Maple Grove/Chaska Patient Handbook 2023 - 48

Subd. 20. Grievances. Patients and residents shall be encouraged and
assisted, throughout their stay in a facility or their course of treatment, to
understand and exercise their rights as patients, residents, and citizens.
Patients and residents may voice grievances and recommend changes in
policies and services to facility staff and others of their choice, free from
restraint, interference, coercion, discrimination, or reprisal, including threat
of discharge. Notice of the grievance procedure of the facility or program, as
well as addresses and telephone numbers for the Office of Health Facility
Complaints and the area nursing home ombudsman pursuant to the Older
Americans Act, section 307(a)(12) shall be posted in a conspicuous place.
Every acute care inpatient facility, every residential program as defined in
section 253C.01, every nonacute care facility, and every facility employing
more than two people that provides outpatient mental health services shall
have a written internal grievance procedure that, at a minimum, sets forth
the process to be followed; specifies time limits, including time limits for
facility response; provides for the patient or resident to have the assistance of
an advocate; requires a written response to written grievances; and provides
for a timely decision by an impartial decision maker if the grievance is not
otherwise resolved. Compliance by hospitals, residential programs as defined
in section 253C.01 which are hospital-based primary treatment programs,
and outpatient surgery centers with section 144.691 and compliance by health
maintenance organizations with section 62D.11 is deemed to be compliance
with the requirement for a written internal grievance procedure.
Subd. 21. Communication privacy. Patients and residents may associate and
communicate privately with persons of their choice and enter and, except
as provided by the Minnesota Commitment Act, leave the facility as they
choose. Patients and residents shall have access, at their expense, to writing
instruments, stationery, and postage. Personal mail shall be sent without
interference and received unopened unless medically or programmatically
contraindicated and documented by the physician or advanced practice
registered nurse in the medical record. There shall be access to a telephone
where patients and residents can make and receive calls as well as speak
privately. Facilities which are unable to provide a private area shall make
reasonable arrangements to accommodate the privacy of patients' or
residents' calls. Upon admission to a facility where federal law prohibits
unauthorized disclosure of patient or resident identifying information
to callers and visitors, the patient or resident, or the legal guardian or
conservator of the patient or resident, shall be given the opportunity to
authorize disclosure of the patient's or resident's presence in the facility
to callers and visitors who may seek to communicate with the patient or
resident. To the extent possible, the legal guardian or conservator of a patient
or resident shall consider the opinions of the patient or resident regarding
the disclosure of the patient's or resident's presence in the facility. This right
is limited where medically inadvisable, as documented by the attending
physician or advanced practice registered nurse in a patient's or resident's
care record. Where programmatically limited by a facility abuse prevention
plan pursuant to section 626.557, subdivision 14, paragraph (b), this right shall
also be limited accordingly.
Subd. 22. Personal property. Patients and residents may retain and use their
personal clothing and possessions as space permits, unless to do so would
infringe upon rights of other patients or residents, and unless medically
or programmatically contraindicated for documented medical, safety, or
programmatic reasons. The facility must either maintain a central locked
depository or provide individual locked storage areas in which residents may
store their valuables for safekeeping. The facility may, but is not required to,
provide compensation for or replacement of lost or stolen items.
Subd. 23. Services for the facility. Patients and residents shall not perform
labor or services for the facility unless those activities are included for
therapeutic purposes and appropriately goal-related in their individual
medical record.
Subd. 24. Choice of supplier. Residents may purchase or rent goods or
services not included in the per diem rate from a supplier of their choice
unless otherwise provided by law. The supplier shall ensure that these
purchases are sufficient to meet the medical or treatment needs of the
residents.
Subd. 25. Financial affairs. Competent residents may manage their personal
financial affairs, or shall be given at least a quarterly accounting of financial
transactions on their behalf if they delegate this responsibility in accordance
with the laws of Minnesota to the facility for any period of time.
Subd. 26. Right to associate.
(a) Residents may meet with and receive visitors and participate in activities
of commercial, religious, political, as defined in section 203B.11 and
community groups without interference at their discretion if the activities
do not infringe on the right to privacy of other residents or are not
programmatically contraindicated. This includes:
(1) the right to join with other individuals within and outside the facility
to work for improvements in long-term care;
(2) the right to visitation by an individual the patient has appointed as the
patient's health care agent under chapter 145C;
(3) the right to visitation and health care decision making by an
individual designated by the patient under paragraph (c).
(b) Upon admission to a facility where federal law prohibits unauthorized
disclosure of patient or resident identifying information to callers and
visitors, the patient or resident, or the legal guardian or conservator of the
patient or resident, shall be given the opportunity to authorize disclosure
of the patient's or resident's presence in the facility to callers and visitors
who may seek to communicate with the patient or resident. To the extent
possible, the legal guardian or conservator of a patient or resident shall
consider the opinions of the patient or resident regarding the disclosure
of the patient's or resident's presence in the facility.
(c) Upon admission to a facility, the patient or resident, or the legal guardian
or conservator of the patient or resident, must be given the opportunity
to designate a person who is not related who will have the status of the
patient's next of kin with respect to visitation and making a health care
decision. A designation must be included in the patient's health record.
With respect to making a health care decision, a health care directive or
appointment of a health care agent under chapter 145C prevails over a
designation made under this paragraph. The unrelated person may also
be identified as such by the patient or by the patient's family.
Subd. 27. Advisory councils. Residents and their families shall have the
right to organize, maintain, and participate in resident advisory and family
councils. Each facility shall provide assistance and space for meetings.
Council meetings shall be afforded privacy, with staff or visitors attending
only upon the council's invitation. A staff person shall be designated the
responsibility of providing this assistance and responding to written requests
which result from council meetings. Resident and family councils shall be
encouraged to make recommendations regarding facility policies.
Subd. 28. Married residents. Residents, if married, shall be assured privacy
for visits by their spouses and, if both spouses are residents of the facility,
they shall be permitted to share a room, unless medically contraindicated
and documented by their physicians in the medical records.
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Maple Grove/Chaska Patient Handbook 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Maple Grove/Chaska Patient Handbook 2023
