New Rules Require Equal Visitation Rights For All Patients

[Tx4obama]

Source: The White House

Earlier this year, President Obama called on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to create new rules for Medicare and Medicaid hospitals that would allow patients the right to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay. The Presidential Memorandum instructed HHS to develop rules that would prohibit hospitals from denying visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued that rule – a rule that will let patients decide whom they want by their bedside when they are sick – and that includes a visitor who is a same-sex domestic partner. The rule presents an important step forward in giving all Americans more control over their health care.

The new rules: (to see list click on the link below)

Read more: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/11/17/new-rules-require-equal-visitation-rights-all-patients

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Most excellent!

I'm really happy to hear this.

No more same sex domestic partners being denied visiting rights!

Recommended!

[SkyDaddy7]

3. VERY TRUE!

My wife was in a near fatal car wreck in 1997 and if I would have been denied visitation rights I may have LOST IT & done something really stupid! However, I never had to worry about that because I happen to be male & my wife is female...I cannot imagine how it must feel to be someone in the LGTB Community & be denied visitation Rights for a loved one who is hurt or sick.

However, I may be in the same boat now because 5 years after my wife's car wreck I suffered a spinal cord injury...About a year into that nightmare I was going through some really expensive pain therapy & my insurance dropped me! So, my wife and I had to get divorced in order for me to qualify for an emergency entrance into Medicare...So, now that I am not married if my wife was to get hurt the hospital could block me, I fear?

This may help.

[CC]

2. Will it help in situations where the

patient is unable to give consent or choose? Seems that is when the problems occur most often. The patient is unconscious and the closest family member gets to decide who is allowed in. In an emergency unless their partner has a legal document with them at all times it seems a hateful person could still keep apart when time may short.

[rasputin1952]

10. A legal document can be a piece of paper that has been notarized...

it does not have to be 27 pages of legalese. Keeping such an article in a wallet would be extremely easy for one to do.

[CC]

11. Not knocking that this is a step

in the right direction but not far enough. An unconscious dieing patient cannot state who they want there and blood relations do prevent partners from being able to say good bye. That carry in your wallet all the time sounds good but in reality doesn't always work. You can't go back and redo someone's last moments with their loved one. I know many nurses that risk their jobs sneaking partners in to say good bye to loved ones.

Not really arguing with you as you have some good points and agree it is a start in the right direction. Just wish it went a lot further.

[readmoreoften]

12. Without regulation, it won't necessarily be upheld.

All it takes is one or two homophobic administrators to invent loopholes or simply say that the documentation isn't acceptable.

[InkAddict]

4. So, must I stand in a line and show ID before being allowed to

visit a sick friend, colleague, or family member??? Volunteers usually staff an info desk - they will now be made responsible for clearing visitors to each and every patient??? On the floor, that would be the unit clerk, nurse, security's job to challenge a visitor??? What if the patient is unconscious on admittance; patients in the Medicare/Medicaid arena don't have $$ for legal documents much nor worry too much about same. Do I get a badge that says I'm an "authorized" visitor to a "specific room#" as opposed to an un-authorized one; patients often change rooms - what kind of hassle will I have getting to the correct room???

Tell me how the next-of-kin with a grudge can be made to confess that it's not the race, color, religion, national origin, disability, gender, or sexual orientation of the visitor that leads them to deny access on behalf of the patient and not just the fact that the person is subjectively not otherwise well tolerated???

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign...can't you read the sign????

Oh well, I suppose this is good for those able to choose for themselves who they wish to see, however.

[rasputin1952]

8. A list could be set up today, say for you...

and if you are incapacitated, a notarized list would serve as certification. If a number of family members, friends, lovers etc have a copy of the list, they can take it to the hospital. Naturally, these people given the list would have to minimal and very cautious with whom they shared the names with, (I would not share them w/anyone until an event proved to warrant it), and must be updated when new people are placed on it, and some removed. Such a list should also be kept by the primary caregiver of the individual as well as any lawyer they may have dealings with.


