A review of New York's largest hospitals found some have websites with rules that bar patient visitation rights to family members, which is inconsistent with federal and state law.
CMS issued new rules in November 2010 requiring any hospital that cares for Medicare or Medicaid patients to establish a written policy that gives patients control over who can visit their bedside. Those rules went into effect in January 2011.
New York also issued a state law before the federal law went into effect. The state law, which went into effect in June 2010, barred hospitals from denying visitation rights to domestic partners.
The New York Public Interest Research Group, Lambda Legal and New Yorkers for Patient & Family Empowerment reviewed 99 New York hospitals with 200 or more beds. In March, the group sent a letter to each of the 22 hospitals that still had improper language in their online visiting policies, requesting that they update their websites to remove the inconsistencies with federal and state regulations.
In July 2013, a third review of these websites was conducted. The researchers found 17 percent still had language posted on their websites in conflict with federal and New York state regulations on patients' visitation rights. Nine of the websites contained language restricting visitation to immediate family, close family or family members and significant others.
This compares with 30 percent of the 99 websites that made inconsistent statements last year, reflecting a compliance improvement of 43 percent.
"Several hospitals still have conflicting or inconsistent language on their websites, and many hospitals do not disclose in their online visiting policy statements the patient's right to choose who can visit," the report concludes. "The New York State Department of Health, in its oversight capacity, should reach out to all hospitals statewide and guide them into full compliance and cooperation with this important federal and New York state policy."
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