Patient Dismissal Policy
Purpose: To define the situations under which a provider or department may and may not elect to dismiss a
patient from receiving care within the department.
Definitions:
- Columbus Regional Health: Consists of Columbus Regional Hospital and Columbus Regional Health Physicians.
- No-Show: An appointment missed without notifying the department in advance or patients who arrive more than 10 minutes late for check-in and cannot be seen that day will be considered a no-show.
- Established Patient: An established patient is one who has received professional services from a
physician/qualified health care professional or another physician/other qualified health care
professional of the exact same specialty and subspecialty who belongs to the same group practice,
within the past three years.
- Chronic No-Show Established Patient: A patient will be considered a chronic no-show if the patient
has logged three or more no-shows in a rolling 12-month period beginning with the first no-show
event. The no-shows do not need to be consecutive.
- New Patient: A new patient is one who has not received any professional services from a
physician/qualified health care professional or another physician/qualified health care professional of
the exact same specialty and subspecialty who belongs to the same group practice, within the past
three years. - Chronic No-Show New Patient: A patient will be considered a chronic no-show new patient if the
patient has logged two or more no-shows with that practice notwithstanding timeframe. - Violent patient: A patient will be considered violent if they exhibit any hostile action of a hurtful
nature, or any action that displays an intention to physically harm any employed or contracted
person or other patient of the practice. - Harassment: Harassment is any verbal or physical conduct that shows hostility toward an individual
based on their race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, age,
physical or mental disability, or any other class protected by federal, state, or local law.
Policy:
- It is the policy of Columbus Regional Health that its providers are not required to continue treating a patient who is uncooperative or violent or who harasses any CRH staff.
- Patients may be considered for dismissal from the department for exhibiting any of the following behaviors:
- Chronically missing appointments (see the CRH Appointment No-Show and Late Cancel Policy
for further detail); - Refusing to cooperate with the physician, advanced practice provider, or any employee of the
practice;
- As patients possess autonomy and self-determination, which includes the right to accept
or refuse medical treatment, a patient has the right to decide whether or not to proceed
with a specific course of treatment. However, if the patient has repeated noncompliance or the provider is of the opinion the patient-provider relationship has been
irrevocably damaged due to the patient’s refusal to cooperate, the provider does have
the right to end the patient-provider relationship.
- Threatening or filing of lawsuits against individuals, the department, CRHP, or CRH;
- Displaying a threatening or hostile attitude that makes any staff member or other patient feel
unsafe; - Demonstrating violent or abusive behavior;
- Violating the Controlled Substance Agreement;
- Loss of provider/patient therapeutic relationship, including but not limited to, treatment,
nonadherance, follow-up noncompliance, and social/print media slander.
- Patients may not be considered for dismissal for either of the following listed reasons:
- Financial reasons, such as the inability to pay for services rendered;
- Race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, citizenship status, pregnancy, disability, military status, religion;
- Patient’s age may require a transfer of care to an appropriate provider.
- In addition to dismissal from the practice, violent or abusive patients, or patients engaging in
harassment of any kind will be managed in accordance with all Columbus Regional Health Physician risk management policies, up to and including charges being filed with applicable law enforcement
agencies. - A patient’s return to services within the department will be at provider/department discretion.
- A patient will have 30 days from letter print date to transfer to a new provider. During that time, they
are to receive acute care and medication refills. - Per CRH Rules and Regulations Article V, Section 1, Part 3 (5) providers are still responsible for
providing care to a patient who has previously been dismissed from their practice as needed as part of the unassigned patient ED back-up call rotation.
- The only exception to this is circumstances in which the dismissal occurred due to violent,
abusive, harassing, and/or threatening behavior toward providers or staff.
