Patient Guide

Admissions

Patients may pre-admit once admission has been scheduled. Admissions are processed via the registration clerks in the front lobby. Registration hours are from 6:30 am until 5:00 pm Monday through Friday and 8:00am to noon on Saturdays.  After hours admissions are processed at the registration desk in the Emergency Department. Once you arrive on the nursing unit, the staff will help you get acquainted with your room and your surroundings.

Patients undergoing outpatient surgery should report to the registration desk in the front lobby. Outpatient registration hours are from 6:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.  

Expectant mothers should check in through the Emergency Department before coming to Labor and Delivery. If you are an admission please check in via the registration clerks in the front lobby.

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Bedside Shift Report

We want you to feel comfortable and cared for throughout your stay, so at each nursing shift change — about every 12 hours — your nurse will introduce your new nurse to you. The team will talk about your progress, medicine and tests scheduled for the day. Ask questions. The more you’re involved, the better and safer your care.

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Bedside Technology

During your stay, you may see your doctors and nurses using computers or tablets. These tools help them care for you by providing around-the-clock monitoring, a variety of resources and quick communication with the rest of your healthcare team. If you have any questions, ask your doctor or nurse.

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Cafeteria

Location: Basement

Phone: Dial 1711 from your room.

Hours: Serving Lunch: 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Monday-Friday.

Coffee is available free of charge until 9:30 a.m.

All visitors are welcome to dine in the cafeteria.

Hot Rocks Java Café operates a coffee cart in the main lobby of the hospital and is open 7:00am to 1:30pm. The coffee cart offers gourmet coffee and drinks along with breakfast burritos, pastries, salads, sandwiches and yogurt. The cafeteria accepts cash and credit/debit cards.

Snacks and soft drinks may be purchased 24 hours per day from the vending machines located on the ground floor adjacent to the Dining Room and the Emergency Room/Main lobby.

Week of July 14th Menu

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Calling Your Nurse

Your room is connected to the nursing station via an intercom system. To call for your nurse, press the NURSE call button located at your bedside. If you have any questions on how to use the call button, ask a staff member to show you.

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Cellphones & Video

During your stay, you may see members of your care team using mobile phones. At Los Alamos Medical Center, our staff are permitted to use phones for work-related activities, such as communicating with doctors or other care team members. Employees are not allowed to use phones for non-work-related activities. There are many work-related benefits of cellphones and other communication devices, including access to medical references, clinical tools and patient information.

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Channel Listing for TV

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Concerns About Your Care

Please speak with your nurse or nursing supervisor if you have any questions or concerns about your care. If your issue still is not resolved, then contact the hospital patient advocate. You also have the right to file your complaint with either:

New Mexico Department of Public Health
1.800.752.8649 (Toll Free)

Office of Quality and Patient Safety
The Joint Commission
One Renaissance Blvd.
Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181
Website: www.jointcommission.org, then click “Report patient safety event”

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Discharge

When you are medically ready to leave the hospital, your physician will write a discharge order on your medical chart. Your nurses and your physician will discuss discharge information with you, including special diets, medications and limitations on your activities. The case manager will assist you in making arrangements for home care or other community services, if needed. Your physician will let you know if an office visit is necessary after discharge.

Be sure to check your room for all personal belongings and reclaim any valuables from the hospital safe. When your transportation arrives, please allow your nurse to escort you from the hospital.

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Electrical Appliances

For your safety, we reserve the right to inspect any electrical appliances brought into the hospital.

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Financial Arrangements

When you are admitted, you should confirm financial arrangements for your care. If you have hospitalization insurance, please bring your policy, identification card, and other pertinent information with you.

Most insurance companies require pre-admission certification and a second opinion before surgery. Please review your pre-admission requirements and coverage and advise your physician of these requirements. This process must be complete before admission, unless it is an emergency. If this has not been done in accordance with the policy's requirements, your insurance benefits may be reduced or denied. Also if the patient leaves the hospital “against medical advice” (“AMA”) your insurance may choose not to pay for the hospitalization.

