This is the Weight and Healthcare newsletter! If you like what you are reading, please consider subscribing and/or sharing! Reader Kendra asked “What can I do after I experience weight stigma in my healthcare – is there any recourse that I have?” Unfortunately, weight stigma is ubiquitous in healthcare and takes many forms, from implicit and explicit practitioner stigma, to internalized and structural weight stigma (I got into this in more
Thank you for sharing this, Ragen! So many people don't realize they have options about how to deal with negative, harmful, or hurtful providers, clinics, and hospitals. I've filed several complaints with the hospital system I use. Usually I get a letter back stating why what happened was either not a problem or my fault. I think it's a legal issue, that if they admit to wrong doing on paper, they could get sued. I've thankfully not had an issue with a provider retaliating or bring up my complaint with me.
There's only one issue I've had that I wanted to take to the Department of Health and Human Services of my state--I don't know if that's the same as a medical board? I hesitated to file that report because I couldn't find an explanation of what happens after I file the complaint. Does it literally just get filed? Does the DHHS contact the org? The provider? Would medical licenses be at stake? I didn't end up filing, mostly because I got too busy.
A patient can also go to the Joint Commission is their incident involved a patient safety matter: https://www.jointcommission.org/resources/patient-safety-topics/report-a-patient-safety-concern-or-complaint/ Again, I'm not sure what happens when a compliant is filed. And the Joint Commission is *serious* business. Their visits to check safety are usually a surprise for hospitals to make sure they are catching any issues. So, a report to JCo should be something that seriously endangers patient safety.
I love this so much. I am in the habit of reviewing provider notes after every visit (now it’s baked into my EHS but in the past I’d request copies of my records a few times a year), and making sure they don’t put anything shady in there. I used to just use it as a reason to change doctors, but a couple years ago, I actually added a written statement to the chart notes for one bad visit. It took MONTHS, many phone calls, and finally contacting the overseeing hospital’s patient advocate and reminding her of my legal right to do so (and their legal obligation to complete it in 60 days) before it finally got done.
I don’t think I experienced any retaliation, but the care there was so spectacularly bad all around that I ended up going elsewhere.
Thank you for sharing this, Ragen! So many people don't realize they have options about how to deal with negative, harmful, or hurtful providers, clinics, and hospitals. I've filed several complaints with the hospital system I use. Usually I get a letter back stating why what happened was either not a problem or my fault. I think it's a legal issue, that if they admit to wrong doing on paper, they could get sued. I've thankfully not had an issue with a provider retaliating or bring up my complaint with me.
There's only one issue I've had that I wanted to take to the Department of Health and Human Services of my state--I don't know if that's the same as a medical board? I hesitated to file that report because I couldn't find an explanation of what happens after I file the complaint. Does it literally just get filed? Does the DHHS contact the org? The provider? Would medical licenses be at stake? I didn't end up filing, mostly because I got too busy.
A patient can also go to the Joint Commission is their incident involved a patient safety matter: https://www.jointcommission.org/resources/patient-safety-topics/report-a-patient-safety-concern-or-complaint/ Again, I'm not sure what happens when a compliant is filed. And the Joint Commission is *serious* business. Their visits to check safety are usually a surprise for hospitals to make sure they are catching any issues. So, a report to JCo should be something that seriously endangers patient safety.
I love this so much. I am in the habit of reviewing provider notes after every visit (now it’s baked into my EHS but in the past I’d request copies of my records a few times a year), and making sure they don’t put anything shady in there. I used to just use it as a reason to change doctors, but a couple years ago, I actually added a written statement to the chart notes for one bad visit. It took MONTHS, many phone calls, and finally contacting the overseeing hospital’s patient advocate and reminding her of my legal right to do so (and their legal obligation to complete it in 60 days) before it finally got done.
I don’t think I experienced any retaliation, but the care there was so spectacularly bad all around that I ended up going elsewhere.
Thank you for this. I really appreciate that you shared a template.