§ 23-17.5-12 - Visitors.
SECTION 23-17.5-12
§ 23-17.5-12 Visitors. – (a) Patients may associate and communicate privately with persons of theirchoice and shall be allowed freedom and privacy in sending and receiving mail.
(b) Posted reasonable visiting hours must be maintained ineach home, with a minimum of four (4) hours daily.
(c) The facility shall permit the long term care ombudsman ofthe department of elderly affairs, and his or her designees as certified bythat department, whose purposes include rendering assistance without charge tonursing home patients, to have access to the facility and its patients, ifthere is neither commercial purpose nor affect to the access, in order to:
(1) Visit, talk with, and make personal, social, and legalservices available to all patients.
(2) Inform patients of their rights and entitlements, andtheir corresponding obligations, under federal and state laws by means ofdistribution of educational materials and discussion in groups and withindividual patients.
(3) Assist patients in pursuing their legal rights regardingclaims for public assistance, medical assistance, and social security benefits,as well as in all matters in which patients are aggrieved.
(4) Have access to all areas of the facility accessible topatients except the immediate living area of a patient who objects to theaccess.
(5) Engage in all other methods of assisting, advising, andrepresenting patients so as to extend to them full enjoyment of their rights.
(d) Any ombudsman, as certified by the department of elderlyaffairs, shall have access at any time. Individual patients shall have thecomplete right to terminate or deny any visit by persons having access pursuantto this section. Communications between a patient and persons having accesspursuant to this section shall be confidential, unless the patient authorizesthe release of the information. The communication shall be conducted inprivacy. The state shall protect and hold harmless the long term careombudsman, and his or her designees, from financial loss and expense, includinglegal fees and costs, if any, arising out of any claim, demand or suit fordamages resulting from acts or omissions committed in the discharge of his orher duties and within the scope of his or her employment which may constitutenegligence, but which acts are not wanton, malicious or grossly negligent, asdetermined by a court of competent jurisdiction.
(e) No patient shall be punished or harassed by the facilityor by its agents or employees because of the patient's effort to avail himselfor herself of his or her rights, or because of the activities of others havingaccess pursuant to this section.