The Patients' Bill of Rights
To protect your personal welfare and safeguard your dignity, the Surgery Center and its medical staff have adopted the following patient rights. These rights form the foundation of our policies and procedures. They assure that you will/may:
1). Exercise these rights without regard to sex, source of payment for care, or cultural, economic, educational, or religious background.
2). Receive considerate, respectful care.
3). Receive information about his/her illness, course of treatment, written pain management plan, and prospects for recovery in terms that he/she can understand.
4). Receive as much information about any proposed treatment or procedure as he/she needs in order to give informed consent to refuse this course of treatment. Except in emergencies, this information shall include a description of the procedure, the medically significant risks involved in this treatment, and alternate course(s) of treatment or non-treatment and the risks involved in each. Also you may receive information on Advance Directives.
5). Participate actively in decisions regarding his/her medical care. This includes the right to refuse treatment. Also, patients are informed of their right to change primary or specialty physicians if other qualified physicians are available.
6). Receive full consideration of privacy concerning his/her medical care program. Case discussion, consultation, examination, and treatment are confidential and should be conducted discreetly. The patient has the right to be advised as to the reason for the presence of any individual in the operating room.
7). Receive confidential treatment of all communications and records pertaining to his/her care in the Surgery Center. Written permission shall be obtained before his/her medical record can be made available to anyone not directly concerned with his/her care.
8). Receive reasonable response to any reasonable requests he/she may make for service.
9). Be allowed to leave the Surgery Center even against the advice of his/her physician.
10). Receive reasonable continuity of care, knowing in advance the time and location of appointments.
11). Be advised if the Surgery Center or personal physician proposes to engage in or perform human experimentation and have the right to refuse medical research.
12). Be informed by his/her physician or the Surgery Center staff of his/her continuing health care requirements following discharge from the Surgery Center.
13). Examine and receive an explanation of his/her bill regardless of source or payment.
14). Know which Surgery Center rules and policies apply to his/her conduct as a patient.
15). Have all patient rights apply to the person who has legal responsibility to make decisions regarding medical care on behalf of the patient.
16). Have the right to be free from all forms of abuse and harassment.