As a courtesy, Los Alamos Medical Center will file a verifiable third-party claim and help in any way possible to expedite their payment. However, please remember that the patient is ultimately responsible for the hospital bill because an insurance policy is a contract between patients and their insurance company.
 
Most hospital insurance plans do not fully cover hospital bills. All bills are payable in full at the time of discharge unless financial arrangements have been made with the business office (505.661.2900) before discharge. At the time of discharge, you should be prepared to pay the estimated balance due over the verifiable insurance coverage, or make arrangements with the Business Office.

The Business Office will file your claim for insurance assigned to the hospital. If an insurance payment is less than our estimate, you will be billed for the balance due. Los Alamos Medical Center can provide payment arrangements and financing options.

Assistance with Medicaid eligibility is available by calling the patient financial counselor at 505.661.9162.

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Fire Safety

We conduct fire drills from time to time. If you hear an alarm, stay where you are. In an actual emergency, hospital staff will tell you what to do.

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Flowers

Flowers are delivered to patient rooms by individual florists. Please note that flowers are not allowed in Intensive Care Units.

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Gift Shop

The Gift Shop is located off the front lobby of Los Alamos Medical Center and offers flowers, cards, baby items, toiletries, candy, and more. The gift shop is operated by the Hospital Auxiliary of Los Alamos Medical Center. All proceeds benefit scholarships for hospital employees and high school graduates pursuing a medical career as well as charitable causes in the community.

The Gift Shop is open: Monday - Friday: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.

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Hearing Impaired

We have services available for people who are deaf or hearing impaired. If you need these services, please contact your nurse.

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Hourly Rounding

A nurse will visit you every hour during the day and every two hours at night to check on your comfort, help you change positions in bed, assist with trips to the bathroom, and make sure you can reach your phone, call light, and personal items easily.

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Housekeeping Services

Los Alamos Medical Center believes in the perseverance of our natural resources; therefore, bed linen is changed every other day or as needed depending on patient needs. If you need additional linens or housekeeping services, please contact your nurse.

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Interpreters and Translation Services

Los Alamos Medical Center subscribes to interpreter services. Should you or your family need such services, please ask a nurse or other staff member for assistance. TTY capability is also available for the hearing impaired.

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Mail

Cards and flowers sent by your family and friends to make your stay more pleasant are delivered daily. Flowers are NOT allowed in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Mail received after you are discharged will be forwarded to your home. Mail for patients should be addressed as follows:

Patient Name
Los Alamos Medical Center
3917 West Rd
Los Alamos, NM 87544

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Medicines

We will need a complete list of medicines you are currently taking, including those not prescribed or ordered by your doctor. While in the hospital, please take only medicines administered by your nurse. If the medicines are not given at the same time as you normally take them, please let us know and we will try to do things as you do at home. Sometimes meals or tests may hinder your normal routine.

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Newspapers

The nurses’ stations will have a limited supply daily of newspapers available upon patient request. You can also request a copy be delivered to your room by calling the registration desk 505.661.9196.

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Parking

Visitor parking is available in the main front parking lot off Trinity Drive.

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Pastoral Care

If you would like a visit from the chaplain for spiritual care and comfort, please ask your nurse to contact the chaplain on call. 

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Patient Meals

To reach Nutrition/Dietary Services, dial 1711 from your room.

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Pediatric Care

For the safety of our pediatric patients, those under the age of 12, we require an adult to stay with them at all times. If your child is under 2 years of age, we require the use of a baby bed for the safety of your child.

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Personal Belongings and Valuables

Do not bring watches, jewelry, cash or other valuables to the hospital. We encourage you to entrust your valuables to a friend or relative while you are in the hospital. If you have valuables at the hospital please ask the nurse for a Special Valuable Envelope. Your valuables can be placed in the hospital safe, by the House Supervisor, once you have sealed them in the Special Valuables Envelope. The envelope must be filled out and signed by you or a responsible relative and your nurse. The content list will remain with your hospital chart and a copy of the list will be sealed inside the Valuables Envelope. Ask your Nurse about this hospital policy if you would like to use it. The hospital cannot be responsible for lost items unless they are placed in a Valuables Envelope. Glasses, contact lenses, hearing aids and dentures must be documented in your chart.

