CPSO’s Board of Directors has approved an updated Ending the Physician-Patient Relationship policy, which sets out situations in which physicians may end relationships with patients and the steps they are expected to follow when doing so.

A number of key updates have been made to the policy, including setting out three high-level reasons a physician may end a relationship with a patient:

• where there has been a significant breakdown in the relationship;
• where the physician is no longer able to provide quality care to the patient; and
• where the physician wishes to decrease their practice size. 

The policy has also been updated to:  

• clarify that physicians are not expected to meet certain provisions where they do not feel safe doing so due to a risk of harm posed by a patient to them, their staff, or others; and 
• remove the expectation that physicians help patients find a new physician when they end a relationship with the patient. 

The accompanying Advice to the Profession companion document provides a sample termination letter that physicians can use when ending relationships. It also provides guidance on key issues related to ending relationships with patients, including considerations for physicians when thinking about ending a relationship, how to navigate a situation where a patient chooses to end the relationship with a physician, and resources for helping to manage difficult patient encounters.