Employment Law Report

March 27, 2020

On March 23, 2020, the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services ordered all health care providers to cease all non-emergent, non-urgent in-person services and treatment, according to the following standards:

• Emergent: any healthcare service that, were it not provided, is at high risk of resulting in serious and/or irreparable harm to a patient if not provided within 24 hours;
• Urgent: any healthcare service that, were it not provided, is at high risk of resulting in serious and/or irreparable harm to a patient if not provided within 24 hours to 30 days; and
• Non-Urgent: any healthcare service that, were it not provided, is unlikely to result in any serious and/or irreparable harm to a patient if not provided for more than 30 days.

Clinicians are urged to consider whether the service provided would still be retrospectively deemed necessary if the patient were to become infected by coronavirus and suffer serious or irreparable harm as a result. Clinicians are also urged to use newly expanded telehealth methods to deliver services whenever possible.