If your Texas practice offers functional, integrative, longevity, or other complementary and alternative treatments, you’ve probably heard about the Texas Medical Board’s updated CAM consent requirements.

And if you’ve tried reading through the regulations yourself, you may have walked away with more questions than answers.

Does this apply to my practice?

Which treatments require consent?

Do I need a new consent every time?

And how am I supposed to fit one more form into an already busy patient visit?

Let’s simplify it.

First, What Exactly Is CAM?

CAM stands for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

In Texas, alternative medicine generally refers to treatments, therapies, or approaches that aren’t considered part of conventional medical care. Complementary medicine is when those approaches are used alongside conventional medicine.

That can potentially cover a pretty wide range of care.

And that’s important for physicians in functional medicine, integrative medicine, longevity, wellness, and other cash-based practices.

The question isn’t simply whether a medication, supplement, or treatment is FDA-approved.

You also need to consider how you’re using it, what you’re treating, and whether that approach is generally considered conventional medical care for that condition.

If you’re unsure whether a treatment in your practice falls under Texas CAM requirements, that’s a good conversation to have with your healthcare attorney or compliance advisor.

So, What Changed?

The Texas Medical Board updated its rules surrounding complementary and alternative medicine, with the new requirements taking effect in January 2025.

One of the biggest changes was the introduction of a standardized Complementary and Alternative Medicine Treatment Disclosure and Consent Form.

The important part for physicians is pretty straightforward:

Before providing CAM treatment, the physician and patient need to review and execute the required CAM disclosure and consent.

That consent also needs to become part of the patient’s medical record.

So this isn’t something you want to remember three days later while you’re catching up on charts.

It needs to be part of the actual treatment workflow.

What Are You Actually Documenting?

Think about the CAM consent less as “another form” and more as documentation of the conversation you’re probably already having with your patient.

You’re recommending a treatment.

Why?

What are you trying to accomplish?

What are the potential benefits?

What are the risks?

Are there conventional treatment options?

Could this treatment interfere with other care the patient is receiving?

What’s your plan for monitoring the patient?

Those are the kinds of questions the CAM consent is designed to address.

The Texas requirements include information about the patient’s condition, proposed treatment, relevant history, conventional treatment options, risks and benefits, the objective of treatment, regulatory status when applicable, and the patient’s individualized treatment plan.

In other words:

What are we treating, what are we doing about it, and does the patient understand the decision we’re making together?

That’s the heart of it.

Don’t Treat CAM Consent Like a Piece of Paper

This is where practices can make the process much harder than it needs to be.

If CAM consent lives somewhere outside your normal clinical workflow, someone has to remember to go find it.

Then someone has to fill it out.

Then someone has to make sure it’s signed or otherwise properly executed.

Then someone has to get it back into the medical record.

And every extra step creates another opportunity for something to get missed.

A better approach is to make CAM consent part of the same workflow you’re already using to document the patient’s diagnosis and treatment plan.

That’s exactly what we’ve done inside Esprē.

How Texas CAM Consents Work in Esprē

We designed Esprē’s Texas CAM Consent workflow around a simple idea:

You shouldn’t have to document the same patient encounter twice.

If the diagnosis and treatment plan are already in the chart, your CAM consent should work with that information instead of creating an entirely separate documentation process.

Here’s how it works.

Step 1: Tell Esprē Which Treatment Plans May Need CAM Consent

Start inside your Treatment Plan Configuration.

When you open a treatment plan, you’ll see a Texas CAM Consent setting.

Turn it on for treatment plans that may need to be included in CAM documentation.

This doesn’t mean that treatment automatically appears on every CAM consent. It simply makes the treatment available when CAM consent is appropriate for a particular patient.

So you can configure your common CAM treatments ahead of time while still making the final decision at the individual patient level.

Step 2: Build the Patient’s Visit Like You Normally Would

During the encounter, add the appropriate treatment plan to the patient’s chart.

You’ll also need an active diagnosis for that visit before creating the CAM consent.

If there isn’t one, Esprē will prompt you.

You can select an existing diagnosis and apply it to today’s visit or add a new diagnosis.

Once the visit has the necessary clinical information, you’re ready to create the consent.

Step 3: Create the CAM Consent

Go to the CAM Consent section of the patient’s chart and select Create CAM Consent.

Esprē can then use information already associated with the encounter, including the active diagnosis and applicable treatment plans, to begin building the consent for that patient.

That’s the key difference.

You’re not starting over with a blank form.

The consent is connected to the care you’re already documenting.

Step 4: Review It With Your Patient

This is still informed consent.

The software can make the process easier, but it shouldn’t replace the conversation.

Review the treatment with your patient.

Talk about why you’re recommending it.

Discuss the potential benefits and risks.

Make sure they understand their options.

Give them an opportunity to ask questions.

The technology handles the workflow.

You handle the relationship.

Step 5: Keep the Consent Connected to the Chart

Once the appropriate information has been reviewed and the CAM consent has been properly completed, it becomes part of the patient’s medical record.

Now your diagnosis, treatment plan, and CAM documentation aren’t living in three different places.

They’re connected to the patient and the encounter where the clinical decision was actually made.

The Goal Isn’t More Paperwork

When physicians first hear “new consent requirement,” it’s easy to hear:

More paperwork.

But the purpose behind CAM consent is something most good physicians are already doing.

You’re explaining the treatment.

You’re discussing the patient’s options.

You’re weighing risks and benefits.

You’re creating a treatment plan together.

The challenge is making sure that conversation is properly documented without turning it into another administrative burden.

That’s where your systems matter.

Because compliance is much easier when it’s built into the way you already practice.

And when the technology takes care of more of the documentation workflow, you can spend more of the visit doing what actually matters:

Listening to your patient, understanding their story, and helping them make an informed decision about their care.

---

This article is provided for general informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. Practices should consult qualified legal or compliance counsel regarding how Texas CAM requirements apply to their specific services and workflows.

---

CAM Consents Articles Used For Information

https://texashealthlaw.com/consent-requirements-for-complementary-and-alternative-medicine/

https://www.americanmedspa.org/news/texas-medical-board-clarifies-alternative-medicine-rules/

https://prospyrmed.com/blog/post/texas-medical-board-clarifies-complementary-alternative-medicine-rules-what-med-spas-and-integrative-clinics-must-do-now-2025

Help Article:

https://support.esprehealth.com/en/article/texas-cam-consents-18fhf4o

👉 See How Esprē Health Works

See the podcast that inspired this blog.

Disclaimer: This article is intended for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or legal advice. Clinicians should follow current evidence-based guidelines, regulatory requirements, and individual patient circumstances when making treatment decisions.