Virginia Law

A. The psychiatric service shall be under the supervision of a physician, licensed by the Board of Medicine, who meets the qualifications of the medical staff bylaws.

B. Psychiatric units shall conform to the applicable licensure requirements pursuant to 12VAC35-105.

C. Every hospital that provides inpatient psychiatric services shall establish written policies for denial of admission of medically stable patients in its psychiatric unit. The policies shall include language that:

1. If a medically stable patient is referred to a hospital's psychiatric unit and denied admission, the referring physician may request direct verbal communication with the on-call physician at the referral hospital; and

2. Prohibits on-call physicians or other hospital staff from refusing a request from the referring physician for direct verbal communication.

D. Every hospital that provides inpatient psychiatric services shall establish a protocol that requires for any refusal to admit a patient for whom there is a question regarding the medical stability or medical appropriateness of admission for inpatient psychiatric services due to a situation involving results of a toxicology screening, the on-call physician in the psychiatric unit to which the patient is sought to be transferred to participate in direct verbal communication, either in person or via telephone, with a clinical toxicologist or other person who is a certified specialist in poison information employed by a poison control center that is accredited by the American Association of Poison Control Centers to review the results of the toxicology screen and determine whether a medical reason for refusing admission to the psychiatric unit related to the results of the toxicology screen exists if requested by the referring physician.