What are the legal obligations for a private practice MD in the US to render care?

[astro]

In reading this fark thread based on this news story, it seems many people think a medical doctor is legally obligated to render care to whoever walks into their waiting room.

What’s the straight dope on this? What laws govern the choices a doctor can make about rendering care?

[Gfactor]

Principle VI of the AMA’s Code of Medical Ethics states the following:

“a physician shall, in the provision of appropriate patient care, except in emergencies, be free to choose whom to serve, with whom to associate, and the environment in which to provide medical services.”

Springing from that Principle, AMA Council of Ethical and Judicial Affairs Opinion 8.11, “Neglect of Patients,” specifies that, although physicians are free to choose whom to serve, they should “respond to the best of their ability in cases of emergency where first aid treatment is essential.”

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It generally is acknowledged that a physician has no duty, absent constitutional or statutory requirements, to render care unless he or she has agreed to do so. This premise was brought to us through the common law and serves as a foundation of US jurisprudence. A physician may find, however, that he or she has created a doctor-patient relationship, and thus is obligated to care for the patient, even when the physician had not thought that he or she had created such a relationship.

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