Patient Rights and Responsibilities

As a patient you have the right to:

1. Considerate and respectful care, and to be made comfortable. You have the right to respect for your cultural, psychosocial, spiritual, and personal values, beliefs and preferences, including accommodation of your need for religious and spiritual services. You have the right to be treated in a dignified and respectful manner that supports your dignity.
2. Have a family member (or other representative of your choosing) and your own physician notified promptly of your admission to the hospital.
3. Know the name of the licensed health care practitioner acting within the scope of their professional licensure who has primary responsibility for coordinating your care, treatment, and services, and the names and professional relationships of physicians and nonphysicians who will see you.
4. Receive information about your health status, diagnosis, prognosis, course of treatment, prospects for recovery and outcomes of care (including unanticipated outcomes that are sentinel events) in terms you can understand from the licensed practitioner responsible for managing your care, treatment, and services. If you are medically incapable of understanding, your surrogate decision-maker has the same right.

You have the right to access your medical records within a reasonable time frame. You have the right, through oral or written request, to access, request amendment to, and obtain information on disclosures of the patient’s health information, in accordance with law and regulation. You have the right to receive a copy of the records in accordance with the medical center’s policy and procedure. You must give written permission if records are made available to anyone not directly concerned with your care. Your basic information may be released to the public, unless you specifically prohibit this in writing.  You will receive a separate “Notice of Privacy Practices” that explains your rights to access your records.

You have the right to effective communication and to participate in the development and implementation of your plan of care. This includes communication of information in a manner that is tailored to the patient’s age, language, and ability to understand; language interpreting and translation services; and that meets the need of patients with vision, speech, hearing, or cognitive impairments.

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.

5. 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 written description of the procedure or treatment, the medically significant risks involved, alternate courses of treatment or nontreatment and the risks involved in each, problems related to recuperation, and probability of success, and the name of the person who will carry out the procedure or treatment. Your surrogate decision-maker has the right to the same written information. You have the right to have your family involved in care, treatment, and services decisions to the extent permitted by yourself or surrogate decision-maker, in accordance with law and regulation.
6. 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 shall be informed that refusal of treatment by you or your surrogate decision-maker might prevent the provision of appropriate care in accordance with professional standards. You have the right to leave the health facility even against the advice of members of the medical staff, to the extent permitted by law.
7. Be advised if the health facility/licensed independent practitioner acting within the scope of his or her professional licensure 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.
8. Reasonable responses to any reasonable requests made for service. You have the right of access to persons outside the hospital by means of telephone.
9. Appropriate assessment and management of your pain, information about pain and pain relief measures and to participate in pain management decisions. You may request or reject the use of any or all modalities to relieve pain, including opiate medication, if you suffer from severe chronic intractable pain. The doctor may refuse to prescribe the opiate medication, but if so, must inform you that there are physicians who specialize in the treatment of pain with methods that include the use of opiates.
10. 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. Health facility staff and practitioners who provide care in the facility shall comply with these directives. All patients’ rights apply to the person who has legal responsibility to make decisions regarding medical care on your behalf.
11. 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. You have the right to have someone of the same sex present when a gender-specific medical examination and/or procedure is performed by a health professional of another sex, and the right to be disrobed only for the period necessary to accomplish the medical purpose for which patients are asked to disrobe.

You have the right to staff compliance with law and regulation when making and using recordings, films, or other images of patients.

12. Confidential treatment of all communications and records pertaining to your care and stay in the health facility, including the source of payment for treatment. 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.
13. Receive care in a safe setting, free from mental, physical, sexual or verbal abuse and neglect, exploitation or harassment. You have the right for all allegations, observations, and suspected cases of neglect, exploitation, and abuse, as well as reporting these suspected events as required by law, including. You have the right to access protective and advocacy services including notifying government agencies of neglect or abuse. You have the right to request a transfer to another room if another patient or a visitor in the room is unreasonably disturbing.
14. Be free from restraints and seclusion of any form used as a means of coercion, discipline, convenience or retaliation by staff.
15. 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.
16. Be informed by the physician, or a delegate of the physician, of continuing health care requirements and options following discharge from the health facility. You have the right to be involved in the development and implementation of your discharge plan. Upon your request, a friend or family member may be provided this information also. You have the right to have family and physician or other licensed practitioner promptly notified of your discharge or transfer from the health facility. You have the right to be informed of a pending transfer to another facility or organization, the need for such a transfer, the alternatives to the transfer, and assurance that transfer is acceptable to the receiving facility or organization.
17. Know which health facility rules and policies apply to your conduct while a patient.
18. Designate a support person as well as visitors of your choosing, if you have decision-making capacity, whether or not the visitor is related by blood, marriage, or registered domestic partner status, unless:
    1. No visitors are allowed.
    2. The facility reasonably determines that the presence of a particular visitor would endanger the health or safety of a patient, a member of the health facility staff, or other visitor to the health facility, or would significantly disrupt the operations of the health facility. No visitors are allowed.
    3. You have told the health facility staff that you no longer want a particular person to visit.

