Patient Rights

This is designed to acquaint you with your rights and responsibilities as a patient. Please notify a staff member or your physician if you have any questions

YOUR RIGHTS

1. Receive information about our organization, its services, its practitioners and providers, and patients’ rights and responsibilities.
2. Considerate and respectful care, recognition of dignity, and to be made comfortable. You have the right to be respected for your cultural, psychosocial, spiritual, and personal values, beliefs, and preferences.
3. Have family members (or other representative of your choosing) and your own physician notified promptly of your admission to the hospital.
4. Designate a representative to participate in care and treatment.
5. Know the name of the physician who has primary responsibility for coordinating your care and the names and professional relationships of other physician and non-physicians who will see you.
6. Receive information about your health status, course of treatment, prospects for recovery and outcome of care (including unanticipated outcomes) in terms you can understand. You have the right to effective communication and to participate in the development and implementation of your plan of care. You have the right to participate in ethical questions that arise in the course of your care, including issues of conflict resolution, withholding resuscitative services, and forgoing or withdrawing life- sustaining treatment.
7. Make decisions regarding medical care, and receive as much information about any proposed treatment or procedure as you may need in order to give informed consent or to refuse a course of treatment. Except in emergencies, this information shall include a description of the procedure or treatment, the medically significant risks involved, alternate courses of treatment or non-treatment and the risks involved in each, and the name of the person who will carry out the procedure or treatment.
8. A candid discussion of appropriate or medically necessary treatment options for your conditions, regardless of cost or benefit coverage.
9. Request or refuse treatment, to the extent permitted by law. However, you do not have the right to demand inappropriate or medically unnecessary treatment or services. You have the right to leave the hospital even against the advice of physicians, to the extent permitted by law.
10. Be advised if the hospital/personal physician proposes to engage in or perform human experimentation affecting your care or treatment. You have the right to refuse to participate in such research projects.
11. Reasonable responses to any reasonable requests made for services.
12. The right to have a spouse, domestic partner (including a same-sex domestic partner), family member, friend, or other support individual of the patient’s choice, to be present with the patient for emotional support during the course of stay, unless the individual’s presence infringes on others' rights, safety, or is medically or therapeutically contraindicated. The individual may or may not be the patient's surrogate decision-maker or legally authorized representative. The patient has the right to withdraw or deny such consent at any time, and to be informed of any clinical restriction or limitation on such rights.
13. Appropriate assessment and management of your pain, information about pain, pain relief measures, and to participate in pain management decisions. You may request or reject the use of any or all medication, if you suffer from severe chronic intractable pain. The doctor may refuse to prescribe opiate medication, but if so, must inform you that there are physicians who specialize in the treatment of severe chronic pain with methods that include the use of opiates.
14. Formulate advance directives. This includes designating a decision maker if you become incapable of understanding a proposed treatment or become unable to communicate your wishes regarding care. Hospital staff and practitioners who provide care in the hospital shall comply with these directives. All patient rights apply to the person who has legal responsibility to make decisions regarding medical care on your behalf.
15. Have personal privacy respected. Case discussion, consultation, examination and treatment are confidential and should be conducted discreetly. You have the right to be told the reason for the presence of any individual. You have the right to have visitors leave prior to an examination and when treatment issues are being discussed. Privacy curtains will be used in semi-private rooms.
16. Confidential treatment of all communications and records pertaining to your care and stay in the hospital. You will receive a separate “Notice of Privacy Practices” that explains your privacy rights in detail and how we may use and disclose your protected health information.
17. Receive care in a safe setting, free from mental, physical, sexual or verbal abuse and neglect, exploitation or harassment. You have the right to access protective and advocacy services including notifying government agencies of neglect or abuse.
18. Be free from restraints and seclusion of any form used as a means of coercion, discipline, convenience or retaliation by staff.
19. Reasonable continuity of care and to know in advance the time and location of appointments as well as the identity of the persons providing the care.
20. Be informed, by the physician, or a delegate of the physician, of continuing health care requirements following discharge from the hospital. Upon your request, a friend of family member may be provided with this information also.
21. Know which hospital rules and policies apply to your conduct while a patient.
22. Have your wishes considered, if you lack decision- making capacity, for the purposes of determining who may visit. Designate a support person to be present throughout the stay unless restricted by policy and to make decisions regarding visitation
23. Examine and receive an explanation of the hospital’s bill regardless of the source of payment.
24. Exercise these rights without regard to sex, economic status, educational background, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation or marital status or the source of payment for care.
25. File or voice a complaint, grievance about the organization, the care provided, or patient rights; and to receive a timely response without reprisal or prejudicial treatment.
26. Patient Advocate 936-639-7599
27. Texas Department of State Health Services 888-973-0022 or 800-753-2989 for TDD
28. The Joint Commission 800-994-6610 | E-mail: [email protected] | Fax: 630-792-5636

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Provide, to the extent possible, information about present complaints, past illnesses, hospitalizations, medications, and other matters. Patients and their families must report perceived risks in their care and unexpected changes in their condition to the medical provider.
2. To follow the plans and instructions for care you agreed on with your practitioners. This may include following the instructions of nurses and allied health personnel as they carry out the coordinated plan of care and treatment by the physician’s orders.
3. Keep appointments and when unable to do so, to notify the responsible medical care provider or medical facility.
4. Accept ownership for your actions, if you refuse treatment or do not follow the medical provider’s instructions.
5. Assure the financial obligations for your health care treatment are fulfilled as promptly as possible.
6. Follow all medical facility rules and regulations affecting care and conduct.
7. Be considerate of the rights of other patients and medical facility personnel. Be respectful of the property of other persons and of the medical facility

TO SPEAK WITH A PATIENT ADVOCATE CALL

Lufkin 936-639-7599
Livingston 936-329-8726
San Augustine 936-275-3446, ext. 221

Your Guide to Patient Rights and Responsibilities

Su Guía a los Derechos y Responsabilidades del Paciente

Discrimination is Against the Law

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