Patient's Bill of Rights
Learn about the Patients’ Bill of Rights at Reid Health. This page outlines your rights and protections as a patient, helping you understand how you’re cared for and respected.
What are a Patients’ Bill of Rights?
A Patients’ Bill of Rights is a list of important rules protecting patients’ rights while receiving healthcare. It ensures patients are treated with respect, given privacy, and have the right to make decisions about their own care.
These rights help patients understand what they can expect from the providers, nurses, and care facilities that are involved in their treatment. The rights outlined below are designed to make sure patients are safe, cared for, and respected throughout their healthcare journey.
Official Reid Health Patients’ Bill of Rights
Each patient or patient representative has access to a copy of the Reid Patient’s Bill of Rights as part of the admission process (see handout at end of policy). Copies of the Patient’s Bill of Rights are available in English and Spanish.
The Reid Health Propio interpretation system is available to accommodate other languages and communication modalities. Reid’s Patient’s Bill of Rights is also posted throughout the hospital and contains information regarding how to report an issue.
Refer to Administrative Policy 31 Patient Complaint/Grievance Policy for the process a patient should use to file a complaint or grievance.
Patient Complaints and Grievances
Refer to Administrative Policy 77 Legal Authority for Signature for the process that hospital staff should follow concerning designation of a representative or if a patient is incapacitated.
If the consent for treatment is done by telephone, a copy of the Patient’s Bill of Rights will be mailed to the patient’s representative.
Patient Complaints and Grievances
The purpose of the Patients’ Bill of Rights
To ensure patients, or when appropriate, the patient’s representative receive notice of the patient’s rights in advance of furnishing or discontinuing patient care whenever possible.
Patient’s Bill of Rights address the following:
1. The patient has the right to participate in the development and implementation of his or her plan of care.
2. The patient or his or her representative (as allowed under state law) has the right to make informed decisions regarding his or her care. The patient’s rights include being informed of his or her health status, being involved in care planning and treatment, and being able to request or refuse treatment. This right must not be construed as a mechanism to demand the provision of treatment or services deemed medically unnecessary or inappropriate.
3. The patient has the right to formulate advance directives and to have hospital staff and practitioners who provide care in the hospital comply with these directives.
4. The patient has the right to have a family member or representative of his or her choice and his or her own physician notified promptly of his or her admission to the hospital.
5. The patient has the right to personal privacy.
6. The patient has the right to receive care in a safe setting.
7. The patient has the right to be free from all forms of abuse or harassment.
8. The patient has the right to the confidentiality of his or her clinical records.
9. The patient has the right to access their medical records, including current medical records, upon an oral or written request, in the form and format requested by the individual, if it is readily producible in such form and format (including in an electronic form or format when such medical records are maintained electronically); or, if not, in a readable hard copy form or such other form and format as agreed to by the facility and the individual, and within a reasonable time frame.
10. All patients have the right to be free from physical or mental abuse, and corporal punishment.
11. All patients have the right to be free from restraint or seclusion, of any form, imposed as a means of coercion, discipline, convenience, or retaliation by staff.
12. The patient has the right to receive visitors. A hospital must:
a. Inform each patient (or support person, where appropriate) of his or her visitation rights, including any clinical restriction or limitation on such rights, when he or she is informed of his or her other rights under this section
b. Inform each patient (or support person, where appropriate) of the right, subject to his or her consent, to receive visitors whom he or she designates, including, but not limited to, a spouse, a domestic partner (including a same-sex domestic partner), another family member, or a friend, and his or her right to withdraw or deny such consent at any time
c. Not restrict, limit, or otherwise deny visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability
d. Ensure all visitors enjoy full and equal visitation privileges consistent with patient preferences
Complaints and grievances
You have the right to a quick resolution of complaints or grievances. If you wish to file a grievance, please contact any employee or call (765) 983-3000.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Ave., SW
Room 509F, HHH Building
Washington, D.C. 20201
(800) 368-1019, (800) 537-7697 (TDD)
Complaint forms are available at: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/office/file/index.html
DNV Healthcare USA Inc.
Attn: Hospital Complaints
4435 Aicholtz Road, Suite 900
Cincinnati, OH 45245
Phone: (866) 496-9647
Fax: (281) 870-4818
https://www.dnvhealthcareportal.com/patient-complaint-report
Email: hospitalcomplaint@dnv.com
Indiana State Department of Health
Division of Acute Care
2 N. Meridian St., 4A
Indianapolis, IN 46204
(800) 246-8909
complaints@isdh.in.gov