Texas patients and their families have seen their legal rights severely restricted. Now more than ever, patients must be active participants in their health care. To learn more about how Texas fails to protect patients and hold the medical and insurance industries accountable for medical negligence, please check out the “Background on the Cap in Texas” section in the activist training kit below.

Patient Safety Activist Training Kit: Texas Watch has created a patient safety activist training kit that contains helpful information about the issue and how you can get involved.

On this Patient and Nursing Home Safety Tips page, we have compiled a number of important resources to help patients and their families take action against medical negligence.

Quick Links: Patient Safety | Medication Safety | Nursing Home Safety

Patient Safety

To make a formal complaint about a doctor, you must go through the Texas Medical Board. The Complaint Information page contains information on the Board’s complaint and disciplinary processes and how to file a complaint. You can file a complaint online or by mail (the complaint form is available in several formats on the website). You can also call their Complaint Hotline at 1-800-201-9353 to request that a form be mailed to you.

Filing a complaint against a hospital or other specified health facilities is done through the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS). Their Complaints page has information on how to file complaints against different types of facilities and DSHS procedures for handling complaints. This page tells you how to file a complaint against a hospital. The Department’s complaint hotline phone number is 1-888-973-0022.

If your medical procedures were covered by Medicare, you can also file a quality of care complaint with TMF Health Quality Institute, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization in Texas. The File a Complaint page details what may constitute a quality of care issue and how to submit a complaint. Their beneficiary complaint helpline is 1-800-725-8315.

The Joint Commission is a national health care accreditation organization that accredits hospitals and other facilities that request evaluation and meet certain quality and safety standards. According to their website, around 88% of hospitals nationwide are currently accredited by the Commission. To make a complaint about an accredited hospital, visit their Report a Complaint page or contact the Office of Quality Monitoring at 1-800-994-6610. To find out if a facility is accredited in the first place, you can use their Quality Check search engine.

The Empowered Patient Coalition has created a new comprehensive online survey for reporting medical errors.  We encourage you to complete this survey (which can be responded to anonymously) as the aggregate results will be released and used to better understand patterns in failures of patient safety.

Helpful Links

• The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) has a Patient Safety section on their website that includes several recent reports on the annual occurrence of medical errors in the state and other helpful links.
• Consumers Union, the independent non-profit publisher of the magazine Consumers Reports, has a Safe Patient Project and a Stop Hospital Infections campaign. They have an office in Austin that can be reached at 1-512-477-4431.
• Advocacy, Inc. is “the federally funded and authorized protection and advocacy system for Texans with disabilities.” They have a number of offices around the state—see their website for locations and contact information. Their main intake number is 1-800-252-9108.
• The National Alliance on Mental Illness of Texas (NAMI Texas) is a non-profit that supports and advocates for people with mental illnesses. The organization has forty-five affiliates around the state, and offers a number of educational and support services.
• Dead by Mistake is a website created by journalists from various Hearst newspapers and television stations, including the Houston Chronicle. The website contains numerous articles about medical errors and related issues in Texas and several other states.

Medication Safety

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a safety information and adverse event reporting program called MedWatch for FDA-approved prescriptions and other medical products. You can report a problem online or by phone at 1-800-332-1088.

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) is a non-profit organization dedicated to medication safety and has been certified as a Patient Safety Organization (PSO) by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. ISMP also runs ConsumerMedSafety.org, where you can find information on drug alerts and other medication safety issues, and file a complaint about a medication safety error or concern online.

Nursing Home Safety

To make a complaint about a long-term care facility, you need to go through the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services (DADS). Contact their Consumer Rights and Services department at 1-800-458-9858, or check out their How do I make a complaint? page for more information on how to report a complaint to the agency.

The Office of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman is program of DADS that “advocates for quality of life and care for residents in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.” View their Addressing Problems page for tips on how to solve problems with long-term care facilities. To find and contact your local managing ombudsman, call 1-800-252-2412.

If you are covered by Medicare, you can also file a quality of care complaint with TMF Health Quality Institute, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization in Texas. The File a Complaint page on their website has details on what may constitute a quality of care issue and how to submit a complaint. Their beneficiary complaint helpline is 1-800-725-8315.

*Nursing Home Compare is a website created by Medicare that allows consumers to find and compare every Medicare and Medicaid-certified nursing home in the US.  There are multiple search criteria available, and the nursing homes are rated on a five-star scale using multiple sources of data.  The website also contains other information about choosing and living in a nursing home.

Helpful Links

Texas Advocates for Nursing Home Residents (TANHR) is a non-profit that advocates for improved quality and care in Texas nursing homes. Their phone number is (888) TANHR4U [888-826-4748] or (972) 572-6330.

National Citizens Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (NCCNHC) is a national non-profit that provides information, advocacy and policy analysis of long-term care issues. Their phone number in Washington, DC is (202) 332-2275.