Patient rights and responsibilities
C.A.B.S. is dedicated to helping children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other developmental disabilities achieve their full potential. Our approach takes your child’s unique strengths and challenges into account while working towards goals that are meaningful to them. Through compassionate and specialized care, with an emphasis on measurable progress, we focus on achievements that matter.
You should know your child’s rights as a patient and your rights and responsibilities as a parent. If you have any questions about these rights and responsibilities, contact your Clinical Director at 800.844.1232
Your legal rights
You have the right to respect, privacy, emotional support, and confidentiality and security of information that supports you as a family. You have the right to have fair and respectful access to resources and facilities necessary for your child’s care without regard to age, race, color, religion, culture, language, physical or mental disability, socioeconomic status, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or in the case of emergency treatment, source of payment.
You are encouraged to talk openly with your child’s team, in a language you understand regarding:
Your child’s diagnosis and prescribed treatment
Why treatments and assessments are done and who does them
Your wish for a consultation or second opinion from another professional or provider
Your wish to change providers
Instructions for ongoing medical needs and requirements after your child’s discharge
Ethical issues about your child’s care
The financial impact of care choices
You also have the right to:
Receive an explanation of all papers you are asked to sign.
Change your mind about any procedure for which you have given consent.
Refuse to sign a consent form you do not fully understand.
Refuse treatment and be informed of the medical results of this action.
Refuse to participate in research projects.
Receive information and instructions in ways that are understandable to you.
Have accommodations made for your religious preference.
Take steps to resolve grievances (complaints) by contacting your child’s BCBA or their supervisors and respond in writing when needed.
Have your child be free from restraints and seclusion in any form when used as a means of coercion, discipline, convenience for the staff or retaliation.
Be free from all forms of abuse and/or harassment.
Review your child’s medical record with his or her Case Manager.
Request additions to your child’s medical record.
Contact for the Department of Health & Human Services Office of Civil Rights [HIPAA] at 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. Room 509F HHH Bldg. Washington, D.C. 20201 ; https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/filing-a-complaint/complaint-process/index.html
Contact the Behavior Analyst Certification Board [BACB] at https://www.bacb.com/ethics-information/reporting-to-ethics-department/
The Right to Effective Behavioral Treatment
You and your child have the right to effective behavioral treatment. You have the right to
A therapeutic environment: A physical and social environment that is safe, humane, and responsive to individual needs.
Services whose overriding goal is personal welfare: Both the immediate and long-term welfare of an individual are taken into account through active participation by the client and caregivers in making treatment-related decisions.
Treatment by a competent behavior analyst: This means that professionals responsible for delivering, directing, or evaluating the effects of behavioral treatment have appropriate education, experience, training, clinical competence, and clinical oversight.
Programs that teach functional and meaningful skills. Programs that teach functional and meaningful skills and help reduce undesirable behavior. These skills and coping strategies should help the individual gain wider access to meaningful opportunities and independence.
Behavioral assessment and ongoing evaluation that can help show strengths and challenges and show improvement over time.
The most effective treatment procedures available.
Playing your part
You and your child have the responsibility to:
Provide accurate, complete information about present complaints, past illnesses, hospitalizations, medicines and other matters related to your child’s health that facilitate their care, treatment and services.
Produce, upon request, documentation of the right to consent for your child’s treatment.
Produce, upon request, documentation for guardianship, custody, and/or parental rights.
Ask for an explanation if you do not understand papers you are asked to sign or anything related to your child’s care
Follow the care prescribed or recommended for your child by your case manager and remember you are responsible for actions if you refuse treatment or do not follow instructions.
Report unexpected changes in your child’s condition or behavior to the Case Manager.
Follow the policies, rules and regulations of the clinic that are in place to support quality care and a safe environment for all individuals.
Keep appointments and call to cancel or change an appointment as soon as possible.
Respect the rights and privacy of others.
Support mutual consideration and respect by maintaining civil language and conduct in interactions with staff.
Meet the financial responsibilities associated with your child’s care including prompt notification of change in insurance.
Child rights
As a patient at C.A.B.S., I have a right:
To be told the truth about what is happening to me.
To have all staff recognize that I cope and react differently than grown-ups.
To cry or object to anything that hurts or upsets me.
To be treated with courtesy and respect for me and my feelings.
To have my basic needs met and to be clean, dry, comfortable and free of physical restrictions and restraining movement, whenever possible, and that if it is necessary to restrain movement, it will not be used as a means of coercion, discipline, convenience for the staff or retaliation.
To have all questions answered in words I can understand.
To make choices whenever possible.
To have all C.A.B.S. staff tell me ahead of time what they will do before they do it, unless I know what is happening, and to have people talk to me rather than whispering about me.
To have the staff listen to me, because I have important things to say.
To know the names of people who take care of me and know they respect my privacy.
To know my challenges are between me, my family and the people caring for me and that it is the business of no one else, unless I say to tell them.
Adult patient rights
Adult patients (18 years of age or older) have the right to consent to, alter or refuse treatment. A parent's guardianship over his/her child stops automatically when the child turns eighteen. The only way someone can be a guardian for an eighteen-year-old or older is to be appointed by the court.
You and/or your child should expect:
Personal privacy to be fully respected, consistent with the care prescribed
Privacy with regard to protected health information
To receive personal hygiene and grooming support
Personal values and belief systems to be respected
Reasonable safety insofar as the clinic practice and conditions are concerned
Records pertaining to care, including the source of payment, to be kept confidential
Access to records to be granted within a reasonable time frame and only to you or to those persons to whom you grant written permission or who are permitted by law
Resources
Endorsement of principles for the provision of mental health and ... (n.d.). https://www.psychiatry.org/getattachment/d735fd73-6a06-4342-9c78-0f67db1f0184/Position-2007-Bill-of-Rights.pdf
Office of State Guardian. State of Illinois Guardianship & Advocacy Commission. (n.d.). https://gac.illinois.gov/osg.html
Patient rights. AMA. (n.d.). https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/ethics-opinions/patient-rights
Team, S. (n.d.). GCDD - Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities. Home - Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities. https://gcdd.org/
Van Houten R, Axelrod S, Bailey JS, Favell JE, Foxx RM, Iwata BA, Lovaas OI. The right to effective behavioral treatment. J Appl Behav Anal. 1988 Winter;21(4):381-4. doi: 10.1901/jaba.1988.21-381. PMID: 3225255; PMCID: PMC1286137.
