Healthcare Equality Index: Patient Self-Identification & State-Registered Partnerships
Patients in same-sex partnerships often feel unseen by a healthcare organization when the only options explicitly provided for recording relationship status in heath records are “single, married, separated, divorced, widowed.” Providing explicit options for same-sex partnerships signals an organization’s awareness of same-sex-partnered patients and allows them to indicate their true relationship status. Explicit options allowing same-sex couples to self-identify include:
- Same-sex partner
- Partner
- Same-sex domestic partner
- Domestic partner
- Significant other
These options should be expanded in states that give unmarried same-sex partners the opportunity to register their relationships with the state. Since these state-registered relationships (which are sometimes available to different-sex couples, as well) often confer healthcare rights, it is critical that healthcare organizations in these states offer the explicit option “state-registered partner” in health records.
States that Register Same-Sex Partnerships
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Registration provides equivalent of state-level spousal rights:
- California (domestic partnerships)
- Delaware (civil unions)
- Hawaii (civil unions)
- Illinois (civil unions)
- Nevada (domestic partnerships)
- New Jersey (civil unions)
- Oregon (domestic partnerships)
- Rhode Island (civil unions)
- Washington (domestic partnerships)
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Registration provides some statewide spousal rights:
- Colorado (designated beneficiaries)
- Maine (domestic partnerships)
- Wisconsin (domestic partnerships)
