Last Friday, June 28, the new amalgamated health colleges were formed.
Members of 11 professions who were previously regulated by their own colleges are now under the jurisdiction of two new colleges.
Chiropractors, Massage Therapists, Naturopaths, and Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioners and Acupuncturists are now regulated by the new College of Complementary Health Professionals of BC.
Dietitians, Occupational Therapists, Optometrists, Opticians, Physical Therapists, Psychologists, and Speech and Hearing Health Professionals are now regulated by the new College of Health and Care Professionals of BC.
In my last article, I gave an overview of what might be helpful for these professionals to think about to better understand and anticipate how their professional lives will be affected by this change.
This is the second in a series of four articles intended to help professionals get a better sense of what this change means now and in the future. The focus of this article is changes arising from the Bylaws of the newly amalgamated colleges (see here and here), and the legislation that created the colleges and the Bylaws: the Health Professions Act (the “HPA”).
I’m going to focus on two things of particular interest: One expanded requirement and one new requirement. These are things that you as a professional MUST do (and, accordingly, must be aware of).
Each college has its own set of new Bylaws. However, they are largely identical. In respect of the parts of the Bylaws that I’d like to highlight here, they are completely identical, so I’ll refer to them as one thing.
Duty to Report – the Power of More Registrants
If you are a professional under one of the new colleges, you are their registrant.
Before, your fellow registrants all held the same professional designation as you. This is no longer the case. Now, your fellow registrants consist of either 4 or 7 professions in total, including your own. The new colleges may now use this wider pool of registrants to their regulatory advantage.
The registrants themselves should be particularly aware of how this impacts their Duty to Report.
You have a duty to report the professional misconduct of your fellow registrants. Previously, that meant only your fellow Dietitians, Massage Therapists, Optometrists, Naturopaths, and so on. Now, you have a duty to report professional misconduct of ALL your new fellow registrants.
If, for example, you are a Physical Therapist on an inter-disciplinary health team with an Occupational Therapist, and you witness or otherwise become aware that the Occupational Therapist has engaged in professional misconduct, you now must report them. Failure to do so could be seen as professional misconduct unto itself.
As we lawyers love to say – govern yourself accordingly.
For the law itself, see section 32.2 of the HPA, and the definition of “Registrant” in section 1 of the Bylaws.
Regulation of Corporations
If you operate a business which provides the health services of one or more of the professionals under the new colleges, then at some point in the likely near future, you will be required to register your business as a Health Professions Corporations.
To my knowledge, neither of the colleges have begun the process of registration, so for now you are likely okay to continue business as usual. But, at least according to the letter of the law as it now stands, you must register your business with your new college and receive a permit in order to operate.
Aside from the administrative work required, the major change here is that the colleges have the power to revoke a permit if “in the course of providing services the corporation, its officers, employees or agents does anything that, if done by a registrant, would be professional misconduct” (HPA section 44(1)(a)). A Health Professions Corporation will not be able to operate without a permit.
This is another major change, but how it all rolls out and is implemented and enforced going forward is an unknown.
The colleges will likely be communicating to registrants about this is the near future. We will keep on top of how this develops, including how the policy of the Colleges develops in respect of investigating and disciplining businesses for the misconduct of its officers, employees or agents.
For the law itself, see Part 12 of the Bylaws and Part 4 of the HPA.
Jeremy Miller is a lawyer at GoodWin Law. Jeremy has worked in-house at two professional regulators, as both an investigator and lawyer. Jeremy brings a wealth of specialized knowledge about the internal workings of professional regulators to his current practice, in which he helps professionals navigate issues with their regulators.