Notice of Privacy Practices

THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE READ AND REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

Our Healthcare Practice takes patient privacy matters seriously. We work hard to meet and exceed rules and regulations, and will work to keep you informed regarding our office policies and your personal rights regarding privacy. 

Federal and state laws require our facility to maintain the privacy of your health information. We are also required to provide you with this notice about our privacy practice, our duties, and your rights concerning your personal health information. We must follow the privacy practices described in this notice while it is in effect. This notice takes effect on September 1, 2014, and will stay in effect until we replace it, at which time we will issue a notice to you the patients indicating a new activation date. This is in accordance with privacy regulations issued under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA Privacy Regulations"). You may request a copy of our Notice at any time, and may request additional copies, as needed, by contacting our office.

Use and Disclosure of Your Medical Information

Treatment: We may use medical information about you to provide you with medical treatment and services. We may disclose medical information about you to doctors, nurses, technicians, medical students, or other people who are taking care of you. We may also share medical information about you to your other health care providers to assist them in treating you. Information about you is available to the staff at our office. We will exercise our judgment in only distributing the minimum necessary information needed when sending health information to any outside associations.

Shared Information within our Practice: Information about you may be shared with our colleagues in order to provide you with the best quality health care.

Payment: Your health information will be Sent to third party payers for insurance collection and, when applicable, to collection agencies for assistance to us receiving payment for services rendered. The information on or accompanying the bill may include your medical information. We will use our professional judgment and experience with common practices to make decisions on what information to disclose to insure payment.

Business Operations: Your medical information may be used and disclosed for our health care operations. These activities may include: conducting quality reviews, assessing practitioner performance, evaluation of business costs, conducting training programs, licensing, accreditation, and certain certification activities we need to serve you.

Family, Friends, Personal Representative and Others: We may disclose your health information to a family member, friend, or other persons to the extent necessary to help with healthcare or with payment for healthcare or Services. You may request that we do not disclose anyone other than yourself, of which we will abide except where laws compel us to do otherwise. You may inform this office of the persons you would like your information disclosed to and we will abide by your request, except where laws compel us to do otherwise. We will use our professional judgment on the information disclosing your health information that it is directly relevant to the person's involvement in your healthcare.

Marketing Health-Related Services: We will not use your health information for marketing communications without your written authorization. Under federal privacy rules, we may send you updated information about our practice or healthcare systems, information regarding programs and products we offer to further enhance your care and treatment, send reminder notices for appointment, and offer small nominal gifts from time to time. We will never provide your name or health information to an outside organization for marketing purposes outside of this office.

Business Associates: We contract with third party individuals and entities (business associates) to perform various functions on our behalf, which involves the use and/or disclosure of your health information. Business associates must agree in writing to appropriately safeguard your information and abide by our policies.

When the Law Requires Us to Disclose: We may disclose your health information to government agencies or others, as required by law. Example of this may include, but are not limited to, law enforcement, required state agency reporting, or coroners seeking to confirm identity. Additionally, we disclose to military authorities for purposes such as national security.

Abuse and Neglect: We may disclose your health information to appropriate authorities that are authorized to receive reports of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence. Additionally, as required by law, we may disclose your information to a government entity authorized to receive such information if we believe that you have been a victim of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence.

Patients Rights

Access to Records: You have the right to look at copies of your health information, with limited exemptions. You may request photocopies and copies of x-rays. We will use the format you request, unless we are practically unable to do so. You must make your request in writing to our office. We can provide you with forms to do this, or you may do it by writing a letter specifying exactly what you want to view. If we provided photocopies, we may charge you a set fee for each page copied. If you wish to receive x-ray duplicates, we may charge a set fee per film copied. Check with the office for current fee schedule. If you request an alternate format, we may charge you per expense we incur to satisfy your request. You may prefer to ask for a summary rather than receive all pages in your file. We may be able to prepare a summary depending on what you are seeking to obtain. The fee for Summation will vary depending on the amount of time it took to compile the information. The hourly rate for Summation is also on our current fee schedule. We have 30 days, and sometimes longer, to respond to your request, depending on what is required to meet your request.

Restrictions: You have the right to place additional restrictions on our use or disclosure of your health information. We are not required to agree to these restrictions; however, if we do agree, we abide by agreement, except in certain emergency situations where we are inclined to share important health information.

Electronic Notice of This Information: If you received this Notice electronically (via e-mail or website access), and wish to receive a paper copy, you have the right to obtain a paper copy by making the request in writing to this office.

 

Privacy Policy for this Site

Information We Collect Automatically

If you visit our website to browse, read, or download information:

  • Your web browser automatically sends us (and we may retain) information such as the:
    • Internet domain through which you access the Internet (e.g., yourServiceProvider.com if you use a commercial Internet service provider, or yourSchool.edu if you use an Internet account from your school);
    • Internet Protocol address of the computer you are using;
    • type of browser software and operating system you are using;
    • date and time you access our site; and
    • Internet address of the site from which you linked directly to our site.
  • We will use this information as aggregate data to help us maintain this site, e.g., to determine the number of visitors to different sections of our site, to ensure the site is working properly, and to help us make our site more accessible and useful.
  • We will not use this information to identify individuals, except for site security or law enforcement purposes.
  • We will not obtain personally-identifying information about you when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide such information.

Other Information We Collect

If you choose to identify yourself (or otherwise provide us with personal information) when you use our online forms:

  • We will collect (and may retain) any personally identifying information, such as your name, street address, email address, and phone number, and any other information you provide. We will use this information to try to fulfill your request and may use it provide you with additional information at a later time. We will not disclose such information to third parties, except as specified in this privacy policy.
  • If you request information, services, or assistance, we may disclose your personal information to those third parties that (in our judgment) are appropriate in order to fulfill your request. If, when you provide us with such information, you specify that you do not want us to disclose the information to third parties, we will honor your request. Note, however, that if you do not provide such information, it may be impossible for us to refer, respond to or fulfill your request.
  • If your communication relates to a law enforcement matter, we may disclose the information to law enforcement agencies that we deem appropriate.

How Long We Keep Information

We may keep information that will collect for an unlimited period of time.

Security

Please note that electronic communication, particularly email, is not necessarily secure against interception. Please do not send sensitive data (e.g., Social Security, bank account, or credit card numbers) by email or web form.

Cookies

We may use cookies in order to customize this site for return visitors.  These cookies are not required for site functionality.  Additionally, third-party widgets such as YouTube or Flickr may install cookies depending on their configuration.  You are not required to accept any cookies to use this site.

Google Analytics

We use a tool called “Google Analytics” to collect information about use of this site. Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit this site, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other sites they used prior to coming to this site. We use the information we get from Google Analytics only to improve this site. Google Analytics collects only the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit this site, rather than your name or other identifying information. We do not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with personally identifiable information. Although Google Analytics plants a permanent cookie on your web browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit this site, the cookie cannot be used by anyone but Google. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to this site is restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy. You can prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on return visits to this site by disabling cookies on your browser.

Site Monitoring

For site security purposes this computer system employs software programs to monitor network traffic. Anyone using this system consents to the monitoring of their use by system or security personnel.

Unauthorized use, tampering with or modification of this site—or its supporting hardware or software—may violate federal or other statutes and may subject the violator to criminal and civil penalties. In the event of unauthorized intrusion, all relevant information regarding possible violation of law may be provided to law enforcement officials.