The dentist must do only those things consented to by the patient:
Consent is defined as permission given to perform recommended treatment. Documentation is the best way to avoid legal problems with patients. No matter how many consent forms are signed by a patient, the court will take into consideration that most people put their signatures on a piece of paper without fully understanding what they are agreeing to. And dental terminology feels very foreign to patients which a judge will also take into consideration.
There are FIVE requirements that make consent valid:
1. The consenter must be legally competent
- Remember an under-aged person is not legally competent. It is common for parents to call in their consent as their children come in for treatment without their parent or guardian.
- My nephew went to a dentist for sealants, and after his treatment was completed his mother was presented with a $600.00 bill. Sealants generally run about $50.00 each and this was the quote my sister was presented with before the treatment started. However, once the dentist started the sealants, he found one of the teeth had quite a bit of decay and would need a root canal, stainless steel crown, and my nephew would require nitrous for the treatment. The dentist did not have parental consent to do this treatment, and had only to walk out to waiting room to speak with my sister, in order to get her consent, but instead chose not to.
- When a patient is seen by a dentist an implied consent is created that permits the dentist to treat the patient for whatever treatment they are there for. For example, the dentist treating my nephew had implied consent to do the sealants on my nephew, because that is what my nephew came in to have done. He did not have consent to do any other treatment.
- Often is dentistry the planned treatment takes a different direction. This is fairly common. In the case of my nephew the dentist probably started removing a small bit of decay that went far deeper than he expected and could not very well let his patient leave with a large hole in his tooth because a sealant was the planned treatment but was no longer the option. So he continued treatment and did not think to consult with my sister before doing the treatment. He is still liable for not getting consent. In this case there were options that the parent should have had a choice in. Such as having the baby tooth extracted and a space maintianer placed instead of the expense of a root canal and stainless steel crown. Also the dentist used nitrous oxide on my nephew without consulting with my sister first and then charged for the nitrous, which was not a common practice at that time. This dentist chose to overlook the parental consent on a few levels.