# Can I leave a hospital whenever I want? Seriously. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 9, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161 "2010-07-09T22:46:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161/101 "2013-07-12T02:31:50Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Plus you sign a zillion forms anyway allowing yourself to not be allowed to leave (sorry about the grammar). If you are not of sound mind , your signature counts for nothing. Just like it was on a will “I , being of sound mind, leave my entire estate to Luke Skywalker and the Jedi Knights.”. ---
**Author:** ![GythaOgg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/49beb7/32.png) [@GythaOgg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GythaOgg)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161/102 "2013-07-12T03:47:00Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > No it doesn’t. Your insurance company doesn’t care as long as the care you did receive was covered under your policy, and the appropriate preauthorization (or retroactive authorization if it was an emergency) was obtained. Like Mdcastle said they’d only deny the claim if the hospital billing department botched up the claim form. I’ll grant you that if your employer self-insures they can (subject to federal regulations) cover or exclude whatever they want and right all kinds of crazy stuff into the plan, especially if it’s a religious organization. This. I’m an RN who’s worked in hospitals and who currently works for an insurance company, one of the larger ones. The insurance company could care less if you leave AMA from a claims standpoint. It’s not something that even enters into their consideration process for claims. The company I work for deals largely with ASO (self insured) groups and I’ve never heard of even the fussier, weirder ones demanding denial of claims for patients leaving AMA. Leaving AMA is something that might concern a case manager from a risk point of view, but claims will be paid if they’re properly submitted and covered. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161/103 "2013-07-12T04:29:52Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > If insurance benefits could be conditioned on you submitting to every whim of the treating doctors, it would be possible for an insurance company to, ahem, encourage the doctor to subject you to unnecessary treatment or restrictions in order to drive you away so the insurance company can deny your claim. Why on earth would the doctor want to help the insurance company deny your claim? He’s getting paid from that claim. If it’s denied all he can do is hope to collect something from the broke-ass patient that he just harassed into walking out on him. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161/104 "2013-07-12T17:06:23Z")
I’ve had five eye operations in the past two years and no one has ever suggested I be wheeled out. They wanted me to stay in recovery for an hour and then I was on my own. They did want to know if my wife or other person was around to drive me home. My wife took our 18 month old child out of the hospital AMA. It was much the same, she signed a form got a taxi and took him home. I still have no idea why they wanted to keep him a second night (the first night, even more unnecessary, was horrendous). He had an exploratory colonoscopy under anesthetic. (Although an irrelevant detail, the asshole doctor told my wife that infants do not have hemorrhoids and should be examined for polyps. No polyps were found and, as the doctor was nearly out the door, he briefly turned and told us that our son had hemorrhoids. Which, 44 years later, he still does.) ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161/105 "2013-07-12T19:03:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Why on earth would the doctor want to help the insurance company deny your claim? He’s getting paid from that claim. If it’s denied all he can do is hope to collect something from the broke-ass patient that he just harassed into walking out on him. Perhaps as a tax benefit? Maybe the doctor is retiring later that year and expects to be in a lower tax bracket next year. The doctor scratches the insurance company’s back now and takes a hefty bad debt tax deduction and the insurance company reciprocates next year and “hires” the doctor to take pictures of Hawaii and report on the subjective effects of drinking rum from a coconut and then sends him a W-2. The insurance company gets the benefit of holding on to the money from now until next year and can invest it or use it to shore up hurting cash reserves. Or, the doctor could be an employee at one of those hospitals that is strongly affiliated with a specific insurance company and the doctor is afraid that he’s going to be at the top of the layoff list unless he kowtows to the insurance company’s expectation of how much the doctor ought to charge to insurance. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161/106 "2013-07-12T21:06:28Z")
I read a book years ago in which they said doctors and nurses sometimes referred to AMA (against medical advice) as AMF (Adios, mother {this part is left as an exercise for the student.}) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2013, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161/107 "2013-07-13T08:42:17Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Oh Good! > > Hospital (horror) stories! [snip] > > Another time, I triggered a 72-hour hold by mentioning suicide (yes, the twits really did have me on a suicide watch). That ended with a real, live judge holding a competancy/habeas corpus hearing. I won… Once when I went to the ER upon advice of my psych–due to two weeks of worsening limb shaking (due, ultimately, by some combo of medicine load changes), the triage nurse, hearing where I had just come from, asked me if I had thought about suicide. I said yes, I have in the past, and in fact am trained in how to think about thinking about it. (That last bit I said in a longer version, for some reason, just to tell her nothing particular was going on). Boom: suicide watch, get undressed, put on the hospital PJs to save time when they hustle you to the 11th floor, say hi to the nice bored armed woman sitting in front of your bed, and wave to your neighbors who also see her. When a doctor came she barked her off instantly. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161/108 "2013-07-14T21:26:29Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > No it doesn’t. Your insurance company doesn’t care as long as the care you did receive was covered under your policy, and the appropriate preauthorization (or retroactive authorization if it was an emergency) was obtained. Like Mdcastle said they’d only deny the claim if the hospital billing department botched up the claim form. I’ll grant you that if your employer self-insures they can (subject to federal regulations) cover or exclude whatever they want and right all kinds of crazy stuff into the plan, especially if it’s a religious organization. I’ve also heard about insurance issues as a result of leaving the hospital AMA, but in the context of the insurer paying for any additional care arising from the decision to leave AMA, i.e. you have minor knee surgery, your physician wants you to remain as an inpatient for a couple of days and not try to walk without supervision, but you leave the hospital as soon as the anesthesia wears off and resume normal activities and suffer a major injury (that would not have happened but for leaving AMA) that not only negates the original surgery but requires a much more complicated and expensive procedure. I’m not saying this is true - the person(s) who told me this may have been wrong, the health care workers who told them may have been bluffing, etc., but I can understand why insurers might be allowed to do this. ---
**Author:** ![yiyayiya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/49beb7/32.png) [@yiyayiya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yiyayiya)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161/109 "2013-07-30T15:18:45Z")
> [@mittu](#): > > You can discharge yourself from hospital at any time. The hospital will get you to sign a waiver stating that you are leaving of your own free will and that you are aware that you are doing this against medical advice. In other words, if you die as a result the hospital cannot be held accountable. > > In extreme circumstances I suppose you could be sectioned if it was thought you might be a danger to others. > > I’m not sure what would happed if you left but refused to sign the waiver, perhaps the hospital has another form that could be signed by witnesses to say that you left and refused to sign but this is just a WAG. > > P.S. Welcome to the boards. You do not have to sign the form. They will just make a note on your records to reflect this. ---
**Author:** ![yiyayiya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/49beb7/32.png) [@yiyayiya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yiyayiya)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161/110 "2013-09-18T14:17:29Z")
> [@pendgwen](#): > > Besides being possible legal evidence the other function of the AMA form is to make patients stop and think. I’ve had more than one patient who was angry about their care in some way or just didn’t like hospitals or whatever change their mind about leaving AMA when I explained that I needed to have them sign a form saying that we think they need further treatment, they’re leaving anyway, and anything bad that happens as a result is their responsibility. As previously stated. You are free to leave anytime you want, they cannot stop you. AND you do not have to sign the form. Don’t let them bully you into it. Again there is nothing they can do except make a note on your file that you left AMA and refused to sign. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161/111 "2013-09-18T16:58:08Z")
…and zombies can leave whenever they want to without signing a damn thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-i-leave-a-hospital-whenever-i-want-seriously/546161.md?page=5)