Patient's Rights
Each patient at Adventist Health - Feather River Hospital has the right to:
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
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO:
1. Considerate and respectful care, and to be made comfortable. You have the right to respect for your personal values and beliefs.
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 physician who has primary responsibility for coordinating your care and the names and professional relationships of other physicians and non-physicians who will see you.
4. Receive information about your health status, course of treatment and prospects for recovery in terms you can understand. You have the right 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.
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 description of the procedure or treatment, the medically significant risks involved, alternate courses of treatment or non-nontreatment and the risks involved in each, and the name of the person who will treatment carry out the procedure or treatment.
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 have the right to leave the hospital even against the advice of physicians, to the extent permitted by law.
7. 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.
8. Reasonable responses to any reasonable requests made for service.
9. 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, he/she must inform you that there are physicians who specialize in the treatment of severe chronic intractable 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. 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.
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 before an examination and when treatment issues are being discussed. Privacy curtains will be used in semi-private rooms.
12. Confidential treatment of all communications and records pertaining to your care and stay in the hospital. Basic information may be released to the public, unless specifically prohibited in writing by you. Written permission shall be obtained before medical records are made available to anyone not directly concerned with your care, except as otherwise may be required or permitted by law.
13. Access information contained in your records within a reasonable period, except in certain circumstances specified by law.
14. Receive care in a safe setting, free from verbal or physical abuse or harassment. You have the right to access protective services including notifying government agencies of neglect or abuse.
15. Be free from restraints and seclusion of any form used as a means of coercion, discipline, convenience, or retaliation by staff.
16. 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.
17. Be informed by the physician, or a delegate of the physician, of continuing health care requirements following discharge from the hospital.
18. Know which hospital rules and policies apply to your conduct while a patient.
19. Designate visitors of your choosing, if you have decision-making capacity, whether or not blood or marriage relates the visitor, unless:
- No visitors are allowed.
- 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 facility.
- 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.
20. Have your wishes considered, if you lack decision-making capacity, for the purposes of determining who may visit. The method of that consideration will be disclosed in the hospital policy on visitation. At a minimum, the hospital shall include any persons living in your household.
21. Examine and receive an explanation of the hospital's bill regardless of the source of payment.
22. Exercise these rights without regards to sex, economic status, educational background, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation or marital status, or the source of payment for care.
23. File a grievance and/or file a complaint with the state Department of Health Services and/or the hospital and be informed of the action taken. If you have a complaint about this facility, you may contact the Quality Risk Manager at (530)877- 9361, ext. 2125. State Department of Health Services at 1367 East Lassen, Suite B-1, Chico, CA 95973 or by calling 1-800-554-0350.
24. Express concerns about patient care and safety in the hospital by contacting the Quality Risk Manager at (530) 877-9361, ext. 2125. If the concerns cannot be resolved through the hospital, you may contact the Joint Commission on Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations' Office of Quality Monitoring at 1-800-994-6610.
[These Patient Rights incorporate the requirements of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations; Title 22, California Code of Regulations, Section 70707; and Medicare Conditions of Participation.]
Privacy Practices
If you have any questions about this notice, please contact the Feather River Hospital Privacy Official.
WHO WILL FOLLOW THIS NOTICE
This notice describes Adventist Health healthcare systems' practices and that of:
- Any health care professional authorized to enter information into your medical record.
- All departments and units of the health care system.
- Any volunteer in our organizations.
- All employees, staff and other designated personnel (eg., students, contracted agency staff) Feather River Hospital, Cancer Center, Rural Health Clinic, Feather River Home Health, Paradise Hospice, Home Oxygen, Home Infusion Therapy, Outpatient Center, Sportshaven Rehab, Outpatient Rehab.
All these entities, sites and locations follow the terms of this notice. In addition, these entities, sites and locations may share medical information with each other for treatment, payment or healthcare operations purposes described in this notice.
OUR PLEDGE REGARDING MEDICAL INFORMATION
We understand that medical information about you and your health is personal. We are committed to protecting medical information about you. We create a record of the care and services you receive in our facilities. We need this record to provide you with quality care and to comply with certain legal requirements. Physicians (personal, consultants, specialists) involved in your care may have different policies or notices regarding the doctor's use and disclosure of your medical information created and/or maintained in th doctor's office or clinic.
