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.
Notice of Privacy Practices
Privacy is a very important concern for all
those who come to this office. It is also complicated because of federal and
state laws. Because the rules are so complicated some parts of this Notice are
quite detailed and you probably will have to read them several times to
understand them. If you have any questions our Privacy Officer will be happy to
help you. His or her name and address are at the end of this Notice.
Contents
of this Notice
A. Introduction
- To Our Clients
B.
What we mean by your medical information
C.
Privacy and the laws about privacy
D.
How your protected health information can be used and shared
1.Uses and disclosures with your consent:
a. The basic uses and
disclosures - For treatment, payment, and health care operations (TPO)
b. Other uses and
disclosures in health care
2. Uses and disclosures requiring
your Authorization
3. Uses and disclosures not
requiring your Consent or Authorization
4. Uses and disclosures requiring
you to have an opportunity to object
5. An Accounting of disclosures we
have made
E.
If you have questions or problems
A. Introduction
- To our clients
This notice will tell
you about how we handle information about you. It tells how we use this information
here in this office, how we share it with other professionals and
organizations, and how you can see it. We want you to know all of this so that
you can make the best decisions for yourself and your family. We are also
required to tell you about this because of the privacy regulations of a federal
law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIP AA).
Because this law and the laws of this state are very complicated and we don't
want to make you read a lot that may not apply to you, we have simplified some
parts. If you have any questions or want to know more about anything in this
Notice, please ask our Privacy Officer for more explanation or more details.
B.
What we mean by your medical information
Each time you visit
us or any doctor's office, hospital, clinic, or any other healthcare provider information
is collected about you and your physical and mental health. It may be information
about your past, present or future health or conditions, or the treatment or
other services you got from us or from others, or about payment for healthcare.
The. Information we collect from you is called, in the law, PHI which stands
for Protected Health Information. This information goes into your medical or
healthcare record or file at office. In this office this PHI is likely to
include these kinds of information:
·Your history.:As a child, in school and at work, and
marital and personal history.
·Reasons you came for treatment: Your
problems, complaints, symptoms, needs,
goals.
·Diagnoses: Diagnoses are the medical terms for your
problems or symptoms.
·A treatment plan. These are the treatments
and other services which we think will best help you.
·Progress notes: Each time you come in we
write down some things about how you are doing, what we observe about you, and
what you tell us.
·Records we get from others who treated you or
evaluated you.
·Psychological test scores, school records,
etc.
·Information about medications you took or are
taking
·Legal matters
·Billing and insurance information
This list is just to give you an idea and
there may be other kinds of information that go into your healthcare record
here.
We use this information for many purposes.
For example, we may use it:
·To plan your care and treatment.
·To decide how well our treatments are working
for you.
·When we talk with other healthcare
professionals who are also treating you such as your family doctor or the
professional who referred you to us.
·To show that you actually received the
services from us which we billed to you or to
your
health insurance company.
·For teaching and training other healthcare
professionals.
·For medical or psychological research.
·For public health officials trying to improve
health care in this country.
·To improve the way we do our job by measuring
the results of our work.
When you understand
what is in your record and what it is used for you can make better decisions
about who, when, and why others should have this information.
Although your health
record is the physical property of the healthcare practitioner or facility that
collected it, the information belongs to you.You can inspect, read, or review it. If you want a copy we can make one
for you but may charge you for the costs of copying (and mailing if you want it
mailed to you). In some very unusual situations you cannot see all of what is
in your records. If you find anything in your records that you think is
incorrect or something important is missing you can ask us to amend (add
information to) your record (although in some rare situations we don't have to
agree to do that). Our Privacy Officer, whose
name is at the end of this Notice, can explain more about this.
C. Privacy
and the laws
The HIPAA law
requires us to keep your PHI private and to give you this notice of our legal duties
and our privacy practices which is called the Notice of Privacy Practices or NPP. We will obey the rules of this
notice as long as it is in effect but if we change it the rules of the new NPP
will apply to all the PHI we keep. If we change the NPP we will post the new Notice
in our office where everyone can see. You or anyone else can also get a copy
from our Privacy Officer at any time and it will be posted on our website at: www.healingandcreativearts.org.
D.
How your protected health information can be used and shared
When your information
is read by me or others in this office that is called, in the law, use.If the information is shared with or sent to
others outside this office, that is called, in the law, disclosure.Except in some special circumstances, when we
use your PHI here or disclose it to others we share only the minimum necessary PHI needed
for the purpose. The law gives you rights to know about your PHI, how it is
used and to have a say in how it is disclosed and so we will tell you more
about what we do with your information.
