Failure to Honor Resident's Right to Choose Attending Physician
Penalty
Summary
The facility failed to honor a resident's right to choose her own attending physician when her previous primary care provider (PCP) stopped seeing residents at the facility. According to the facility's Resident Rights policy, residents have the right to select their personal attending physician and be informed about how to contact them. However, when the resident's PCP's clinic closed, the facility did not provide the resident with options or documentation to select a new physician, instead assigning her to the facility's contracted physician without her documented consent. The resident involved was cognitively intact, as evidenced by a perfect BIMS score, and had multiple complex medical conditions, including chronic kidney disease, a history of cervical cancer, short bowel syndrome, severe sepsis, and several mental health diagnoses. The resident expressed that she valued making personal choices and reported that she was not given the opportunity to choose her new physician after her previous provider left. Facility records indicated that the resident was notified of her physician's departure and that she wished to transfer to the facility's provider, but there was no documentation showing she was informed of her right to choose or that her permission was obtained for the assignment. Interviews with facility staff revealed that the process for selecting a new physician was not clearly communicated to the resident, and the facility did not provide alternative options due to the abrupt departure of the previous medical group. Staff acknowledged that the resident should have been informed about the process for choosing a different physician and that the facility only had one contracted physician available at the time. The lack of documentation and communication regarding the resident's right to choose her attending physician led to the deficiency.