The duty of cooperation refers to a regulated health professional’s obligation to cooperate with their College’s investigations and processes. A physician or other member who obstructs an investigation, fails to respond to lawful inquiries, withholds records, or misleads the regulator may face discipline for that conduct independently of the underlying concern that prompted the investigation.
In discipline proceedings, a failure to cooperate is frequently treated as a serious aggravating feature, because the regulatory system depends on candour and on members not impeding the College’s ability to protect the public. Allegations of this kind often appear alongside findings of professional misconduct and can influence the penalty imposed, including in cases that proceed by way of a joint submission on penalty.
Posts tagged Duty of Cooperation analyze Ontario discipline decisions in which a member’s cooperation, or lack of it, with the regulator was in issue.
A family physician was suspended for three months after failing to complete a patient’s insurance forms, release another patient’s records to their lawyer, and cooperate with the College’s investigation. A look at why unreturned records are treated as misconduct, and what discipline does and does not do for an injured patient.
An emergency physician was struck off after billing OHIP $125,353 for services he never rendered, including critical care and cardioversions with no record they ever happened, and then refusing to cooperate with the College’s investigation. A look at why records integrity and the duty to cooperate sit at the centre of physician accountability.
The Divisional Court affirms the OPSDT’s revocation of Dr. Trozzi’s licence. The Doré framework, the non-cooperation duty, and the limits of physician speech.
An Ontario tribunal ruled physicians have no Charter privacy interest in their patients’ records. Subsequent proceedings produced a 12-month suspension.
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