Updated: July 24 2018
This practice is committed to maintaining the privacy of your health information, which includes information about your health condition and the care and treatment you receive from this practice. The creation of a record detailing the care and services you receive helps this office to provide you with quality health care. This notice details how your health information may be used and disclosed to third parties. This notice also details your rights regarding your health information.
State and federal laws require this practice to maintain the privacy of your health information and to inform you about our privacy practices by providing you with this notice. This practice is required by state law to maintain a higher level of confidentiality with respect to HIV testing and sexually-transmitted diseases and is provided for under federal law.
It is the right of this practice to change our privacy practices provided the law permits the changes. Before we make a significant change, this notice will be amended to reflect the changes and we will distribute any revised privacy notice to you prior to implementation upon request. We reserve the right to make any changes in our privacy practices and the new terms of our notice effective for all health information maintained, created and/or received by us before the date changes were made. You may request a copy of our privacy notice at any time by contacting our office. We will keep your health information confidential. We may use and/or disclose health information without written consent from you in the following instances:
TREATMENT: In order to provide you the health care you require, the practice may use your health information to provide you with our professional services. We have established “minimum necessary or need to know” standards that limit various staff members access to your health information according to their primary job functions. Everyone on our staff is required to sign a confidentiality statement.
DISCLOSURE: In order to provide you the health care you require, the practice will provide your health information to those health care professionals, whether on the practices staff or not, directly involved in your care so that they may understand your health conditions and needs. These professionals will have a privacy and confidentiality policy like this one. The health information about you may be disclosed to your family, friends and/or other persons that you choose to be involved in your care, only if you agree that we may do so.
PAYMENT: We may use and disclose your health information to seek payment for services we provide to you. This disclosure involves our business office staff and other businesses that may be involved in mailing statements and/or collecting unpaid balances.
EMERGENCIES: We may use or disclose health information for the purpose of obtaining or rendering emergency treatment to you or to assist in the notification of a family member or anyone responsible for your care in the case of an emergency involving your care. If at all possible, we will provide you with an opportunity to object to this use or disclosure. We will use our professional judgment to disclose only that information directly relevant to your care.
HEALTHCARE OPERATION: In order for the practice to operate in accordance with applicable law it may be necessary to compile, use, and/or disclose your health information. For example, the practice may use your health information in order to evaluate the performance of the practice’s personnel in providing care to you for ongoing measurement of quality assurance.
REQUIRED BY LAW: We may use or disclose health information when we are required to do so by law. This would include the court orders, subpoenas, discovery requests or other lawful processes. We will use and disclose information when requested by national security, intelligence and other state and federal officials and/or if you are an inmate under custody of law enforcement. The health information of Armed Forces personnel may be disclosed to military authorities under certain circumstances.
ABUSE OR NEGLECT: We may disclose your health information to appropriate authorities if we reasonably believe that you are a possible victim of abuse, neglect, domestic violence or other crime. This information will be disclosed only to the extent necessary to prevent serious threat to your health or safety or that of others.
PUBLIC HEALTH RESPONSIBILITIES: We will disclose health care information to report problems with products, reactions to medications, disease/infection exposure and to prevent and control disease, injury and/or disability.
MARKETING: We will not use your health information for marketing purposes without your written authorization. COMMUNICATION BARRIERS: We may use or disclose health information without consent if, due to significant communication barrier or inability to communicate, we have been unable to obtain your consent and we determine, with professional judgment, that your consent to receive treatment is clearly inferred from the circumstances.