This notice will tell you about the ways in which we may use and disclose medical information about you, via any medium(written, oral, or electronic). We also describe your rights and certain obligations we have regarding the use and disclosure of medical information. We are required by law to:
Make sure that medical information that identifies you is kept private;
THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.
Give you this notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to medical information about you; and Follow the terms of the notice that is currently in effect.
HOW WE MAY USE AND DISCLOSE MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU
The following categories describe different ways that we use and disclose medical information. For each category of uses or disclosures we will explain what we mean and try to give some examples. Not every use or disclosure in a category will be listed. However, all the ways we are permitted to use and disclose information will fall within one
of the categories.
Treatment
We may use medical information about you to provide you with medical treatment or services. We may disclose medical information about you to doctors, nurses, technicians, medical students, or other personnel who are involved in taking care of you. For example, a doctor treating you for a broken leg may need to know if you have diabetes because diabetes may slow the healing process. In addition, the doctor may need to tell a dietitian if you have diabetes so that we can arrange for appropriate meals. Different departments of the hospital also may share medical information about you in order to coordinate the different things you need, such as prescriptions, lab work and x-rays. We also may disclose medical information about you to others who may be involved in your medical care, such as caregivers, clergy or others we use to provide services that are part of your care.
Payment
We may use and disclose medical information about you so that the treatment and services you receive may be billed and collected from you, the party responsible for your bill, an insurance company or a third party. For example, we may need to give your health plan information about surgery you received at the hospital so your health plan will pay us or reimburse you for the surgery. We may also tell your health plan about a treatment you are going to receive to obtain prior approval or to determine whether your plan will cover the treatment.
Health Care Operations
We may use and disclose medical information about you for healthcare operations. These uses and disclosures are necessary to make sure that all of our patients receive quality care. For example, we may use medical information to review our treatment and services and to evaluate the performance of our staff in caring for you. We may also combine medical information about our patients to decide what additional services we should offer, what services are not needed, and whether certain new treatments are effective. We may also disclose information to doctors, nurses, technicians, medical students, and other personnel for review and learning purposes.
We may also combine the medical information we have with medical information from other healthcare agencies to compare how we are doing and see where we can make improvements in the care and services we offer. We may remove information that identifies you from this set of medical information so others may use it to study health care and health care delivery without learning who the specific patients are.
Appointment Reminders
We may use and disclose medical information to contact you as a reminder that you have an appointment for treatment or medical care.
Treatment Alternatives
We may use and disclose medical information to tell you about or recommend possible treatment options or alternatives that may be important to you.
Health-Related Benefits and Services
We may use and disclose medical information to tell you about healthrelated benefits or services that may be of interest to you.
Fundraising Activities
We may use medical information about you to contact you in an effort to raise money for the hospital and its operations. We may disclose medical information to a foundation related to the hospital so that the foundation may contact you in raising money for the hospital. We only would release contact information, such as your name, address and phone number and the dates you received treatment or services at the hospital.
Please write to us at 5974 Pentz Rd., Paradise, CA 95969 if you wish to have your name removed from the list to receive fund-raising requests supporting Feather River Health Foundation and associated entities in the future. In the event that you contact us with this request, all reasonable efforts will be taken to ensure that you will not receive any fund-raising communications from us in the future.
Hospital Directory
We may include certain limited information about you in the hospital directory. This is a daily list of patients in our facility. This information may include your name, location in the hospital, your general condition (e.g., fair, stable, etc) and your religious affiliation. Unless there is a specific written request from you to the contrary, this directory information, except for your religious affiliation, may also be released to people who ask for you by name. Your religious affiliation may be given to a member of the clergy, such as a priest or rabbi, even if they don't ask for you by name. This information is released so your family, friends, and clergy can visit you in the hospital and generally know how you are doing.
Individuals Involved in Your Care
We may release medical information about you to a friend or family member who is involved in your medical care. Unless there is a
specific written request from you to the contrary, we may also tell your family or friends your condition and that you are in the hospital.
