The State Authorized Risk Assessment Tool for Sex Offenders (SARATSO) shall be administered by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to assess every eligible person who is incarcerated in state prison and every eligible person who is on parole if the person was not assessed prior to release from state prison). The Department of Mental Health shall administer the SARATSO to assess every eligible person who is committed to that department.
Persons in charge of hospitals or other institutions where patients are admitted for treatment or confinement, must make a record of the patient's personal, medical, and other information adequate for the completion of a birth or death certificate.
A hospital that transfers a patient for care and treatment to relieve/eliminate a psychiatric emergency medical condition shall (1) seek to obtain the name and contact information of the patient’s health care service plan and (2) notify the patient's health care service plan or the health plan's contracting medical provider of the transfer. The hospital shall document its attempt to ascertain this information in the patient's medical record.
If a county hospital requests an ambulance to transfer a mental health patient who is unstable and violent, notwithstanding any other provision of law, the director of the hospital shall inform the ambulance personnel of the instability and potential for violence of the mental health patient. The county hospital shall establish procedures as are necessary to assure that the required notifications are given and documented.
A health care provider may decline to permit inspection or provide copies of mental health records to the patient at the patient's request when there is a substantial risk of adverse or detrimental consequences to the patient inspecting her own mental health records, subject to certain conditions, including: (1) The health care provider must make a written record, to be included with the mental health records requested, explaining the health care provider's reason for refusal.
Any person authorized to administer the State Authorized Risk Assessment Tool for Sex Offenders (SARATSO) and any person acting under authority from the SARATSO Review Committee as an expert to train, monitor, or review scoring by persons who administer the SARATSO, shall have access to all relevant records pertaining to a registered sex offense, including psychological evaluations and psychiatric hospital reports. Records and information obtained under this section shall not be subject to the California Public Records Act.
If a parolee's severe mental disorder is put in remission and can be maintained in remission, the Director of Mental Health shall notify the Board of Prison Terms and the Department of Mental Health shall discontinue treating the parolee.
The director of facilities for the voluntarily or involuntarily detained mentally ill may for good cause deny patient rights guaranteed under Welf. & Inst. Code 5325, with the exception of the right to refuse psychosurgery and the right to see a patient advocate. The right to refuse convulsive treatment may only be denied under section 5326.7 conditions. The denial of rights shall be entered into the person's treatment record.
Upon the request by a patient's family member or other designated person, the treatment facility shall disclose the patient's diagnosis, prognosis, medications proscribed, and any progress patient makes, if the patient authorizes such disclosure when notified of the request. This section does not require the photocopying of patient medical records.
