Start here

Address current symptoms first

Call 911 for a suspected medical emergency. If you are already in the emergency department and your condition changes, alert clinical staff. Do not wait for a complaint response before obtaining needed care.

Supporting guidance: MedlinePlus: recognizing medical emergencies ↗

Understand the situation

What may help answer the question

Ask what the screening found

At Medicare-participating hospitals with emergency departments, EMTALA requires an appropriate medical screening within the emergency department’s capabilities, including routinely available supporting services. This checks for an emergency medical condition regardless of insurance or ability to pay. Ask what was evaluated and what remains uncertain.

Supporting guidance: CMS: emergency-room rights ↗

Understand stabilization and transfer

If an emergency condition is found, the hospital must provide necessary stabilizing treatment within its available capabilities or arrange an appropriate transfer. Transfer before stabilization has additional requirements, including risk-benefit documentation or an informed written patient request.

Supporting guidance: 42 CFR 489.24: emergency screening and treatment ↗

Ask how a transfer will work

An appropriate transfer includes treatment to reduce risk, acceptance by a receiving facility with space and qualified personnel, relevant available records, and suitable transport. Ask why transfer is recommended, who accepted your care, and how you will get there.

Supporting guidance: 42 CFR 489.24: emergency screening and treatment ↗

Leave with an understandable clinical plan

Ask about the working diagnosis, remaining uncertainty, pending results, medicines, follow-up, and symptoms requiring urgent return. These are practical discharge questions; the checklist is not a statement that every item is an EMTALA requirement.

Supporting guidance: AHRQ: planning discharge and pending results ↗AHRQ: be more engaged in your healthcare ↗

Choose the review process that fits

A hospital grievance can address care and systems. CMS provides separate instructions and a State Survey Agency option for possible EMTALA violations. A regulatory complaint and a lawsuit are different processes.

Supporting guidance: CMS: emergency-room complaint instructions ↗42 CFR 482.13: hospital patient rights ↗

Terms in ordinary language

Medical screening examination
An evaluation for an emergency medical condition.
Stabilizing treatment
Treatment to make the emergency condition sufficiently stable for transfer or discharge; it need not cure the underlying illness.
Appropriate transfer
A transfer meeting applicable medical, receiving-facility, documentation, and transport requirements.
Keep the limits in view

These core EMTALA duties concern covered hospitals and circumstances. They do not promise every requested test, admission, or free care. Good-faith inpatient admission to stabilize a condition changes the applicable EMTALA duties; other hospital requirements continue. This guide does not decide whether a particular encounter violated the law.

Supporting guidance: 42 CFR 489.24: emergency screening and treatment ↗CMS: emergency-room rights ↗

Prepare for a conversation

Questions to put in writing

  1. 1What did the screening find, and what emergency conditions remain a concern?
  2. 2What treatment or reassessment is needed now?
  3. 3If transfer is recommended, why, where, and who has accepted my care?
  4. 4Which results are pending, who will review them, and how will I hear about them?
  5. 5What symptoms require urgent return, and what follow-up should I arrange?

Useful information

Records that may help

Ask for relevant existing material. Not every item will exist or be available through the same process.

  • Triage, examination, vital signs, and reassessment notes
  • Orders, reports, and medication administration record
  • Discharge and return instructions
  • Relevant transfer documents and available records sent with the transfer

Choose a next step

Practical next steps

  1. 1

    Obtain needed current care and tell staff about worsening symptoms.

  2. 2

    Clarify the treatment, transfer, or discharge plan and pending results.

  3. 3

    Keep the relevant records and your dated account of the visit.

  4. 4

    For a remaining concern, compare the hospital grievance process with CMS’s EMTALA instructions.

Understand hospital grievances →Read CMS emergency-room complaint instructions ↗
Choosing a processProtect current health first. Use the hospital grievance process for care or system concerns, CMS instructions for possible EMTALA issues, or the navigator to identify another relevant process.Build a route map →

Source checkpoints

Sources and review scope

The links below support the explanations they accompany. They do not determine which rule or treatment applies to your circumstances. Individual source dates show later checks where only part of a guide was refreshed.

CMS: emergency-room rights ↗

Patient explanation of core EMTALA screening, stabilization, and transfer protections at covered hospital emergency departments.

Source checked: September 19, 2026

42 CFR 489.24: emergency screening and treatment ↗

Federal EMTALA regulation, including hospital capabilities, transfer conditions, and limits following good-faith inpatient admission. Current through September 17, 2026 when checked.

Source checked: September 19, 2026

AHRQ: be more engaged in your healthcare ↗

Patient advice on sharing information, asking questions, and following up; responsibility for safe care remains with clinicians and organizations.

Source checked: September 19, 2026

42 CFR 482.13: hospital patient rights ↗

Hospital patient-rights regulation, including grievances, written decisions, safe care, and freedom from abuse. Current through September 17, 2026 when checked.

Source checked: September 19, 2026

Content updated: September 19, 2026. Guide source check: September 19, 2026. Checking sources is not a clinical or legal review of your situation. No clinical or legal reviewer is identified for this page.