A hospital is the one place in American life that cannot turn you away, and also the place where the most consequential decisions are made fastest and with the least explanation. This article explains the federal statute that requires emergency departments to screen and stabilize everyone who arrives, what that duty covers and where it stops, and how transfers must be handled. It covers informed consent and the right to refuse treatment, capacity determinations, and who decides when a patient cannot. It explains discharge planning, the appeal rights that pause a discharge, the difference between admission and observation status and why it matters financially, and the patient rights that hospitals must honor as a condition of federal participation. Billing protections, grievance procedures, and the records rights that make everything else usable round out the discussion.