Your Rights as a Patient
- To a high standard of care, without regard to ethnicity, sex, national origin, religion, age or disability.
- To be treated with courtesy, respect and the highest professional, ethical and moral conduct by your dentist and his or her staff.
- Access to complete and up-to-date information and records regarding your dental health and treatment options. This includes learning the risks, benefits and alternatives before you agree to proceed. You also have the right to learn how your dental health will be affected if you opt for no treatment at all.
- To learn what your dentist regards as the optimal treatment plan for your needs.
- To receive a fee estimate for all treatment, and to ask whether and how your treatment plan can be scaled down to fit your financial or time needs.
- To refuse any treatment, including treatment that is already in progress.
- To treatment that will be completed in a timely and efficient manner.
- To prompt assistance in the case of a dental emergency.
- To expect all appropriate infection and sterilization protocols to be followed.
- As per HIPAA regulations, to confidentiality regarding your diagnosis and treatment, except when you agree to submit this information to others - such as insurance providers. (HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1996.)
*Every patient has the right to expect any personal information shared with the dental office as well as any information pertaining to their diagnoses or treatment be kept strictly confidental.
American Dental Association Leads Fight for Patient Rights
The American Dental Association has supported legislation that will set a few basic rules to promote high-quality care and protect patients in an increasingly bottom line-driven health care system.
ADA member dentists have been instrumental in moving the patients' rights issue into the national spotlight. The nation appears closer than ever to finally seeing a comprehensive patients' bill of rights passed into law.
While Congress debates various versions of patient rights legislation, the insurance and managed care industries have long supported legislation that would fail to protect all privately insured Americans against unfair delays and denials of coverage by their health plans, according to the ADA. Some ill-fated bills left out critical protections, such as guaranteeing people the option of choosing their own doctors or creating mechanisms to address patients' grievances against health plans. One proposal even omitted freestanding dental plans, which could have left more than 120 million dental patients without these vital protections.
The American Dental Association continues to lobby for the enactment of bipartisan legislation to help ensure that health plans treat patients fairly and do not discriminate against dentists. Here are some of the key issues identified by the ADA:
- Coverage for freestanding dental plans, which account for the vast majority of Americans who have dental coverage.
- Patient choice, by guaranteeing access to at least one plan with a point-of-service option that allows patients the opportunity to choose their own doctors.
Health plan accountability, through the availability of impartial, external review and by holding plans accountable when their decisions to delay or deny care harm patients.