NOTICE OF PATIENT PRIVACY PRACTICES
THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION
ABOUT YOU OR YOUR FAMILY MEMBER MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN
ACCESS THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.
We understand that information about you or your
family member’s health is personal. We
are committed to protecting the privacy of this information. Each time a Links2Care nurse or other
professional visits you, we create a record of your visit. Generally, the record contains such
information as your symptoms, examination and test results, your diagnosis, a
plan for future care and treatment and billing-related information. We need this record to provide you with
quality care and to comply with certain legal requirements. This notice applies to all of the records of
your care generated by Links2Care, whether made by Links2Care personnel or
other individuals authorized to access or document in your health records. Your doctor may have different policies or
notices regarding the use and disclosure of your health information created in
his or her office.
This
notice explains in detail how we may use or disclose your health information
and it also describes certain rights you have regarding the use and disclosure
of your health information.
Protecting the privacy and appropriate use of
your health information is our priority and a crucial part of our commitment to
you. By law, we are required to give
you this Notice of our privacy practices, and we must follow the terms of the
Notice that is currently in effect.
Changes
to this Notice - We
reserve the right to change this notice.
We reserve the right to make the revised or changed notice effective for
health information we already have about you as well as any information we
receive in the future. We will post a
copy of the current notice in our facilities.
A copy of the current notice in effect will be available at each of our
office locations.
The following summary describes different ways
that we use your health information within Links2Care and disclose your health
information to persons and entities outside of Links2Care and provides you with
examples of such uses and disclosures.
We have not listed every use or disclosure within the categories, but
all permitted uses and disclosures will fall within one of the following
categories.
COMMON USES AND DISCLOSURES
ALLOWED UNDER LAW
Payment - We may use and disclose health
information about you so the treatment and services you receive at our health
care facility may be billed to and payment collected from you, your insurance
company or a third party. This may also
include the disclosure of health information to obtain prior authorization for
treatment and procedures from your insurance plan.
Health
Care
Operations - We may use and disclose
health information about you for health care operations including quality
assurance activities; administrative activities, including Links2Care's
financial and business planning and development; customer service activities,
including investigation of complaints; and certain marketing and fundraising
activities. Some additional specific
examples of how we may use or disclose your health information for operations
are listed below.
·
Business Associates - There are some services provided in our
organization through contracts with business associates. Examples of business
associates include accreditation agencies, management consultants, quality
assurance reviewers, certain laboratory services and copy services that make
copies of your medical record. We may
disclose your health information to our business associates so that they can
perform the job we’ve asked them to do.
To protect your health information, we require all of our business
associates to sign a contract that states they will appropriately safeguard
your information.
·
Appointment Reminders - We may use and disclose health information to
contact you as a reminder that you have an appointment for treatment or medical
care at our health care facility.
·
Marketing or Fundraising - We may contact you as part of a marketing and/or
fundraising effort. As part of our marketing, we may tell you about
Links2Care's health-related products and services that may be of interest to
you. If you receive a communication
from us for either marketing or fundraising purposes, in most cases you will be
told how you can opt out of any further marketing or fundraising
communications.
·
[r1]Individuals Involved in Your
Care or Payment for Your Care - We may disclose health information about you to a
friend or family member who is involved in your medical care, unless you tell
us in advance not to do so. In
addition, we may disclose health information about you to an entity assisting
in a disaster relief effort (such as the Red Cross) so that your family can be
notified about your condition, status and location. If you are unable to communicate your wishes, such as in the case
of a medical emergency, we may release information to friends or family members
as we, in the exercise of our professional judgment, believe to be in your best
interest.
The
following disclosures of your health information are permitted by law without
any oral or written permission from you:
Organ
and Tissue Donation - If you are an organ donor, we may release health information to
organizations that handle organ procurement or organ, eye or tissue
transplantation, or to an organ donation bank as necessary to facilitate organ
or tissue donation and transplantation.
Military
and Veterans - If you are involved in the armed forces or are a public official, we
may release health information about you to the appropriate authorities so that
they may carry out their duties under the law.
Worker’s
Compensation - We may release health information about you in order to comply with
the laws related to worker’s compensation or similar programs (such as automobile
or disaster insurance).
Averting
a Serious Threat to Health or Safety - We may use and disclose health information about
you when necessary to prevent a serious threat to your health or safety or the
health and safety of another person or the public.
Public
Health Activities - We may disclose health information about you for public health
activities. These generally include the
following:
·
To
prevent or control disease, injury or disability.
·
To
report births and deaths.
·
To
report child abuse, neglect, or domestic violence.
·
To
report reactions to medications, problems with products or other adverse
events.
·
To
notify people of recalls of products they may be using.
·
To
notify a person who may have been exposed to a disease or may be at risk for
contracting or spreading a disease or condition.
Health
Oversight Activities - We may disclose health information to a health oversight agency for
activities authorized by law. These
oversight activities include audits, investigations, inspections and licensure
surveys. These activities are necessary
for government agencies to monitor the health care system, government programs
and compliance with civil rights laws.
Lawsuits
and Disputes - If you are involved in a lawsuit or a dispute, we may disclose health
information about you in response to a court or administrative order. We may disclose health information about you
in response to a subpoena, discovery request or other lawful process initiated
by someone else involved in the dispute.
In some circumstances, efforts must be made to tell you about the
request for your health information, to obtain an order protecting the
information requested or to seek a signed authorization from you to release
certain records.
