It very crucial to know about your rights regarding your care and planning ahead whether these rights are exercised in the favour or not? Usually, people gets carried away in the horror of the moment and gets agreed to whatever is said by the physician. Keep in mind that your treatment is finally your decision. There are many hard decision that you have to make when it comes to healthcare. Physician’s role is to supply you with information and rest depends on you.
Your top 3 rights of as a patient are as following:
RIGHT TO CONTROL CARE
These rights includes treatments that you are willing to refuse or consent. There are only two cases where treatment can begin without your consent. These two cases are:
- Medical emergency
- Well being is threatened and you can’t explicitly forbid the treatment.
This in no way means that you can be treated without your consent. You can control your treatment when you are ill, unconscious or unable to make legally binding judgements through these ways :
- Appoint someone who is trustworthy to posses the power of attorney. This person is reliable for taking decision in your place.
- Advance Directive
In the advance directive you can legally give instructions regarding the future care, though this is controlled by state law.
RIGHT TO PRIVACY
Healthcare organization is restricted under HIPAA for sharing any kind of medical information of the patient. They even have to provide you with the access to your medical records, ability to make changes, keep you in the loop of your health status and also with whom the data is being shared.
There are chances that your healthcare providers are violating these privacy. So you need to make sure that there is a written contract which can assure your privacy. Your data gets shared among the medical staff, medical billing and coding companies and the vendors in between.
RIGHT TO KNOW YOUR BILL
You should ask for an itemized bill and examine it carefully as it may contain added expenses and incorrect information. Sometimes mistakes are accidental but most of the time they are done intentionally.
Always look out for a balanced bill. There are chances that hospitals charges insurance company portion of bill and send you the reminder. Keep a tab on the research law of your state on all these matters before paying.
Keeping the above three rights in mind will help you from being a victim of information breach, overpaying and further controlling your healthcare. In the changing healthcare industry remaining in touch with every aspect is becoming crucial.
