Privacy Policy

This notice describes how medical information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to this information. please review it carefully.

Pursuant to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (I-HPAA), you have a right to adequate notice of the uses and disclosures of your protected health information (“PHI”) (i.e., information that discloses your identity or leads to disclosure of your identity) that may be made by this medical practice. You are also entitled to notice of your rights and the duties of this practice with respect to your personal health information.

We respect your right to privacy and understand that your medical information is personal to you. In order to provide medical services to you, we create paper and electronic records about your health and the care we provide. Your personal health information is confidential and this notice is intended to help you understand how our practice uses and discloses your personal health information and what rights you have with respect to your medical information.

Required by Law :

My practice has the following duties with respect to your personal health information:

  1. We are required by law to maintain the privacy of your personal health information.
  2. We must provide you with notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to personal health information.
  3. We must abide by the terms of the notice of privacy practices that is currently in effect.

 

How We May Use and Disclose Your Information :

The following describes how my practice is permitted by law to share your personal health information with others in order to provide you with medical care. This notice does not describe every use or disclosure our practice makes; it is intended as a general overview.

Medical Treatment. We may need to share information about you in order to provide medical care to you. For example, we may share information with other physicians, nurses or healthcare professionals entering information into your medical records relating to your medical care and treatment. We may share information about you including x-rays, prescriptions and requests for lab work.

Payment. We may need to disclose information about the treatment, procedures or care my practice provided to you in order to bill and receive payment for services I provided. We may share this information with you, an insurance company or any third party responsible for payment. We may also need to disclose personal health information about you with your health plan and/or referring physician in order to obtain prior authorization for treatment, to determine whether payment for the treatment is covered by your plan or to facilitate payment of a referring physician.

Healthcare Operations. In order to help me run my practice more efficiently and provide better care, I may use and disclose your personal health information to Business Associates who need to use or disclose your information to provide a service for my medical practice, such as my software vendor who occasionally provides assistance with data management on my behalf.

Required by Law. We will disclose medical information related to you if required to do so by state, federal or local law.

Public Health Activities/Risks. Your medical information may be disclosed to a public health authority that is authorized by law to collect or receive such information for public health activities. Certain disclosures may be made for public health activities in the following circumstances:

  1. To prevent or control disease, injury or disability.
  2. To report of births or deaths.
  3. To report child abuse or neglect.
  4. To report reactions to medications or product defects
  5. To notify individuals of product recalls.
  6. To notify a person who may have been exposed to a communicable disease or at risk of contracting or spreading a disease or condition;
  7. If our practice reasonably believes a person is the victim of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence, we may disclose personal health information to the appropriate authority. We will only make this disclosure if you agree to the disclosure or we are required or authorized to do so by law without your permission.

Appointment Reminders or Treatment Alternatives. My practice may use and disclose medical information about you to provide you with reminders that you are due for care or you have an upcoming appointment. We may also wish to provide you with information on treatment alternatives or other health related benefits that may be of interest to you. We may contact you by phone, fax or mail. We will make every effort to protect your privacy when leaving a message for you and try to reveal as little confidential information as possible (e.g., when leaving a message on your answering machine that may be heard by others).

Research. Under certain circumstances, my practice may use or disclose your personal health information for research purposes. My practice cannot use or disclose information about you without your written authorization, but we may if the authorization requirement has been waived by a Review Board who has assessed the effect of the research protocol on your privacy rights and interests and certified that there are adequate controls in place to protect your information from improper use and disclosure. My practice may also disclose information about you in preparing to conduct research (e.g., to help them find patients who may be qualified to participate in a particular study). We will make all attempts to make your information non-identifiable, but we may not always be able to guarantee this. If however, the researcher will have access to information that will identify you, we will seek to obtain your permission (though we cannot guarantee this). We will always obtain your specific authorization if required by law.

To Avert Serious Threat to Health or Safety. If my practice believes, in good faith, that a use or disclosure of your medical information is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of a person or the public, we may disclose your medical information.

Worker’s Compensation. We may release medical information about you for work-related illness or injury for workers’ compensation or other related programs.

Health Oversight Activities. Your personal health information may be disclosed to federal, state or local authorities as part of an investigation or government activity authorized by law. This may include audits, civil, administrative or criminal investigations, inspections, licensure or disciplinary actions and criminal proceedings or actions.

Health oversight is necessary to monitor. The health care system as a whole, government benefit programs for which health information is relevant to beneficiary eligibility, entities subject to government regulatory programs for which health information is necessary for determining compliance with program standards; or entities subject to civil rights laws for which health information is necessary for determining compliance.

Health oversight activity does not include an investigation or other activity in which an individual is the subject of the investigation, and the investigation does not arise out of and is not directly related to the receipt of health care, A claim for public benefits related to health; or qualification for, or receipt of, public benefits or services when a patient’s health is integral to the claim for public benefits or services.

(As regards the second of these, if a health oversight investigation is conducted in conjunction with an oversight investigation relating to a claim for public benefits not related to health, the joint activity or investigation is considered a health oversight activity.)

If a covered entity also is a health oversight agency, the covered entity may use PHI for health oversight activities.