{"id":391745,"date":"2025-12-09T17:12:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T17:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/physician-health-programs-skirt-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-according-to-the-journal-of-american-physicians-and-surgeons\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T17:12:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T17:12:00","slug":"physician-health-programs-skirt-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-according-to-the-journal-of-american-physicians-and-surgeons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/physician-health-programs-skirt-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-according-to-the-journal-of-american-physicians-and-surgeons\/","title":{"rendered":"Physician Health Programs Skirt the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

TUCSON, Ariz., Dec. 09, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Physician Health Programs (PHPs) are supposed to help physicians with addiction problems recover, while protecting public safety. All too often, however, physicians are subjected to costly, burdensome, and unnecessary treatments, and regardless of successful treatment forever labeled \u201cunclean,\u201d writes\u00a0Lawrence Huntoon<\/a>, M.D., Ph.D., in the winter issue<\/a> of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), he writes, professionals should not be discriminated against based solely on a past history of a substance use disorder after successful treatment, maintenance of recovery, and no evidence of impairment. However, health professionals are considered \u201csafety-sensitive\u201d workers. The subjective interpretation of the terms \u201cpotential impairment\u201d or \u201cpotential for harm\u201d result in lowering the threshold for taking action against the worker and are thus subject to abuse.<\/p>\n

The Federation of State Physician Health Programs (FSPHP) seeks to establish itself as the sole accrediting organization. Programs that meet their \u201cstandard of care\u201d are likely to be highly remunerative, Dr. Huntoon points out. Physicians may be forced to endure a costly months-long inpatient stay at a remote \u201cpreferred\u201d facility at their own expense\u2014even if they were given a false diagnosis, Dr. Huntoon notes. Long-term intensive monitoring may also be required. Physicians may lose their ability to practice because of the stigma.<\/p>\n

The ADA might offer some protection, but it is a very complicated area of the law. Dr. Huntoon recommends that engaging the services of an ADA-knowledgeable attorney early on may stop the process before irreparable harm is done. His article describes cases in which successful legal arguments have been made in demonstrating violation of ADA based on disability discrimination.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons<\/em><\/a> is published by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)<\/a>, a national organization representing physicians in all specialties since 1943.<\/p>\n

Contact: Jane M. Orient, M.D., (520) 323-3110, janeorientmd@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TUCSON, Ariz., Dec. 09, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Physician Health Programs (PHPs) are supposed to help physicians with addiction problems recover, while protecting public safety. All too often, however, physicians are subjected to costly, burdensome, and unnecessary treatments, and regardless of successful treatment forever labeled \u201cunclean,\u201d writes\u00a0Lawrence Huntoon, M.D., Ph.D., in the winter issue of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":391746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ml.globenewswire.com\/media\/YjQ5YjU0YmQtY2JlOC00M2M0LWI3YjEtZmU4ZmYxZmEzZWViLTEwMzM1MTctMjAyNS0xMi0wOS1lbg==\/tiny\/Association-of-American-Physic.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57166],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-globenewswire"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailybanglanewspapers.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}