Abstract
A variety of legal issues relevant to social workers not infrequently arise in the health-care context. Social workers must be attuned to recordkeeping standards for utilization review and managed care, as well as proactively to manage risk. In the health-care context, such as in hospitals and nursing homes, social workers are often called upon by individuals and their families to assist them with decisionmaking. As members of the health-care team, it is critical that social workers understand patients’ rights under the law and the various options available to them. This chapter provides an overview of patient’s rights related to consent and refusal of treatment and various forms of advance directives.
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Notes
- 1.
Although the Florida court in Montejo v. Martin Memorial Hospital (2004) found that there was no legitimate basis for the discharge of the patient from the hospital, an Iowa court ruled that the defendant hospital was not liable for false imprisonment of the comatose patient who they had sent to Mexico despite his family members’ objections (Cruz v. Central Iowa Hospital Corporation, 2012) .
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Other Sources
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Loue, S. (2018). The “passport biopsy” and de facto deportation: Hospitals’ involuntary international transfer of patients. Immigration Briefings, 18(3), 1–29
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Loue, S. (2018). Social Work in the Context of Health Care. In: Legal Issues in Social Work Practice and Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77414-5_9
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