Please do not bring medications to the hospital. Your physician and the hospital pharmacy will provide all of your medication while you are in the hospital. However, it is important to provide your physician with a list of all medications that you are currently taking.

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Provider Charges

Once you are discharged from the hospital, you may receive a separate bill from the physician, anesthesiologist, pathologist, radiologist, or emergency department physician. These physicians are not employees of the hospital.

If you have questions about your coverage of your bill, please call the Business Office at 505.661.2900 and we will be happy to help you.

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Public Restrooms

For everyone’s health and safety, we ask visitors not to use patient restrooms. Public restrooms are located throughout the hospital. Ask hospital staff to direct you to the nearest one.

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Smoking

To protect your health and the health of others, Los Alamos Medical Center is a smoke-free environment. Smoking is not permitted in patient rooms, corridors, lobbies, waiting rooms or any other area of the hospital.

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Telephone

Your friends and family can call your hospital room by calling the Nurses Station at 505.661.9260 and asking for your name or room number. If you need to make a phone call, dial 7 + 1  + area code + the phone number you wish to call. To reach your nurse, use your call button.

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TV

Each patient room has a television. Please be considerate of others by keeping the volume down and turning off your TV at bedtime. 

Closed Caption Television is available to all patients. Please contact the nurse’s station for instructions to change the settings on your television to closed captioning.

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Vending Machines

Snacks and soft drinks may be purchased 24 hours per day from the vending machines located on the ground floor adjacent to the Dining Room and the Emergency Room/Main lobby.

Hot Rocks Java Café operates a coffee cart in the main lobby of the hospital and is open 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.  The coffee cart offers gourmet coffee and drinks along with breakfast burritos, pastries, salads, sandwiches and yogurt.

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Visiting Hours

Visiting hours are subject to change. Please ask your nurse for official hours during your stay.

To promote healing and safety and limit infection, some units may limit the number of visitors you can receive at one time.

Los Alamos Medical Center will ensure that all visitors enjoy full and equal visitation privileges consistent with the patient's preferences. The patient has the right to receive, subject to the patient's consent, visitors designated by the patient, including but not limited to a spouse, domestic partner (including a same sex domestic partner), another family member, or a friend. Los Alamos Medical Center will not restrict, limit, or deny visitation privileges based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.

Los Alamos Medical Center will consider limiting visitation if any of the following apply:

• Patient is undergoing care interventions
• Presence of infection control and prevention issues
• Visitation may interfere with care of other patients
• Existence of court orders restricting contact (of which the hospital is aware)
• Disruptive, threatening, or violent behavior of any kind
• Patient need for privacy or rest
• Need for limitation on the number of visitors during a specific time period
• Need for minimum age requirements for child visitors

Due to the nature of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), visitation is determined on an individual basis. Los Alamos Medical Center traditionally practices an open policy however depending on the needs of the patient, visitation may be restricted.  

For the convenience of your family and friends, Los Alamos Medical Center has various waiting rooms for Med/Surg/ICU, Childbirth Center, and Surgery.

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What to Bring

You will need to bring a small number of personal items to the hospital, such as pajamas, robe, slippers, and personal toilet articles including cases for glasses, contact lenses, hearing aids and dentures. If you bring with you or any of the prior mentioned items are brought to you after your admission, please make sure your nurse is aware that you have them in your possession. These items are your responsibility to keep up with. Bring your driver’s license, insurance card, claim forms, and your co-pay and deductible amounts.

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What Not to Bring

Do not bring watches, jewelry, cash or other valuables to the hospital. Los Alamos Medical Center will only be responsible for these items if they are deposited into our safe. Ask your nurse about safe deposits upon admission. Please do not bring medications to the hospital. Your physician and the hospital pharmacy will provide all of your medication while you are in the hospital. However, it is important to provide your physician with a list of all medications that you are currently taking.

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Wifi

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