There is no single official list titled “the 7 patient rights,” but several core rights appear consistently across federal law, hospital accreditation standards, and the American Hospital Association’s Patient Care Partnership. These rights protect you before, during, and after receiving medical care. Here are the seven most widely recognized patient rights and what they mean in practice.
1. The Right to Informed Consent
Before any procedure, surgery, or treatment plan begins, you have the right to understand what is being proposed and to agree to it voluntarily. Informed consent isn’t just signing a form. It requires your care team to explain the benefits and risks of each treatment option, whether the treatment is experimental or part of a research study, and what you can reasonably expect in terms of outcomes and long-term effects on your quality of life.
The legal framework behind informed consent rests on three features: the provider must disclose the relevant information, help you actually understand what’s been disclosed, and ensure your decision is voluntary. No one can pressure you into agreeing, and you can withdraw consent at any point.
2. The Right to Refuse Treatment
The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized a constitutionally protected right to refuse medical care under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This includes the right to decline life-sustaining interventions. In the landmark case Cruzan v. Director, a majority of justices signaled that a competent person can refuse even lifesaving nutrition and hydration.
This right does have limits. Courts have ruled that states can override refusal when public health is at stake, as with mandatory vaccination during disease outbreaks. Patients who are incarcerated and pose a danger to themselves or others can be treated with certain psychiatric medications against their will if the treatment serves their medical interest. And when a patient is incapacitated, states can impose evidentiary requirements, such as requiring clear and convincing evidence of the patient’s wishes, before allowing family members to make the decision.
3. The Right to Privacy and Confidentiality
Federal and state laws protect the privacy of your medical information. Under HIPAA, hospitals, clinics, insurers, and their business associates cannot share your health data without your authorization except in specific circumstances like public health reporting or court orders. When you enter a healthcare facility, you should receive a Notice of Privacy Practices explaining how your information is used, disclosed, and safeguarded.
Privacy protections continue to evolve. In 2024, the Department of Health and Human Services finalized a rule that would have prohibited covered entities from disclosing protected health information for the purpose of investigating someone for seeking or providing lawful reproductive health care. However, in June 2025 a federal court in Texas vacated most of those provisions. Some related updates to Notice of Privacy Practices requirements remain in effect, with compliance required by February 2026.
4. The Right to Access Your Medical Records
You have the right to see and obtain copies of your medical records. The 21st Century Cures Act goes further: it requires healthcare providers to offer you access to all the health information in your records “without delay” and without charge through electronic means. Since October 2022, the definition of electronic health information under the Cures Act expanded to cover the full designated record set, including both medical and payment records.
Providers, health information networks, and electronic health record vendors are all subject to “information blocking” rules, meaning they cannot withhold your data unless a specific exception applies. The few exceptions include psychotherapy process notes that aren’t part of your official medical record and information compiled for use in legal proceedings. Clinical notes, lab results, imaging reports, and similar records must be available to you.
5. The Right to Emergency Care
Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), any hospital with an emergency department that accepts Medicare must screen and stabilize you regardless of your ability to pay, your insurance status, your citizenship, or your race, sex, religion, disability, or age. This protection has three parts: a medical screening exam by a qualified professional to determine whether you have an emergency condition, treatment to stabilize that condition so it won’t materially worsen, and a transfer to another facility if your current hospital lacks the staff or equipment to treat you.
Hospitals can ask about your insurance when you check in, but that inquiry cannot delay your screening or treatment. If a transfer is necessary, the hospital must explain the benefits and risks before moving you. “Stabilized” under EMTALA means your condition is unlikely to get materially worse during or as a result of the transfer.
6. The Right to Fair and Transparent Billing
The No Surprises Act, in effect since 2022, protects you from surprise medical bills in several common scenarios. If you receive emergency care from an out-of-network provider, the most you can be billed is your plan’s in-network cost-sharing amount (copays, coinsurance, and deductible). The same protection applies when you go to an in-network hospital but are treated by out-of-network specialists you didn’t choose, such as anesthesiologists, radiologists, pathologists, or hospitalists. Those providers cannot balance bill you, and they cannot ask you to waive that protection.
If you don’t have insurance or choose not to use it, you have the right to a good faith estimate of the total expected cost before your care. This includes related costs like lab tests, prescriptions, equipment, and facility fees. If you schedule a service at least three business days ahead, the provider must give you this estimate in writing within one business day. Schedule at least 10 business days out, and they have three business days to provide it. If the final bill exceeds any single provider’s or facility’s estimate by $400 or more, you can formally dispute the charge.
7. The Right to Dignified, Nondiscriminatory Care
Healthcare organizations accredited by the Joint Commission are required to respect, protect, and promote patient rights, including a prohibition on discrimination based on age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture, language, physical or mental disability, socioeconomic status, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression. The American Hospital Association’s Patient Care Partnership reinforces expectations for a clean, safe environment and high-quality hospital care delivered with respect.
Part of dignified care is being able to communicate with your providers. Under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, healthcare facilities must provide qualified interpreters and translated materials free of charge to patients with limited English proficiency. These services must be timely and delivered in a way that protects your privacy and independent decision-making. Facilities cannot require you to bring your own interpreter, and they are prohibited from relying on minor children to interpret except in narrow emergency situations. When machine translation is used for critical documents, a qualified human translator must review the output.
How These Rights Work Together
These seven rights form an interconnected framework. Informed consent depends on access to your records and clear communication in a language you understand. The right to refuse treatment is meaningless without honest disclosure of alternatives. Billing transparency supports your ability to make voluntary decisions about your care without financial coercion. And all of these rights rest on the foundation that every patient receives the same standard of dignified, nondiscriminatory treatment regardless of who they are or how they got to the hospital.
If you believe any of these rights have been violated, most hospitals have a patient advocate or ombudsman you can contact directly. You can also file complaints with the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, your state health department, or the Joint Commission.