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Patient Rights & Responsibilities

You Have the Right to:

  • Considerate and respectful care, and to be made comfortable.
  • Respect for your cultural, psychosocial, spiritual, and personal values, beliefs, and preferences.
  • Have a family member (or other representative of your choosing) and your own physician notified promptly of your admission to the hospital.
  • 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.
  • Receive information about your health status, diagnosis, prognosis, course of treatment, prospects for recovery and outcomes of care (including unanticipated outcomes) in terms you can understand. You also 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 resuscitation services, and forgoing or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment.
  • 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.
  • 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 may leave the hospital even against the advice of physicians, to the extent permitted by law.
  • 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.
  • Reasonable responses to any reasonable requests made for service.
  • 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 modalities to relieve the pain, including opiate 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.
  • Formulate advance directives. This includes designating a decision maker if you become incapable of understanding a proposed treatment or if you 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.
  • 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 reasons 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Be free from restraints and seclusion of any form used as a means of coercion, discipline, convenience or retaliation by staff.
  • 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.
  • Be informed by the physician, or a delegate of the physician, of continuing health care requirements and options following discharge from the hospital. 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 with this information also.
  • Know which hospital rules and policies apply to your conduct while a patient.
  • Designate visitors of your choosing, if you have decision making capacity, whether or not the visitor is related by blood or marriage, unless no visitors are allowed. The facility reasonable 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.
  • To request to the health facility 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.
  • 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.
  • Examine and receive an explanation of the hospital’s bill regardless of the source of payment.
  • Exercise these rights without regard to sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, disability, medical condition, marital status, sexual orientation, educational background, economic status or the source of payment for care.
  • File a grievance. If you want to file a grievance with this hospital, you may do so by writing or calling:
Patient Experience Department
Kaweah Health
400 W. Mineral King Ave.
Visalia, CA 93291
Telephone: (559) 624-5151
  • File a complaint with the California Department of Public Health and/or The Joint Commission regardless of whether you use the hospital’s grievance process. The phone numbers and addresses for both agencies are listed below:

California Department of Public Health
1200 Discovery Plaza, Suite 120
Bakersfield, CA 93309
Telephone: (661) 336-0543

The Joint Commission
Division of Accreditation Operations
Office of Quality Monitoring
One Renaissance Boulevard
Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181
TOLL FREE PHONE 1 (800) 994-6610
FAX (630) 792-5636
E-mail: complaint@jcaho.org

Responsibilities

Provision of Information

A patient has the responsibility to provide, to the best of his knowledge, accurate and complete information about present complaints, previous illnesses, hospitalizations, medications and other matters relating to his health. He has the responsibility to report unexpected changes in his condition to the responsible practitioner. A patient is responsible for reporting whether he clearly comprehends a contemplated course of action and what is expected of him.

Compliance with Instructions

A patient is responsible for following the treatment plan recommended by the practitioner responsible for his care. This may include following the instructions of nurses and allied health personnel as they carry out the coordinated plan of care, implement the responsible practitioner's orders and enforce the applicable hospital rules and regulations. The patient is responsible for keeping appointments and, when he is unable to do so for any reason, notifying the responsible practitioner or the hospital.

Refusal of Treatment

The patient is responsible for his actions if he refuses treatment or does not follow the practitioner's instructions.

Hospital Charges

The patient is responsible for assuring that the financial obligations of his health care are fulfilled as promptly as possible.

Hospital Rules and Regulations

The patient is responsible for following hospital rules and regulations affecting patient care and conduct.

Respect and Consideration

The patient is responsible for being considerate of the rights of other patients and hospital personnel and for assisting in the control of noise, smoking and the number of visitors. The patient is responsible for being respectful of the property of other people and of the hospital.

Complaints and Concerns

If you have a complaint and/or concern regarding care or treatment rendered at Kaweah Health Hospital, you may notify:

  • Any staff member
  • The department manager- Ask a staff member to speak to the manager of that department.
  • The Nursing Department- There is always someone on duty for patient care concerns.
  • The Nursing Supervisor- Dial the hospital operator (0) and ask to speak with the Nursing Supervisor.
  • Administration- During normal business hours, dial (559) 624-2221 and a secretary will take a message and relay it to the proper person.

Patient Relations Department
(559) 624-6665

If you feel your concerns were not addressed, you may also contact California Department of Public Health.

California Department of Public Health
1200 Discovery Plaza, Suite 120
Bakersfield, CA 93309
(661) 336-0543
(866) 222-1903