Disaster Relief
We may disclose medical information about you to an entity assisting in a disaster relief effort (for example, the Red Cross) so that your mfamily can be notified mabout your condition, status and location.
Research
Under certain circumstances, we may use and disclose medical information about you for research purposes, when approved by the Institutional Review Board or Privacy Board.
����� As Required By Law. We will disclose medical information about you when required to do so by federal, state, or local law [California: For example, disclosure of protected health information is required to the Department of Health Services for the purpose of birth defect monitoring. Access to this information is limited to authorized individuals. Also, California maintains a system for collecting information regarding cancer hazards and potential remedies].
����� To Avert a Serious Threat to Health or Safety. We may use and disclose medical information about you when necessary to prevent a serious threat to your health and safety or the health and safety of the public or another person. Any disclosure, however, would only be to someone able to help prevent the threat. For example, if you were involved in a violent crime, disclosure may be made to law enforcement.
SPECIAL SITUATIONS
Organ and Tissue Donation. If you are an organ or tissue donor, we may release medical information to organizations that handle procurement or transplantation, or
to a donation bank.
Military and Veterans
If you are a member of the armed forces or a veteran, we may release medical information about you as required by military command authorities. We may also release medical information about foreign military personnel to the appropriate foreign military authority.
Workers' Compensation
We may release medical information about you to your workers' compensation program, for work-related injuries or illness.
Public Health Risks
We may disclose medical information about you for public health activities. These activities generally include the following: To prevent or control disease, injury or disability; To report births and deaths; To report the abuse or neglect of children, elders and dependent adults; To report reactions to medications or problems with products; To notify people of recalls of products they may be using; To notify a person who may have been exposed to a disease or may be at risk for contracting or spreading a disease or condition; To notify the appropriate government authority if we believe a patient has been the victim of abuse, neglect or domestic violence. We will only make this disclosure if you agree or when required or authorized by law.
Health Oversight Activities
We may disclose medical information to a health oversight agency for activities authorized by law. These oversight activities include, for example, audits, investigations, inspections, and licensure. These activities are necessary for the government to monitor the health care system, government programs, and compliance with civil rights laws.
Lawsuits and Disputes. If you are involved in a lawsuit or a dispute, we may disclose medical information about you in response to a court or administrative order. We may also disclose medical information about you in response to a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful process by someone else involved in the dispute.
Law Enforcement
We may release medical information if asked to do so by a law enforcement official: In response to a court order, subpoena, warrant, summons or similar process; To identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person; About the victim of a crime if, under certain limited circumstances, we are unable to obtain the person's agreement; About a death we believe may be the result of criminal conduct; About criminal conduct at the facility; and In emergency circumstances to report a crime, the location of the crime or victims; or the identity, description or location of the person who committed the crime.
Coroners, Medical Examiners and Funeral Directors
We may release medical information to a coroner or medical examiner. This may be necessary, for example, to identify a deceased person or determine the cause of death. We may also release medical information about patients of the hospital to funeral directors as necessary to carry out their duties.
National Security and Intelligence Activities
We may release medical information about you to authorized federal officials for intelligence, counterintelligence, and other national security activities authorized by law.
Protective Services for the President and Others
We may disclose medical information about you to authorized federal officials so they may provide protection to the President, other authorized persons or foreign heads of state or conduct special investigations.
Inmates
If you are an inmate of a correctional institution or under the custody of a law enforcement official, we may release medical information about you to the correctional institution or law enforcement official. This release would be necessary (1) for the institution to provide you with health care; (2) to protect your health and safety or the health and safety of others; or (3) for the safety and security of the correctional institution.
YOUR RIGHTS REGARDING MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU
You have the following rights regarding medical information we maintain about you:
Right to Inspect and Copy
You have the right to inspect and receive a copy medical information that may be used to make decisions about your care. Usually, this includes medical and billing records, but may not include psychotherapy notes. To inspect and copy medical information that may be used to make decisions about you, you must submit your request in writing to the Health Information Management Director, Feather River Hospital. If you request a copy of the information, we may charge a fee for the costs of copying, mailing or other supplies associated with your request. We may deny your request to inspect and receive a copy in certain very limited circumstances. If you are denied access to medical information, you may request that the denial be reviewed. Another licensed health care professional chosen by the hospital will review your request and the denial. The person conducting the review will not be the person who denied your request. We will comply with the outcome of the review.
