What Informed Consent Is and What Information the Patient Must Receive
Informed consent is a foundational institution of health law. Under the law, it is the consent of the patient — or, where the patient is a minor, of the patient's legal representative — to the provision of a particular medical service, given after the patient received information on the essence and necessity of the service; its expected results; the expected risk to the patient's health and life; alternative options for the intended service, their accompanying risks and possible effectiveness; the expected consequences of refusing the service; and the financial and social issues connected with all of the above.
This definition is a practical checklist for clinics as well: a consent form works only where every one of these blocks has been explained to the patient. The terminology itself is fixed by law — patient, provider of medical services, medical records — and in a dispute it is precisely the content of these concepts that comes under examination.