Patient's Bill of Rights
The Patient’s Bill of Rights
You are not simply a set of problems that need to be solved. You are a human being with rights.
This is the basic premise behind the Patient’s Bill of Rights, which was created in 1998 by the U.S. Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry.
This was an incredibly important development for patients (meaning ALL OF US,) in America. Prior to the creation of the Bill, there were no real rules in place for how the sick or injured should be treated, and the standard of care absolutely reflected that.
Patients were routinely chewed up and spit out by the HMO system, who to this day value profit margins over patient care. Patients weren’t adequately informed about their treatment and options, confidential patient information was guarded loosely if it was guarded at all, and patients requiring emergency services were financially penalized for not PRE-APPROVING them. And these were only some of the problems.
This is not to say that the creation of the Patient’s Bill of Rights reformed the industry overnight. Patients still have to battle tooth and nail with insurance companies over payment, and adjusters still engage in shady “wait them out” games with both patients and hospitals. But at least with the Bill we know where we are supposed to stand and we know how we are supposed to be treated.
What follows is a basic summary of the contents of the Patient’s Bill of Rights. If you or a loved one in Maryland, Washington D.C. or Northern Virginia feel that the standard of care that you received has not lived up to the premises laid out in the Patient’s Bill of Rights, contact the Silver Spring, Maryland injury law offices of Greenberg and Bederman.
Information Disclosure: This area of the Bill outlines exactly how you are supposed to be informed by your medical professional. There should be nothing vague about your treatment options. You should be told clearly in easy to understand terms the nature of your problem, its effects on your health and what your treatment options are. For more information on being properly informed as a patient in Maryland, follow this link.
Access to Emergency Services: You have to wonder what sort of country we live in when a patient in dire need of care has necessary treatment delayed because someone is worried about getting paid. That is now officially unacceptable behavior thanks to the Patient’s Bill of Rights. If you need emergency treatment, the first worry of the medical staff that is treating you should be administering that treatment. It is not acceptable for you to be financially penalized for not pre-authorizing that treatment. You might wonder how a person can be expected to see into the future to pre-authorize emergency care, but many insurance companies apparently believe that we are just too lazy to utilize our natural precognitive abilities. The refusal to pay for needed emergency treatment like ambulances or emergency surgeries on the grounds that they were not applied for in advance happens more often that you think. This is patently absurd, and the Bill points that out.
Participation in Treatment Decisions: You have the right to take part in deciding your course of treatment. You are not a passive recipient of health care. A doctor, HMO or insurance company might decide on what is easy or cost-effective rather than what is best for you if they are left to their own devices. Not only do you have a say in your course of treatment, but your immediate family has that right as well in the event that you are incapacitated.
Considerate and Respectful Care: Doctors, nurses or other staff have absolutely no right to discriminate against you based on your race, religion, age, sex, or any reason at all. Nor do they have the right to mock you or be inconsiderate of your feelings. Sarcastic comments from medical professionals might be great for television entertainment, but they have no place in the real world.
Confidentiality: Your health records are your own. They are not public information, and should not be made available to anyone except you and any medical professional that is directly concerned with your treatment. You also have the right to read your medical records and ask that alterations are made if you find something that is inaccurate.
Complaints and Appeals: You have the right to have any complaints that you have reviewed quickly, and reviewed in an objective manner. That means ANY complaints. Complaints about your standard of care, your waiting time, your health care plan or any aspect of your experience should be treated with respect, and should not result in any recriminations from medical staff or insurance company.
It is important to understand that while this is not called the “Patient’s Bill of Suggestions,” many doctors, medical facilities and insurance companies treat it as such. Not knowing how you should be treated is almost a guarantee that you won’t be treated properly. Your average insurance company banks on what you don’t know rather than on what you do, and quite often they state denials and rejections as if they were the law rather than just their personal decisions.
The Patient’s Bill of Rights makes it perfectly clear as to what you are supposed to expect. Again, if you or a loved one in Maryland (MD) , the District (DC) or Northern Virginia (VA) feels that your rights have been violated by a medical professional, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.
To learn more about medical malpractice law, please read our medical malpractice page. To learn more about our medical malpractice lawyer, John Sellinger, please read about John Sellinger, or view his medical malprqactice video on UTUBE.
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