What Do I Include In A COVID Disclaimer?
by Lindsay Roadnight
last updated: 01/08/2021
This is Part 6 of a 6 Part mini-series on things to consider when thinking about returning to face to face sessions.
The last thing to put in place is a COVID agreement between yourself and your clients. Some practitioners may wish to include this in their standard contract, for others it might be a separate document.
For me, the key with this document is transparency. This is where you get to detail the changes you’re making (or have already made) to your practice in order to resume face to face sessions. By producing this document you can show your clients (and any potential clients), that you’re serious about their safety.
Don’t be put off by legal terms such as ‘waiver’ or ‘disclaimer’. Anyone can write these documents, you don’t need years of legal practice and you don’t need to write them in jargon.
As a business owner, you have a duty of care towards your clients (and pretty much anyone else who comes into contact with your business). You cannot contract your way out of that duty of care. By having an agreement (disclaimer / waiver), what you’re saying is ‘this is what I’m doing’ and ‘these are my boundaries’. These documents are simply evidence of what you’re doing or what you plan to do. It also gives clients the chance to see what you expect from them.
In the current COVID era, the advice is constantly changing, and the one thing I would advise is that you include a statement to that effect. Something along the lines of ‘I am currently following the government advice and this advice will always supersede anything in this agreement’.
I would consider this to be a separate document from your risk assessment. You might refer to your risk assessment in it (and vice versa). But a Risk Assessment is generic to your practice and is not unique to an individual client. This agreement should be signed by yourself and your client and will become part of that client’s paperwork. Therefore, it will be subject to GDPR legislation.
By joining the mailing list, you can download a template COVID agreement, which is the perfect document to get you started on the wording and what to include for your agreement.
This article is part of a series ‘Returning to Face To Face Sessions‘. You can view the other articles in this series here:
- Part 1 – Thinking Of Returning To Face To Face Sessions
- Part 2 – How Do I Keep Myself And My Clients Safe?
- Part 3 – What About Insurance?
- Part 4 – What Are The Guidelines?
- Part 5 – How Do I Do A Risk Assessment?
- Part 6 – What Do I Include In A COVID Disclaimer?