Room for Improvement

HHS asks hospitals to grant visitation rights now
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has asked the leaders of the major hospital organizations to urge their members to not wait for the conclusion of the formal rulemaking process before implementing new rules that would broaden the visitation rights of their patients.

In April, the White House asked HHS to initiate rulemaking to lift restrictions on unrelated visitors who act as surrogate decision makers and visit hospitalized patients. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in June issued a proposed rule that will revise the Medicare Conditions of Participation for hospitals and critical access hospitals to ensure the visitation rights of all patients.

Under the proposed rule, hospitals will be required to inform patients of their visitation rights, any clinical restrictions on those rights, and their right to receive any visitors they designate. Hospitals would not be permitted to restrict or deny visitation privileges on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. They also must ensure that all visitors designated by the patient have visitation privileges that are no more restrictive than those for immediate family members.

The April White House memo noted that gay and lesbian Americans are often “barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives, unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.”

Others affected include widows or widowers with no children who are “denied the support and comfort
of a good friend,” and members of religious orders are “sometimes unable to choose someone other than an immediate family member to visit them and make medical decisions on their behalf.”