Patient Rights & Responsibilities

You have the right:

• To care, treatment and services within Mary Greeley Medical Center’s capability, stated mission, and applicable law and regulation.
• To safe, effective, considerate and respectful care regardless of age, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, culture, language, physical or mental disability, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
• To have your cultural, psychosocial, spiritual and personal values, beliefs and preferences respected, including the right to spiritual counseling and pastoral services.
• To effective communication and interpretation, including access to translation services and services to address vision, speech, hearing, language and cognitive impairment.
• To be free from mental, physical, sexual and verbal abuse; neglect; harassment; and exploitation from staff, students, volunteers, other patients, visitors and family members.
• To designate a patient representative or support person prior to receiving care.
• To receive visitors or have a family member, friend or other individual be present for emotional support and comfort during the course of your hospital stay; unless this individual’s presence infringes on other’s rights, safety, or is medically or therapeutically contraindicated. You also have the right to withdraw or deny visitation of individuals at any time.
• To notify a family member or representative of your admission to the hospital.
• To notify your physician of your admission to the hospital.

You have the right:

• To information about your illness, course of treatment and prospects for recovery, in terms that you can understand, to enable you to make care, treatment and service decisions. This includes information about treatments or procedures as needed in order to give informed consent or refusal.

• To be informed of any research, investigation and clinical trials involved in your treatment. You also have the right to refuse participation, or discontinue participation, in any research, investigation and clinical trials without compromising your access to care, treatment or services not related to the research.

• To be informed of outcomes of care, treatment or services that have been provided, including unanticipated outcomes.

• To know the identity of the physician primarily responsible for your care, as well as the identity and professional status of others providing services to you while a patient at Mary Greeley Medical Center.

• To have your state-sanctioned marriage and spouse recognized by Mary Greeley Medical Center regardless of any laws to the contrary in Iowa.

• To access, request amendment to and obtain information on disclosures regarding your own health information as permitted under applicable law.

• To be informed in advance of any discontinuation of care and the right to appeal.

• To have your patient billings from Mary Greeley Medical Center explained to you. If you have any questions, contact a patient account representative at 515-239-2111 before your dismissal. The Business Office is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Professional services are billed separately.

You have the right:

• To personal privacy within the limits of the law, when receiving care, treatment and services at Mary Greeley Medical Center.
• To give or withhold informed consent to the organization for purposes of production or use of recordings, films or other images of yourself for purposes other than your own care.
• To confidentiality of your medical and other appropriate information.

You have the right:

• To participate in the development and implementation of your plan of care.

• To be involved in decisions and in resolving dilemmas about your care, treatment and services provided. This includes the right to accept medical care, refuse treatment, withdraw life-sustaining treatment or withhold resuscitative services in accordance with law and regulation. When the patient is not legally responsible, the surrogate decision maker, as allowed by law, has the right to be informed about the patient’s health status, be involved in planning and treatment and be able to request or refuse care, treatment and services on the patient’s behalf.

• To participate in discussions concerning ethical issues regarding your care.

• To prepare an advanced directive. An advanced directive is a written instruction, such as a living will and/or durable power of attorney for health care, which is recognized under Iowa law and allows individuals to choose medical care, treatment and service in advance in case you should become incapacitated. Mary Greeley Medical Center honors advance directives in our inpatient services, Home Health and Hospice.

You have the right:

• To have your pain recognized and addressed in accordance with the care, treatment and services provided. This includes the right to information regarding pain, pain assessment, pain management methods, side effects and limitation of these methods, and your participation in pain management decisions.

• To be free from restraints and/or seclusion of any form that are not medically necessary or are used as a means of coercion, discipline, convenience or retaliation by staff.

• To an assessment to determine risks associated with the use of restraints and/or seclusion and consideration of alternative interventions prior to the use of restraints and/or seclusion.

• To an environment that preserves your personal dignity and contributes to a positive self-image.

• To an assurance of reasonable safety and security within Mary Greeley Medical Center, including safety and security of your property.

• To access protective and advocacy services. If needed, ask your caregiver for a list of the available resources.