However, a health facility may establish reasonable restrictions upon visitation, including restrictions upon the hours of visitation and number of visitors. The health facility must inform you (or your support person, where appropriate) of your visitation rights, including any clinical restrictions or limitations. The health facility is not permitted to restrict, limit, or otherwise deny visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.

19. Have your wishes considered, if you lack decision-making capacity, for the purposes of determining who may visit. The method of that consideration will comply with federal law and be disclosed in the health facility’s policy on visitation. At a minimum, the health facility shall include any persons living in your household and any support person pursuant to federal law.
20. Examine and receive an explanation of your bill regardless of the source of payment.
21. Exercise these rights without regard to, and be free of discrimination on the basis of economic status, educational background, race, ethnicity, color, religion, culture, ancestry, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, disability, medical condition, marital status, age, registered domestic partner status, genetic information, citizenship, primary language, immigration status (except as required by federal law), socioeconomic status, or the source of payment for care, OR enrollment in Medicare, Medicaid, or Children’s Health Insurance Program.
22. File a grievance. If you want to file a grievance with this health facility, you may do so by writing or by calling the Patient Experience Team in Suite 1B1, 1000 W Carson Street, or 424-306-4400:

The grievance committee will review each grievance and provide you with a written response within 30 days. The written response will contain the name of a person to contact at the health facility, the steps taken to investigate the grievance, the results of the grievance process, and the date of completion of the grievance process. Concerns regarding quality of care or premature discharge will also be referred to the appropriate Utilization and Quality Control Peer Review Organization (PRO) as applicable.).

23. File a complaint with the California Department of Public Health. The California Department of Public Health’s phone number and address is: 800-228-5234, 681 S Parker St., Suite 200 Orange, CA 92868.
24. File a complaint with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing at www.calcivilrights.ca.gov, (800) 884-1684 or (800) 700-2320 (TTY) or 2218 Kausen Dr., #100, Elk Grove, CA 95758.
25. File a complaint with the Medical Board of California at www.mbc.ca.gov/consumers/complaints, (800) 633-2322 or 2005 Evergreen St., #1200, Sacramento, CA 95815.
26. File a patient safety concern/complaint with The Joint Commission at https://www.jointcommission.org/en-us/contact-us/report-a-patient-safety-event, 1-800-994-6610, or Office of Quality and Patient Safety, Joint Commission, One Renaissance Boulevard, Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois 60181.

As a patient, you have the responsibility to:

1. Provide as accurate and complete information as possible about present medical complaints, past illnesses, hospitalizations, medications and other matters relating to your health to facilitate care, treatment, and services.
2. Report unexpected changes in your medical condition to your doctor or nurse.
3. Ask questions or inform your doctor or nurse when you do not understand a proposed treatment plan or care decision and what is expected of you. This includes requesting interpretation or translation services to ensure that you understand the information that is being provided.
4. Cooperate with the agreed upon treatment plan recommended by your doctor and follow the instructions of your doctors and nurses.
5. Keep appointments or notify the hospital or clinic if you are unable to do so.
6. Accept the consequences of any refusal of treatment after you have thoroughly discussed the treatment plan with your doctor and have understood the possible consequences of refusal.
7. Provide financial information as necessary to qualify for healthcare benefits and fulfill financial obligation not covered by insurance as promptly as possible.
8. Request health information and/or education as needed.
9. Be considerate and respectful of the rights and property of other patients, visitors, families and hospital staff and assist in the control of noise, smoking and the number of visitors. Support mutual consideration and respect by maintaining civil language and conduct in interactions with staff. Follow instructions, policies, rules, and regulations in place to support quality care for patients and a safe environment for all individuals in the hospital.
10. Understand that after the patient has left the facility either by discharge order or against medical advice (AMA), his or her return to the facility shall be considered a new admission/visit.
11. Be respectful of the property of other persons and of the facility.