Prisons: visitation.

Existing law authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to prescribe and amend rules and regulations for the administration of prisons. Existing law authorizes the department to provide medical care to incarcerated persons and to develop polices and regulations on visitation. Existing regulations establish the framework by which incarcerated persons in prison receive medical treatment and visitors and make personal calls. Existing regulations allow an incarcerated person to designate, on forms provided by the department, an individual to receive an inmate's health information or records, a next of kin or person to be notified in case of their death, serious injury, or serious illness, and persons on the incarcerated person's approved visitor list. Existing regulations require the incarcerated person to send to the potential visitor a visitor questionnaire for the department's approval. Existing law allows an individual with capacity to execute a power of attorney for health care, giving the agent authority to make health care decisions. This bill, upon appropriation by the Legislature, would require the department to allow persons outside of a department facility to initiate a telephone call with an incarcerated person when the person has been admitted to the hospital for a serious or critical medical condition and to inform the department when a family member or designated person has become critically ill or dies while the incarcerated has been hospitalized. The bill would require the department to assist an incarcerated person in completing an approved visitor list, medical release of information form, medical power of attorney form, and next of kin form, and to allow the incarcerated person to update those forms within 24 hours of being hospitalized, as provided. The bill would require the department, within 24 hours of an incarcerated person being hospitalized, as specified, to inform persons covered by the medical release of information form of the incarcerated person's health status. The bill would require the department to make emergency in-person contact visits and video calls available whenever an incarcerated person is hospitalized due to a serious or critical medical condition. Existing law allows a patient to inspect the patient's medical records upon request for those records to the health care provider and payment of reasonable costs. This bill would prohibit the secretary from charging a fee for an incarcerated person to request, review, or use their medical records. Under existing regulations, an inmate may file a healthcare-related grievance through an administrative process established by the department. This bill, upon appropriation by the Legislature, would require the department to have a grievance process in place by which an incarcerated person or designated person may file a formal grievance to review the failure of the department to provide health care information to specified persons, to provide notice of an incarcerated person's hospitalization to specified persons, to provide visitation during hospitalization, or to provide medical care and treatment, as specified. The bill would specify that the grievance process found in specified regulations satisfies these requirements.