I was recently in the hospital and told that morning that I would be releasd that same day. However, they had an electical (and computer) outage that afternoon and I was told I would have to stay overnight because they couldn’t find and process the paper discharge order. Most of the staff then left the premises.
I demanded and insisted that I wanted to go home ASAP. They insisted that I couldn’t leave and had security monitor me at all times. I ojected strenuously and even threatened to sue, but they were adament that I couldn’t leave and that they were withn their rights in keeping me. I wasn’t finally released until 3:00 that next day!!!
A hospital is not a prison. I’m neither a health professional nor a lawyer, but I cannot imagine that the staff could forcibly restrain you if you simply put on your clothes and walked out. That’s what I would do.
Also, if I did stay the extra day purely for the hospital’s convenience, I would refuse to pay that extra day’s charges. I always check a hospital’s bill, even if it’s being paid by insurance. On my most recent hospitalization, I found several items that were billed inappropriately and the insurance claim was resubmitted without them.
There is something else going on here. Assuming this is in the US, the most they can do is let you go Against Medical Advice which, as stated, creates possible insurance issue. A call to the police would be in order if they really did what you claim.
It was many years ago, but I took my grade-school-age child out of the hospital after an appendectomy against [stupid] medical advice, and it was all still covered by insurance.
if i’m reading the op right he was cleared to go, but before that order could be officially entered into the comp the power went out; so he would no be leaving AMA!
if the story unfolded according to the op there is no reason he couldnt just walk out of the hosp. there’s either more to the story or the staff overstepped their authority.
imo
The insurance not paying for AMA is a myth. There have been several threads here regarding that.
If this happened in the US then there is way more to the story.
The staff would not leave because of a power outage, handwritten D/C papers could have been used etc.
My mother discharged herself from the hospital a few years ago after she passed out in the airport. She had to sign a paper saying that she was going against doctor’s orders. The insurance paid with no issues.
Doctors and hospital administrators have no legal right to hold anyone against their will, unless they believe that the patient is a danger to himself or somebody else. And even then, it’s not very easy. And I daresay the insurance company would refuse to pay a hospital that hold a patient for longer than is medically necessary because of some computer glitch. And “monitoring” the patient to ensure he doesn’t leave sounds like some Utopian society novel.
Perhaps a hospital could forcibly hold a patient who was admitted for a psych hold following arrest under some Mental health law? I’m not sure it is done that way in the States but it is in my home country.
If such a patient started to agitate to demand to leave then I could envision staff telling him a lie in order to delay things long enough to get security or police on scene.
The hospital can hold someone who was in an auto accident until the person is cleared of fault, if the accident was serious enough that an arrest might be pending. I know of at least one case where I’m pretty sure the doctors did a work slow-down until they got permission from the cops to release the patient.
It’s also possible that a dementia patient has confused the situation with something else that once happened-- maybe a delay in getting a military discharge because something broke down. The military can do what it wants. Or a delay in getting to go somewhere by plane if the computer went off-line.
The OP was really detained by the hospital, but may have confabulated the computer problem from some other life event.
“In the States” is right: Each state would have its own laws regarding involuntary psychiatric holds. In California, it’s section 5150 of their law:
So. If a police officer finds you running in and out of traffic, or screaming incoherently and waving a machete around, or, because the standard is probable cause, finds you with a gun near where there have been reports of someone matching your description threatening people with a firearm, they can take you to a mental health facility, where they can involuntarily detain you for up to three days.
I’m sorry RivkahChaya my answer was a little brusque.
Healthcare providers are held to strict standards with regard to reporting on patients.
Gunshots and stabbings are required to be reported to the police. Abuse of children, the elderly, or vulnerable adults are required to be reported. Some areas require dog bites to be reported. Some sexually transmitted diseases have to be reported to the state health department. Rabies and a few other virulent diseases are reported to the state health department. All deaths are reported to the coroner.
But with the exception of the above list, we absolutely do not talk to the police. The reasoning behind that, is that we don’t want people to be afraid to come to the hospital.
We don’t contact the police about drug abuse and we don’t provide them with drug or alcohol screens.
In the case you mentioned about “holding a patient until they are cleared of fault in an auto accident”, first of all, we can’t “hold” a patient without compelling evidence that they are a danger to themselves or others. Secondly, we have no idea what happened in the field (the accident site), lots of times the patient doesn’t either, and beside trying to determine the mechanism of injury, we really aren’t that interested. We see a lot of accidents.
Are you in a big city? Because in small towns, where the cops know the doctors, and the cops have coerced someone to take an ambulance ride in because they think the person might be altered, the person most certainly can be held. Although it occurs to me that this may have happened before HIPAA, so maybe things are different now.
Understand, in this case, the person crossed the center line and caused an accident, but it wasn’t due to drugs or alcohol, although I can believe that a lot of cases are.