class is to explore the ethical challenges Pelvic Health Practitioners may experience from a health law perspective. This course is for any Pelvic Health Professional looking to build skills for ethical evaluation, problem-solving, and derivation of solutions with a specific focus on the legalities and related concepts. Prior to the live aspect of this course, participants will be asked to review the ethical framework and definitions via pre-recorded lecture and take Core Values Self Assessment. Live instruction will review applicable health laws and legal terms that converge with the pelvic health world. This will be followed by case study discussion in small groups, followed by a large group discussion with input from the instructor and a legal expert/ educator. The remainder of this course is meant to be a guided discussion through the legal and ethical struggles of the pelvic health practitioner.

Ethical Concerns for Pelvic Health Professionals - Remote Course

Course Dates:
January 29, 2023
September 16,2023

Price: $175
Experience Level: Beginner
Contact Hours: 6

Description:  This course is for any Pelvic Health Professional looking to build skills for ethical evaluation, problem-solving, and derivation of solutions, and explores the ethical challenges practitioners may experience including consent, managing trauma and abuse, and preventing misconduct. Prior to the live aspect of this course, participants will be asked to review the ethical framework and definitions via pre-recorded lecture and take Core Values Self Assessment. Live instruction will review the ways in which patients and practitioners can be vulnerable in the pelvic health treatment setting and how to address this. This will be followed by case study discussion in small groups, followed by large group discussion with input from the instructor and an ethics expert/ educator. The remainder of this course is meant to be a guided discussion through the ethical struggles of the pelvic health practitioner