The point is, this is a great step forward in accepting the wishes of those who are ill or injured and up to this point were not allowed to visit before under certain circumstances.

[InkAddict]

13. Notarized.... .hahahahahaha hahahaha!

Yep, sure looks like their sig.....hahahahahahahaha $1.50 please, or is it higher now depending on the documents robotized....hahahahahahahah

[fascisthunter]

5. very good

[MineralMan]

6. Excellent. Good job, Mr. President.

Progress is good!

[johnnypneumatic]

7. I'm sure glad they made that a priority, only took them 7 months

Seven months to push out a policy finally, and now 60 more days until it goes into effect.

[rasputin1952]

9. Not trying to sound facetious, but would you rather nothing?

I think this is a great move forward, most others would agree that this is something he has delivered on as a promise to the people.

[johnnypneumatic]

14. I guess almost nothing is better than nothing

**I'm not trying to be combative, and I apologize for a post that has gotten longer than I planned, but if I sound bitter I hope you will understand why...**

"a great move forward"?

no it is the smallest of baby steps, the smallest incremental step.
-The memo, in the first place, can be easily kicked aside as soon as the repukes come back into power. A new memo by them and poof, it's gone. Will it take 9 months to be kicked aside? I doubt it, it would likely be immediate.
-In the second place, the new guidelines are problematic and inadequate. If you care to, you can read this thread at Pam's House Blend about why,
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/18002/new-rules-issued-on-patient-visitation-in-hospitals-receiveing-federal-dollars
and questions explored in the comments, such as this one:

"More work to be done
you are correct in that the scenarios that were outlined are limited in scope. I was on a number of calls today with the White House, DHHS and CMS as they announced this. It was brought up that this is a good ruling (that included SO and GI) but only good if there was either legal paperwork in place between the two partners or that the patient was capable of making their visitor names known. It falls way short if the patient cannot make their wishes known, if there is no paperwork in place, if a family member happens to be anti-lgbt and objects, or if paperwork is not recognized by the state."

So, under these guidelines, it is probable still, that in a case where the patient is unconscious, a homophobic family could still push out the lgbt partner, in spite of thousands of dollars of legal paperwork (that many like me can't afford and don't have) especially in homophobic states that have constitutional amendments outlawing any recognition of any gay partnership (like mine...Arizona...got to get out of here).
So, Obama got credit for the memo on 4/15/10, he gets congratulations now for the guidelines finally being released, he'll probably also be praised again in 2 months when they finally go into effect, and he'll be praised again later when they have to be revised and strengthened.

"most others would agree that this is something he has delivered on as a promise to the people"?

well...no
-We were promised health care reform, repeal of DADT, repeal of DOMA, and passage of ENDA.
Let's put this memo into perspective in the context of what was going on at the time...
He didn't promise this memo, because there was gay anti-discrimination language written into the health care bill that would have covered this and more, but that was stripped out by Democrats compromising and caving to republicans who still didn't vote for it after all the compromises...
-ENDA was being delayed and delayed, soon to be permanently shelved...
Two weeks before, Gates had just sent his letter telling Congress he didn't want them to repeal DADT this year. And Obama said nothing. He let Gates set the policy.
-on 4/14 reports surfaced that the White House congressional liaison office was telling offices on the Hill not to pass DADT repeal this year. The White House then denied that report was true, but still didn't call for repeal this year, or mention Gates letter telling Congress not to repeal.
-This memo would be unnecessary if DOMA was repealed...but DOMA repeal is not even on the horizon... and no one has hope that it ever will be...
-In the meantime Obama and his Department of "Justice" have been fiercely defending all anti-gay laws...

So Obama releases this memo on 4/15/10...
so all in all it just looks like a pr move to look like they are doing something good when they are doing a lot bad...
a crumb is still something to a starving person, even if it takes 7 months to fall far enough from the table to see how small a crumb it is, and another 2 months from now to hit the ground.