HeRMES
	Legal Basis

A frequent concern of those who enquire about HeRMES is whether this project is on firm legal footing. It is.

First of all, in the eyes of the law, medical students are no different from lay people — they do not have a license to practice medicine or exercise independent clinical judgment. This is why every patient encounter is presented to and reviewed by a licensed physician who is present on-site and will re-evaluate and/or modify plans at their discretion. If for some reason a supervising physician has to cancel a clinic at the last minute, we will not see patients that evening because there would be little we could do for them without a licensed provider available.

A second concern has to do with malpractice. Since the physician is ultimately responsible for all clinical activity on that evening, they are the only individual for whom malpractice is an issue. Most employers will not extend malpractice coverage to cover their employees while they are performing volunteer activities which are not sponsored by the employer. Additionally, malpractice insurance costs would be prohibitive for the small budgets of most free clinics.

However, in Illinois there exists a law which exempts licensed health care providers from civil liability if they provide their services without compensation at an established free clinic. Our supervising physicians are doing precisely that, and are therefore covered. (The law is 745 ILCS 49/30, the "Good Samaritan Act".)

It was in fact this issue which led to the reluctant termination of our first partnership, with the Vermilion Area Community Health Center in Danville, Illinois. While the partnership was fruitful, their recent conversion from a free clinic to a Federally Qualified Health Center (meaning they would accept Medicaid and would have to charge their uninsured patients something, albeit at a vastly reduced rate) meant the loss of malpractice coverage through the state exemption for our volunteer physicians.

HeRMES operates on clear legal footing; law exists in part to encourage valuable social and volunteer projects to take place, and HeRMES is but one example.