PATIENT
EDUCATION
PATIENT BILL OF RIGHTS & RESPONSIBILITIES
League City Pediatrics is committed to respecting and protecting the rights of our patients and families. We strive to provide care that is sensitive to culture, race, religion and national origin.
Our Responsibilities
- We will treat our patients and their family with respect and dignity.
- We will provide quality health care to all our patients.
- We will give our patient’s and their families the opportunity to make decisions and choices related to their health care.
- We will respect the privacy of our patients and their families.
- We will keep our patient’s medical records confidential in accordance with Texas law.
- Our staff will introduce themselves when caring for our patients.
- We will help our patients and our patient’s families understand how to access our services after hours.
Patient/Family Responsibilities
- Share important information about your health or your child’s health, such as symptoms, treatments, medicines and other illnesses.
- Let us know if you are not satisfied with your or your child’s care.
- Familiarize yourself with your or your child’s health insurance to ensure that the bill is paid promptly.
- Respect the rights of other patients, families and League City Pediatrics staff.
POLICY ON ADOLESCENT CONFIDENTIALITY
Teenagers need to learn to be independent and to be responsible for their own health. However, they still need their parents to be involved in their healthcare. Most teenagers are healthy but they may have concerns they may not want to discuss with family and friends. Many surveys show that one-reason teenagers don’t see the doctor or nurse practitioner is because they worry about their privacy. At League City Pediatrics we would like to take great care of our teenage patients. To do this, the structure of teenage visits is different from that of younger children.
Our Responsibilities
- Each teenage visit will begin with the parent and teenager in the room together. This gives the parent a chance to ask questions and share important information about their child’s health.
- Starting around age 13, after meeting together, the parent will be asked to leave the room for part of the visit. The time alone with the doctor or nurse practitioner gives the teenager a chance to ask questions or deal with issues that are considered private.
- For the physical examination, the teenager may choose to have a parent, a nurse, or just the doctor in the room.
- The information discussed by the teenager and doctor or nurse practitioner is considered confidential and will not be shared with anyone.
- If important medical issues come up, we will encourage the teenager to discuss them together with his or her doctor or nurse practitioner and parents.
- The only time that we would talk to a parent about a private issue is in the rare case a teenager’s health or life is in danger. We will always let the teenager know before we do this.
- We routinely perform confidential testing on all of our adolescent patients as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and Center for Disease Control. You may see this testing on your insurance. By Texas law we cannot discuss these test results with parents.
- At the end of the visit, the doctor or nurse practitioner will meet with the parent and teenager together. This allows us to update parents and form plans to keep our teenage patients healthy.
HIPPA
