Do you offer your patients a glass of wine or beer to relax before their appointment? Right... We didn’t think so!
But apparently this became an issue in Texas, which prompted a state legislator to introduce a bill that health care practitioners and their employees or agents cannot “provide or otherwise make available to a patient or to a person accompanying the patient in the health care practitioners’ office, including the patient’s parent or guardian, an alcoholic beverage subject to regulations under the Alcoholic Beverage Code.” The bill excludes “alcohol when used as, or contained in a drug for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of illness, injury or disease.”
As one commentator points out for the Austin American-Statesman, you can’t count a beer even if it makes you feel better!
Alcohol service in dental offices became an issue after a dentist, who is no longer a dentist for other reasons, offered alcoholic beverages to patients. It should be mentioned he voluntarily surrendered his dental license last year and drew a smiley face next to his signature.
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