Privacy Policy

Understanding Your Health Record/lnformation

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

Each time you visit a hospital, physician, or other healthcare provider, a record of your visit is made. Typically, this record contains your symptoms, examination and test results, diagnoses, treatment, and a plan for future care or treatment. This information, often referred to as your health or medical record, serves as a:

• Basis for planning your care and treatment

• Means of communication among the many health professionals who contribute to your care

• Legal document describing the care you received

• Means by which you or a third-party payer can verify that services billed were actually provided

Understanding what is in your record and how your health information is used helps to:

• Ensure its accuracy

• Better understand who, what, when, where, and why others may access your health information

• Make more informed decisions when authorizing disclosure to others

Your Health Information Rights

Although your health record is the physical property of the healthcare practitioner or facility that compiled it, the information belongs to you. You have the right to:

• Request a restriction on certain uses and disclosures of your information
  as provided by 45 CFR 164.522

• Obtain a paper copy of the notice of information practices upon request

• Request a copy of your health record as provided for in 45 CFR 164.524
  (Minimal fee for services required)

• Request a amendment to your health record as provided in 45 CFR
  164.528

• Obtain an accounting disclosure of your health information as provided in
  45 CFR 164.528

• Request communications of your health information by alternative means, i.e.: request records to be mailed instead of faxed.

• Revoke your authorization to use or disclose health information except to the extent that action has already been taken

Our Responsibilities:

This organization is required to:

• Maintain the privacy of your health information

• Provide you with a notice as to our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to information we collect and maintain about you 

• Abide by the terms of this notice

• Notify you if we are unable to agree to a requested restriction

• Accommodate reasonable requests you may have to communicate health information by alternative means

We reserve the right to change our practices and to make the new provisions effective for all protected health information we maintain. Should our information practices change, we will mail a revised notice to the address you have supplied us.

We will not use or disclose your health information without your authorization, except as described in this notice.

For More Information or to Report a Problem:

If you have questions, you may contact the director of health information management/office manager at the number below.

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you can file a complaint with the director of health information management! office manager or with the Secretary of Health and Human Services. There will be no retaliation for filing a complaint.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington. D.C. 20201
Telephone: 202-619-0257
Toll Free: 1-877-696-6775


EXAMPLES OF DISCLOSURE FOR TREATMENT. PAYMENT AND HEALTH OPERATIONS

We will use your health information for treatment:

For example: Information obtained by the nurse, physician, or other member of your healthcare team will be recorded in your record and used to determine the course of treatment that should work best for you. Your physician will document in your record his or her expectations of the members of your healthcare team. Members of your healthcare team will then record the actions they took and their observations. In that way, the physician will know how you are responding to treatment. We will also provide your physician or subsequent healthcare provider with copies of various reports that should assist him her with your ongoing medical treatment.

We will use your health information for payment:

For example: A bill may be sent to you or a third party payer. The information on or accompanying the bill may include information that identified you, as well as your diagnosis, procedures, and supplies used,

We will use your health information for regular health operations:

For example: Members of the medical staff, the risk or quality improvement manager, or member of the quality improvement team may use information in your health record to assess the care and outcomes in your case and others like it. This information will then be used in an effort to continually improve the quality and effectiveness of the healthcare and service we provide.

Communication with family: Health professionals, using their best judgment, may disclose to a family member or other family member you identify health information relevant to that person's involvement in our care, or payment related to your care.

Public health: As required by law, we may disclose your health information to the public health or legal authorities charge with preventing or controlling disease, injury, or disability.

Law enforcement: We may disclose health information for law enforcement purposes as required by law or in response to a valid subpoena.

Federal law makes provisions for your health information to be release to an appropriate health oversight agency, public health authority or attorney, provided that a work force member or business associate believes in good faith that we have engaged in unlawful conduct or have otherwise violated professional or clinic standards and are potentially endangering one or more patients, workers, or the public.

Effective date: April 1, 2003