| (a) Grossly unprofessional conduct when applied to
a licensee or chiropractic, facility includes, but is not limited
to the following:
(1) maintaining unsanitary or unsafe equipment;
(2) failing to use the word "chiropractor," "Doctor,
D.C.," or "Doctor of Chiropractic, D.C." in all advertising medium,
including signs and letterheads;
(3) engaging in sexual misconduct with a patient within
the chiropractic/patient relationship;
(4) exploiting patients through the fraudulent use
of chiropractic services which result or are intended to result in
financial gain for a licensee or a third party. The rendering of chiropractic
services becomes fraudulent when the services rendered or goods or
appliances sold by a chiropractor to a patient are clearly excessive
to the justified needs of the patient as determined by accepted standards
of the chiropractic profession;
(5) submitting a claim for chiropractic services, goods
or appliances to a patient or a third-party payer which contains charges
for services not actually rendered or goods or appliances not actually
sold;
(6) failing to disclose, upon request by a patient
or his or her duly authorized representative, the full amount charged
for any service rendered or goods supplied.
(b) Sexual misconduct as used in subsection (a)(3)
of this section means:
(1) sexual impropriety, which may include:
(A) any behavior, gestures, statements, or expressions
which may reasonably be interpreted as inappropriately seductive,
sexually suggestive or sexually demeaning;
(B) inappropriate sexual comments about and to a patient
or former patient including sexual comments about an individual's
body or sexual comments which demonstrate a lack of respect for the
patient's privacy;
(C) requesting unnecessary details of sexual history
or sexual likes and dislikes from a patient;
(D) making a request to date a patient;
(E) initiating conversation regarding the sexual problems,
preferences, or fantasies of the licensee;
(F) kissing or fondling of a sexual nature; or
(G) any other deliberate or repeated comments, gestures,
or physical acts not constituting sexual intimacies but of a sexual
nature; or
(2) sexual intimacy, which may include engaging in
any conduct by a person or between persons that is intended to cause,
is likely to cause, or may be reasonably interpreted to cause to either
person stimulation of a sexual nature, such as:
(A) sexual intercourse;
(B) genital contact;
(C) oral to genital contact;
(D) genital to anal contact;
(E) oral to anal contact;
(F) oral to oral contact;
(G) touching breasts;
(H) touching genitals;
(I) encouraging another to masturbate in the presence
of the licensee;
(J) masturbation by the licensee when another is present;
or
(K) any bodily exposure of normally covered body parts.
(c) It is a defense to a disciplinary action under
subsection (a)(3) of this section if the patient was no longer emotionally
dependent on the licensee when the sexual impropriety or intimacy
began, and the licensee terminated his or her professional relationship
with the person more than six months before the date the sexual impropriety
or intimacy occurred.
(d) It is not a defense under subsection (a)(3) of
this section if the sexual impropriety or intimacy with the patient
occurred:
(1) with the consent of the patient;
(2) outside professional treatment sessions; or
(3) off the premises regularly used by the licensee
for the professional treatment of patients.
(e) Licensees must respect a patient's dignity at all
times and should provide appropriate gowns and/or draping and private
facilities for dressing and undressing.
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| Source Note: The provisions of this §75.1 adopted to be effective April 8, 1996, 21 TexReg 2538; amended to be effective August 2, 1998, 23 TexReg 7559; amended to be effective August 8, 1999, 24 TexReg 5869; amended to be effective February 16, 2012, 37 TexReg 687 |