You have the right, without coercion, discrimination, reprisal or unreasonable interruption of care, treatment or services, to voice concerns and recommend changes about the care you receive at any time during or after your visit to Mary Greeley Medical Center. These concerns will be reviewed
and, when possible, resolved.

It is best to report your concern at the time. If you or your representative has a concern, please report it to your caregiver. If it cannot be resolved at that time, it will be reported to the appropriate department director or unit supervisor. The department director or unit supervisor will discuss the concern with you or your representative and will do a thorough investigation.

You will be provided a written notification of the outcome of this investigation within seven calendar days. All grievances will be resolved within 30 days.
If you feel your concern has not been resolved with Mary Greeley Medical Center and you would like to pursue an action outside of the hospital, you have the right to file a complaint with the following:

Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals & Licensing
6200 Park Ave. Suite 100
Des Moines, Iowa 50321
Phone number: 877-686-0027
E-mail: complaint@dia.iowa.gov

and/or

DNV Healthcare 
Attn: Hospital Complaints
1400 Ravello Dr.
Katy, TX 77449
Phone: 866-496-9647
Email: hospitalcomplaint@dnv.com
Website: https://www.dnvhealthcareportal.com/patient-complaint-report

In addition to the preceding rights, you or your designated representative or support person must accept certain responsibilities in order to receive the maximum benefit from your stay at Mary Greeley Medical Center.

Please be aware that violence and aggression are unacceptable behaviors. Verbal abuse or physical abuse of hospital staff and any threat to hospital property will not be tolerated. Any such actions may lead to law enforcement being called and charges being filed.

You are responsible for:

• Providing, to the best of your knowledge, accurate and complete information about present complaints, past illnesses, hospitalizations, medications and other matters related to your health.
• Asking any questions or stating any concerns you may have. If you still do not understand, ask again.
• Reporting to your caregiver any unexpected changes in your condition.
• Reporting to your caregiver any perceived risks in the care you are receiving.
• Participating in the formation of your care, treatment and service plan, and for following this plan as agreed upon with your health care team.
• Expressing to your health care team any concerns you have about your ability to follow or comply with your care, treatment and service plan.
• The consequences and outcomes if you do not follow the care, treatment and service plan.
• Reporting pain, assisting in the assessment of your pain, and communicating to your caregiver the effects of pain management interventions.
• Following Mary Greeley Medical Center’s rules and regulations concerning patient care and conduct, including helping to control noise and disturbances and following the tobacco-free policy.
• Not leaving the grounds at Mary Greeley Medical Center. We are responsible for your safety and require that you stay on the property while a patient at the medical center. If you wish to leave the unit or department while you are a patient, physician and/or nurse approval is required.
• Showing respect and consideration for Mary Greeley Medical Center’s staff and property, as well as showing respect and consideration for other patients and their property.
• Promptly meeting any financial obligations agreed to with Mary Greeley Medical Center.

We do not obtain personal information (e.g. name, address, email address, etc.) about you when you visit the Mary Greeley Medical Center website unless you choose voluntarily to provide such information to us. If you identify yourself by sending an email, by using a form like "Make An Appointment," or by registering to receive information from us, there are a few things you should know.

• Select staff members at Mary Greeley Medical Center may see the material you submit.
• The information you send may be entered into our electronic database to share with our physicians, other health care professionals or our Community Relations staff.
• In other limited circumstances, including requests from legal authorities, we may be required by law to disclose information you submit.

Please note that electronic mail and other Internet communications channels are not necessarily secure against interception. While we take precautions, such as encrypting communications where appropriate, if your communication is very sensitive, or includes information like your diagnosis or medical history, you might want to send it by postal mail instead.

Our web server automatically collects and stores the following information about you, none of which is linked to your personal identity:

• Name of the domain from which you access the Internet
• Date and time you access our service
• Pages you visit
• Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to us
• Name and release number of web browser software you are using

We use this information to help us make the Mary Greeley Medical Center website more useful to you. We do not use cookies to collect information.

Under no circumstances will we ever disclose (to a third party) personal information about individual medical conditions or interests, except when required by law.

Our website also provides links to other useful or interesting web site, including the Healthwise health information database, that are not owned or controlled by Mary Greeley Medical Center. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of these website owners.

If you have questions or comments about our privacy policy, please contact us.