Right to Amend
If you feel that the medical information we have about you is incorrect or incomplete, you may ask us to amend the information. You have the right to request an amendment for as long as the information is kept by the facility. To request an amendment, your request must be made in writing and submitted to the Health Information Management Director, Feather River Hospital. In addition, you must provide a reason that supports your request. We may deny your request for an amendment if it is not in writing or does not include a reason to support the request. In addition, we may deny your request if you ask us to amend information that: Was not created by us, unless the person or entity
that created the information is no longer available to make the amendment; Is not part of the medical information kept by or for the hospital; Is not part of the information which you would be permitted to inspect and copy; or Is accurate and complete.
Right to an Accounting of Disclosures
You have the right to request an "accounting of disclosures." This is a list of the disclosures we made of medical information about you other than our own uses for treatment, payment and health care operations, as those functions are described above.
To request this list or accounting of disclosures, you must submit your request in writing to the Health Information Management Director, Feather River Hospital. Your request must state a time period, which may not be longer than six years and may not include dates before April 14, 2003. Your request should indicate in what form you want the list (for example, on paper, electronically). The first list you request within a 12-month period will be free. For additional lists, we may charge you for the costs of providing the list. We will notify you of the cost involved and you may choose to withdraw or modify your request at that time before any costs are incurred.
Right to Request Restrictions
You have the right to request a restriction or limitation on the medical information we use or disclose about you for treatment, payment or health care operations. You also have the right to request a limit on the medical information we disclose about you to someone who is involved in your care or the payment for your care, like a family member or friend. For example, you could ask that we not use or disclose information about a surgery you had. We are not required to agree to your request. If we do agree, we will comply with your request unless the information is needed to provide you emergency treatment, or if the disclosure is required by law.
To request restrictions, you must make your request in writing to the Health Information Management Director, Feather River Hospital. In your request, you must tell us (1) what information you want to limit; (2) whether you want to limit our use, disclosure or both; and (3) to whom you want the limits to apply, for example, disclosures to your spouse.
Right to Request Confidential Communications
You have the right to request that we communicate with you about medical matters in a certain way or at a certain location. For example, you can ask that we only contact you at work or by mail. To request confidential communications, you must make your request in writing to the Health Information Management Director, Feather River Hospital. We will not ask you the reason for your request. While we are not required to agree to your request, we will accommodate all reasonable requests. Your request must specify how or where you wish to be contacted.
Right to a Paper Copy of This Notice
You have the right to a paper copy of this notice. You may ask us to give you a copy of this notice at any time. Even if you have agreed to receive this notice electronically, you are still mentitled to a paper copy of this notice. You may obtain a copy of this notice at our website at http:// www.frhosp.org To obtain a paper copy of this notice, write to the Quality Management Department Director, Feather River Hospital.
CHANGES TO THIS NOTICE
We reserve the right to change this notice. We reserve the right to make the revised or changed notice effective for medical information we already have about you as well as any information we receive in the future. We will post a copy of the current notice in the facility. The notice will contain on the first page, in the top right-hand corner, the effective date. If the notice is changed, we will offer you a copy of the notice upon your request.
COMPLAINTS
If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with the facility or with the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. To file a complaint with the facility, contact the Quality & Risk Manager at (530) 877-9361 ext. 2125. All complaints must be submitted in writing. You will not be penalized for filing a complaint.
OTHER USES OF MEDICAL INFORMATION
Other uses and disclosures of medical information not covered by this notice or the laws that apply to us will be made only with your written permission. If you provide us permission to use or disclose medical information about you, you may revoke that permission, in writing, at any time. If you revoke your permission, we will no longer use or disclose medical information about you for the reasons covered by your written authorization. You understand that we are unable to take back any disclosures we have already made with your permission, and that we are required to retain our records of the care that we provided to you.
(HIPAA)
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