I am close, lifelong friends with a family of Asian immigrants (a father, mother and daughter).
Early on, I would help explain details of medical and civil procedures to them. But this hasn’t been necessary for years, because the daughter, who came here when she was very young, is a college graduate and speaks English like a native.
The daughter will be undergoing surgery shortly for a benign brain tumor. She will be in the hospital for five days.
The father has asked me to accompany him to the hospital on the day of the surgery, so that he and his wife are clear on all the post-op instructions.
My question: Since I am not related to any of the family by blood or marriage, should I get a lawyer to draw up a document which would ensure that medical personnel are expressly allowed to explain these instructions to me?
I don’t think that’s necessary under the circumstances. I would contact the hospital and explain the situation to them. If they say they need a legal document allowing you to be there get a lawyer. My guess is that they will be okay with you being there as a translator for the parents.
I don’t know the rules about what doctors can say to whom in the USA, but I work as an interpreter*. If you say you are his interpreter and either the father or the mother is there listening, I am sure the doctor can talk to them (not to you! - you are just a medium) while you stand aside, listen and then explain. As interpreter is not a profession that is regulated, anyone can do it, if the “client” agrees. No money needs to be exchanged, an oral contract should be enough. You do not have to speak their language to be their interpreter, but you should, as I am sure you will, respect confidentiality.
I recommend taking a note pad for writing things down. And two ball-pens, in case one does not work. If something is not clear, ask.
Good luck!
* That is a translator for the spoken word, not for written texts.
The daughter (assuming she can make decisions for herself) can sign a document from the hospital authorizing you to have access to her medical information. No lawyer should be necessary. That should be all you need to be kept in the loop. That’s been standard procedure when I’ve gone to the hospital. I could designate a representative to have my medical info, and it doesn’t need to be a relative, or a doctor or other professional.
Exactly what I popped in to say. Medical power of attorney doesn’t require a lawyer. There are numerous versions online - some on state-specific sites (though a document from state A is valid in state B). Your friend could fill one out and designate you as being one of the contacts - either permanently or just for a specific period. That’ll cover the doctors and HIPAA rules. Make sure she provides a copy to the hospital, and have a copy yourself.
This is indeed the answer. The daughter can authorize you to have her health information and she can specify the extent of that as well as the duration of the permission. This is different than giving you a health care power of attorney. It is merely her putting your name on a line in her permission to treat/admission forms.
Last time I took my mom to the hospital, it turned out they didn’t have a copy of her instructions making me her medical proxy (they still had my dad, who has been dead for years.) The social worker who talked to my mom in the emergency department went off and fetched the right forms, and had us fill them out. In your case, you aren’t supposed to be making decisions, just being given access to information, but I’m sure they have that form, too.
But if there’s some emergency, and the patient can’t fill out the right forms, her parents (or whoever the medical people CAN talk to) are allowed to talk to you. They are not medical professionals bound by HIPAA.
Do check to see if there are issues with how many people are allowed in the room due to covid, though. That might complicate matters.
Besides what people have said, most hospitals have digital medical records, and the doctor/surgeon will have already entered post-op instructions in there. Be sure to ask them to print this out for them (often they will have already done this). Those are real helpful, in that you don’t have to remember/make notes as the doctor is explaining; you can review the printed notes later.
Ask them to print a 2nd copy for you to keep, so the parents can call you at home later if a question comes up, and you can review your copy of the printed doctor’s notes and translate for them.
A work friend was having surgery and didn’t have a “responsible adult”* to get him to surgery, make medical decisions and pick him up the next day. I volunteered to help.
He gave me a copy of his living will and we signed the hospital paper work. It really wasn’t an issue, heck, I never had to show ID or anything.
*seriously, I was once officially a responsible adult. None of my friends or family believed that either.
HIPPA is at the discretion of the pt. So long as they’re legally competent, they can give you access to as much of the chart as they want. I’d recommend making sure it gets completed before she’s sedated.
My wife and mother in law had major surgery in the same hospital (at different times). MIL speaks no English. My wife is a professional interpreter (but not a medical one, she works in courts and administrative processes).
When my wife was “under” the doctors were happy to talk with me about her condition and care.
When my mother in law was “under” they wouldn’t give any information to my wife. They were talking to my father in law (who also spoke no English) through a phone interpreter.
But if your MIL had explicitly authorized them to talk to your wife, before being sedated, they could have talked to your wife.
And this is a common issue, I would expect the hospital to have the right forms handy, so long as everyone is explicit about it up-front. My only concern is that they wouldn’t allow extra people in the room due to covid restrictions. I know that’s an issue where I’ve been taking my mom.
Of course, things may be different where you are, but here, every single time I go in to the doctor they give me a HIPAA form, and part of my check-in procedure involves filling out a form that essentially says “I allow my medical information to be shared with the following party/ies” and has a space where I can fill in anybody I need to.