2026 Ethics Framework for Case Managers, Rehab Counselors, Disability Managers, and Addiction Professionals (ET2026)
Author(s): Patsy Barnes, RN, BA
Pre-Approved for: ACM, CA BRN, CCAPP, CCLCP, CCM, CDMS, CE Broker Provider, CLCP, CMCPS, COPS-KT, CRCC, CVE, CVRP, Delaware BON, MSCC, RNs
Credit Hours: 2
Course Format
This course is online. All course material is available online and is accessible immediately after purchase from your account homepage. Certificate of Completion is available immediately upon passing the exam.
Course Overview
This class will familiarize the students with basic ethical principles and theories, presenting a six-step guide to ethical decision-making for addressing such issues. It will also present the Codes of Conduct for CDMS, CRC, CCM, and Addiction Professionals regarding common ethical dilemmas, including conflict of interest, dual relationships, and confidentiality for those particular areas of practice. Autonomy is the basis for Western medical ethics as well as informed consent. Physician-assisted suicide is being legalized in many states and presents ethical dilemmas for healthcare providers, and is presented here. Dementia as a diagnosis makes ethical principles look differently, and there are cases to illustrate that point.
Course Objectives
- Describe the four major ethical principles and major ethical theories.
- Present ethical considerations, including veracity, fidelity, slippery slope, and double effect.
- Explain the ethical theory of utilitarianism, the benefit-to-burden ratio, and paternalism.
- List the six steps in the ethical decision- making model and practice those six steps using the case study provided.
- Contrast moral, ethical, and legal ideas and how they affect practice in healthcare.
- Reference how the particular Ethical Code of Conduct guides the CRC, CDMS, CCM, and Addiction Professionals in ethical dilemmas about conflict of interest, boundary issues, and confidentiality.
- State the responsibility of the CDMS, CRC, CCM, and Addiction Professionals in those various ethical dilemmas.
- Discuss the implications of ethical dilemmas in social media and the dangers of those dilemmas for healthcare professionals.
- Discuss the principle of autonomy and its limitations.
- Physician-assisted suicide: ethical considerations.
- Dementia and Ethics
Course Outline
- Ethics Framework
- Moral, ethical, and legal differences
- Steps in Ethical Decision Making
- Conflicts of Interest
- Boundary Issues
- Privacy and Confidentiality
- Ethical Behavior in Social Media
- Autonomy and Its Requirements and Limitations
- Ethics of Physician-assisted Suicide
- Dementia and Ethics