As of Oct. 1, healthcare providers in Montana cannot ask patients if they own or have access to a firearm as a condition of providing care.
The recently signed law stipulates treatment cannot be withheld from any patient if the patient reports having access to a firearm or refuses to disclose that information.
The practice of asking patients about firearm ownership is common, according to a KXLF report. "I ask people a lot of the time if they have access to firearms and the people that I ask if they have access to firearms are the people that I'm worried about using them in an improper way," Andy Coil, DO, an emergency department physician at St. Peter's Hospital in Helena, Mont., told KXLF.
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