Do you know your rights as a hospital patient?
Being in the hospital is one of the most vulnerable circumstances a person can be in. You’re at the mercy of IV drips, hectic schedules of an array of medical professionals and a treatment plan that others are deciding for you and performing on you.
While there is no nationwide bill of patient rights, there are federal and state regulations that dictate the rights you have as a hospital patient. This also means your rights as a hospital patient can change depending on new laws and statutes at the federal and state levels.
Read on to learn the most updated rights of a hospital patient, which can empower you to make decisions you feel are best for your care.
1. Right to Know
The right to know, commonly referred to as informed consent, means you have the right to continually be informed about your health status and treatment.
While every doctor hopes to provide fully informed consent, doctors aren’t always perfectly effective communicators, says Dr. Lindsey Ulin, a palliative care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
“We don’t have as much time to spend with each patient as we’d like, sometimes use too many medical terms or we get caught up in numbers from test results,” she explains. “Understandably, this can lead to patients leaving the office feeling unheard and with more questions than answers.”
In a hospital setting, one of the first orders of business is handing patients a stack of paperwork — or an iPad — to sign, including various consent forms. Teri Dreher Frykenberg, a Monson, Massachusetts-based nurse and the founder of NurseAdvocateEntrepreneur.com, advises patients to thoroughly read these forms, if possible.
“Often in teaching hospitals, the consent form gives the attending provider the right to delegate surgeries to residents, instead of the doctor whom the patient believes is performing the procedure,” she explains.
If you would prefer to have a more experienced physician do the procedure rather than a resident in training, make sure to clarify your preferences when reviewing and signing the consent forms.
[See: What to Pack in Your Hospital Bag: A Checklist]
2. Right to Confidentiality of Health Information
The stack of hospital paperwork will also include forms related to the Privacy Rule of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or the federal law restricting release of medical information.
Generally, you need to authorize access for any individual to know your protected health information or access your medical records. The HIPAA paperwork you sign at the hospital gives permission for your health care team to share your protected health information with other members of the team when necessary for your care. For instance, your doctor might need to tell your nurse you have gallbladder surgery tomorrow, so your nurse can prep you for surgery. However, your doctor couldn’t tell a visitor, “Room 12 has gallbladder surgery tomorrow.”
There are a few common misconceptions about HIPAA, but the following statements are true:
— HIPAA does not protect your health information amongst non-covered entities. For example, if your landlord tells your roommate you need an emotional support animal because you have anxiety, HIPAA does not apply as they are a non-covered entity.
— HIPAA does not mean that your medical records are your property. You have a right to receive access to your hospital records, but they are property of the hospital or doctor’s office, says Andrew Rader, an attorney and co-founder at Rader Law Group LLC in Coral Springs, Florida. “Still these records are about you, and they involve your personal private information,” so you have a right to ask for them, he adds.
— HIPAA violations are grounds to pursue legal action. If your provider faxed your medical records to the local bookstore instead of the neighboring clinic, for example, you can file a complaint online through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights.
[READ: How to Put Together a Family Medical History]
3. Right to Treatment Decisions
Not only do you have the right to know about your health status and treatment plan, you also have some autonomy in the way providers treat your condition.
“Our role as doctors is to partner with patients in shared decision-making,” Ulin says. “We want to provide the best care for our patients, and sometimes, our patients disagree with our recommendations, which is their right to do so. Patients know their bodies and stories best.”
[READ: When to Get a Second Opinion]
4. Right to Know Cost of Care
In 2022, the government issued the No Surprises Act, which requires all in-network facilities to provide a “good faith estimate” of the cost of your care.
A good faith estimate includes expected charges for scheduled health care items and services, including facilities fees, hospital fees and room and board provided by the provider or facility, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. There are a few exceptions to the No Surprises Act, including:
— Services provided at out-of-network facilities
— Care that isn’t covered under your insurance plan
— Scenarios where you sign a waiver agreeing to out-of-network charges, such as a planned surgery at an in-network hospital, where the anesthesia provider is out of network
CMS says if you didn’t get a good faith estimate, and you think you should have, submit a complaint to the No Surprises Help Desk.
5. Right to Emergency Care
The right to receive emergency care is a federal right under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. You may have also heard EMTALA referred to as the “patient dumping statute” — because it was enacted to prevent hospitals from “dumping,” or refusing to treat, patients who were unable to pay for care.
EMTALA ensures the following rights:
— You’re entitled to emergency services, regardless of your ability to pay.
— If you request treatment for a medical emergency, including active labor, you have the right to a medical screening examination.
— The hospital must give you treatment to stabilize you, or if they cannot, transfer you to another hospital that can.
HHS has also reaffirmed that hospitals are required to provide abortion care, if to stabilize a pregnant person in an emergency. This gets complicated with abortion regulations, however, because the federal government cannot enforce its interpretation of when EMTALA requires an abortion or how EMTALA interacts with state abortion laws.
6. Right to Complain
If you disagree with your care or feel your rights are being violated, you have the right to complain.
Here are some escalating steps you can take to exercise your right to complain:
— Talk to the hospital staff directly about your concerns.
— Seek out the hospital’s ombudsman or patient advocate.
— Submit a complaint through HHS or your state attorney general.
— Seek legal action regarding your care.
As a hospital patient, you expect your providers to abide by nonmaleficence, the ethical principle also known as “do no harm.”
To have a case of medical malpractice, Rader, who also specializes in catastrophic accidents and medical malpractice cases, says you must prove:
— The care you received is below the standard of care. Rader says some patients believe that they are entitled to the best care. However, “this is not true. Under the law, you are entitled to standard care, that is, what other reasonably prudent physicians would do under similar circumstances.”
— There was causation. This means that you have an injury that was a direct result of a medical error.
— There are damages. “Medical malpractice cases are extremely expensive, so often patients need to suffer catastrophic medical injuries to make the case economically viable for an attorney,” Rader says.
7. Right to Refuse Care
You have a right to refuse care, including leaving the hospital altogether. If you refuse certain medical treatments or leave the hospital, you will be asked to sign forms saying you know you are doing this against medical advice, or AMA.
Patients may opt to leave AMA because:
— They feel better and no longer believe a hospital course of treatment is necessary
— They disagree with the quality of their care or treatment plan
— They have financial concerns about remaining in the hospital and receiving treatment
However, you will not be able to leave AMA in the following circumstances:
— You are at risk of harming yourself or others
— You are legally detained, also called involuntary commitment
— You have a lack of decision-making capacity, which could be because of conditions such as drug intoxication or head trauma
— You have a medical decision-maker or legal guardian authorized to make this decision for you
Explore Top-Rated Hospitals Near You With U.S. News & World Report
Understand your rights as a hospital patient so you feel empowered to make decisions about your treatment. Hospital patient rights encompass many other areas, such as continuity of care after discharge and rights of psychiatric patients. For detailed information, check out rights as described on the website of your state’s board of health, or take a look at those from the American Hospital Association.
To find the best hospitals near you, check out U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of best hospitals. U.S. News evaluates nearly 6,000 hospitals each year for factors such as the complexity of care, number of patients treated and level of care a hospital is able to provide.
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Your Rights as a Hospital Patient originally appeared on usnews.com