Law
Enforcement
- We may disclose health information if and to the extent we are asked to do so
by law enforcement officials for the following reasons:
·
In
response to a court order, subpoena, warrant, summons or similar process.
·
To
identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness or missing person.
·
About
the victim of a crime if, under certain circumstances, we are unable to obtain
the person’s agreement.
·
About
a death we believe may be the result of a criminal conduct.
·
About
criminal conduct at our facility.
·
In
emergency circumstances to report a crime, the location of the crime or
victims, or the identity, description or location of the person who committed
the crime.
Coroners,
Medical Examiners and Funeral Home Directors - We may disclose health
information to a coroner or medical examiner.
This may be necessary to identify a deceased person or determine the
cause of death of a person. We may also
release health information about patients at our facility to funeral home
directors as necessary to carry out their duties.
National
Security and Intelligence Activities - We may disclose health information about you to
authorized federal officials for intelligence, counterintelligence and other
national security activities authorized by law.
Legal
Requirements - We
will disclose health information about you without your permission when
required to do so by federal, state or local law.
USES OR
DISCLOSURES REQUIRING YOUR SPECIFIC WRITTEN “AUTHORIZATION”
Other uses and disclosures of health information
not covered by this Notice or the laws that apply to us will be made only with
your written authorization. If you
authorize us to use or disclose health information about you, you may revoke
that authorization in writing at any time.
If you revoke your authorization, we will no longer use or disclose
health information about you for the reasons covered by your written
authorization. You understand that we
are unable to take back any disclosures we have already made with your
permission, and that we are required to retain our records of the care that we
provided to you. Some typical
disclosures that require your authorization are as follows:
Certain Disclosures Authorized by You
– One of the primary reasons for disclosing health information about you is for
follow-up care when your health care records are sent to a new physician or
another hospital to continue your health care treatment[r2].
Drug
& Alcohol Abuse Treatment Disclosures - We will disclose drug and
alcohol treatment information about you only in accordance with the federal
privacy rule and state law. Inmost
cases, these laws require us to get your written authorization or the written
authorization of your personal representative for such disclosures.
Disclosure
of Mental Health Treatment Information - We will disclose mental health treatment
information about you only in accordance with the federal privacy rule and
state law. In most cases, these laws
require us to get your written authorization or the written authorization of
your representative for such disclosures.
Disclosure
of HIV/AIDS-Related Information – We will disclose HIV/AIDS-related health
information about you only in accordance with the federal privacy rule and state law.
In most cases, these laws require us to get your written authorization
for such disclosures.
Disclosures
Requested by Links2Care - We may ask you to sign an authorization allowing us to use or to
disclose your health information to others for specific purposes such as
notifying you of future educational or social events that you might enjoy.
Although
your health record is the physical property of Links2Care, you have the
following rights with respect to the health information we maintain about you:
1.
Right to request a restriction on certain uses and disclosures of your
information for treatment, payment or healthcare operations. You have the right to request a limit on the medical information
we disclose about you to someone who is involved in your care or the payment
for your care, like a family member or friend.
For example, you could ask that we not disclose information about a test
you had to a particular individual. We
are not required by law to agree to your request; however, we will give every
consideration to your request. If we do
agree, we will comply with your request unless the information is needed to
provide you with emergency treatment.
We ask that you make your restriction request in writing and advise us
what information you want to limit and to whom you want the limits to apply.
2.
Right to obtain a copy of this Notice of Patient Privacy Practices upon
request.
3.
Right to inspect and request a copy of your health record for a fee. This right may not apply to psychotherapy notes or information
gathered for judicial proceedings. As
to psychotherapy notes, we may provide you with an opportunity to review your
records with your therapist. If
clinically appropriate, we may provide copies of these records to you with your
written authorization. We may deny your
request under very limited circumstances. If you are denied access to health
information, you may request that the denial be reviewed by another independent
health care professional chosen by someone on our health care team. We will abide by the outcome of that review.
4.
Right to request an amendment to your health record if you feel the information
is incorrect or incomplete. Please
submit your request for an amendment to us in writing and include a reason to
support the request. We may deny your
request if it is not in writing, if the information was not created by our
health care team, if it is not part of the information kept by our facility, if
it is not part of the information which you would be permitted to inspect and
copy, or if we believe the information is accurate and complete. Please note that even if we accept your
request, we are not required to delete any information from your health record.
5.
Right to obtain an accounting of disclosures of your health information
made by Links2Care. If you request an accounting
of disclosures, we will provide you with the date of each disclosure, who
received the health information, a brief description of the health information
disclosed and why the disclosure was made.
We are required to provide this information to you within 60 days,
unless you agree to an extension. We
will not charge you for an accounting unless you request more than one in a
year’s time. We are not required to
include in the accounting those disclosures made to you or disclosures for
which you have signed an authorization; for purposes of treatment, payment or
healthcare operations; for the census; to persons involved in your care; for
national security or intelligence; or to correctional facilities or law
enforcement officials.
6.
Right to request communication of your health information by alternative
means or locations. We may deny your request if we deem it to be an unreasonable request
or if the request compromises the protection of your health information.
7.
Right to revoke your authorization to use or disclose health information except
to the extent that action has already been taken. This revocation must be in
writing and dated.
The
effective date of this Notice is April 14, 2003.
[r1] Sue Ott’s comment is valid but by law, we need to list those four specific types of PHI that are considered part of the facility directory, not the physical census record. I am also checking with Becky H. to see what fields we can limit on the census screens.
[r2] New sentence added to help explain authorization for releasing PHI which Sue O. had suggested.