Last Treatment Rule Law and Legal Definition
Last treatment rule refers to a legal doctrine which says that a medical malpractice begins to run when an on-going physician-patient relationship ends. The purpose of the last treatment rule in medical malpractice actions is to permit a patient to continue treatment with a physician after the commission and discovery of misfeasance with the hope that the resulting problem may be remedied without recourse to legal proceedings. The last treatment rule is believed to foster better physician-patient relationships.
However, the essence of the last treatment rule is that the cessation of the ongoing patient-physician relationship marks the point where the statute of limitations begins to run. [Heisler v. Rogers, 113 Mich. App. 630 (Mich. Ct. App. 1982)].