We use and disclose
PHI for several reasons. Mainly, we will use and disclose (share) it for routine
purposes and we will explain more about these below.For other uses we must tell you about them
and have a written Authorization from unless the law lets or requires us to make
the use or disclosure without your authorization. However; the law also says
that we are allowed to make some uses and disclosures without your consent or
authorization.
1. Uses and disclosures of PHI in healthcare
with your consent
After you have read this Notice you will be
asked to sign a separate Consent form to allow us to use and share your PHI. In
almost all cases we intend to use your PHI here or share your PHI with other
people or organizations to provide treatment to you, arrange for payment for
our services, or some other functions called health care operations. Together
these routine purposes are called TPO and the Consent Form allows us to use and
disclose your PHI for TPO. Re-read that last sentence until it is clear because
it is very important.
1a.
For treatment, payment, or health care operations
We need information
about you and your condition to provide care to you. You have to agree to let
us collect the information and to use it and share it as necessary to care for
you properly. Therefore you must sign the Consent form before we begin to treat
you because if you do not agree and consent we cannot treat you.
When you come to see us, several people in
our office may collect information about you and all of it may go into your
healthcare records here. Generally, we may use or disclose your PHI for three
purposes: treatment, obtaining payment, and what are called healthcare operations.
Let's see what these are about.
For
treatment
We use your medical
information to provide you with psychological treatment or services. These
might include individual, family, or group therapy, psychological, educational,
or vocational testing, treatment planning, or measuring the effects of our
services.
We may share or disclose
your PHI to others who provide treatment to you.We are likely to share your information with
your personal physician. If you are being treated by a team we can share some
of your PHI with them so that the services you receive will be coordinated. They
will also enter their findings, the actions they took, and their plans into
your record and so we all can decide what treatments work best for you and make
up a Treatment Plan. We may refer you to other professionals or consultants for
services we cannot offer such as special testing or treatments. When we do this
we need to tell them some things about you and your conditions. We will get
back their findings and opinions and those will go into your records here. If
you receive treatment in the future from other professionals we can also share your
PHI with them. These are some examples so that you can see how we use and
disclose your PHI for treatment.
For
payment
We may use your
information to bill you, your insurance, or others to be paid for the
treatment we provide
to you. We may contact your insurance company to check on exactly what your
insurance covers. We may have to tell them about your diagnoses what treatments
you have received, and what we expect as we treat you. We will need to tell
them about when we met, your progress, and other similar things.
For health
care operations
There are some other
ways we may use or disclose your PHI which are called health care operations.
For example, we may use your PHI to see where we can make improvements in the
care and services we provide. We may be required to supply some information to
some government health agencies so they can study disorders, and treatment and
make plans for services that are needed. If we do, your name and identity will
be removed from what we send.
1 b.
Other uses in healthcare
Appointment
Reminders. We may use and disclose medical information to
reschedule or remind you of appointments for treatment or other care. If you
want us to call or write to you only at your home or your work or prefer some
other way to reach you, we usually can arrange that. Just tell us.
Treatment
Alternatives. We may use and disclose your PHI to tell you
about or recommend possible treatments or alternatives that may be of interest
to you.
Other
Benefits and Services. We may use and disclose your PHI to
tell you about health related benefits or services that may be of interest to
you.
Research. We
may use or share your information to do research to improve treatments. For example,
comparing two treatments for the same disorder to see which works better or faster
or costs less. In all cases your name, address and other information that
reveals who you are will be removed from the information given to researchers.
If they need to know who you are we will discuss t e research project with you
and you will have to sign a special Authorization form before any information
is shared.
Business
Associates. There are some jobs we hire other businesses
to do for us. They are called our Business Associates in the law. Examples
include a copy service we use to make copies of your health record and a
billing service who figures out, prints, and mails our bills. These business
associates need to receive some of our PHI to do their jobs properly. To
protect your privacy they have agreed in their contract with us to safeguard your
information.
2.
Uses and disclosures requiring your Authorization
If we want to use your information for any
purpose besides the TPO or those we described above we need your permission on
an Authorization form. We don't expect to need this very often.
If you do authorize
us to use or disclose your PHI, you can revoke (cancel) that permission in
writing, at any time. After that time we will not use or disclose your
information for the purposes that we agreed to. Of course, we cannot take back
any information we had already disclosed with your permission or that we had
used in our office.
3.
Uses and disclosures of PHI from mental health records Not requiring
Consent or Authorization
The laws lets us use and disclose some of
your PHI without your consent or authorization in some cases.
When
required by law
There are some federal, state, or local laws
which require us to disclose PHI.
We have to report suspected child abuse.
If you are involved in a lawsuit or legal
proceeding and we receive a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful
process we may have to release some of your PHI. We will only do so after
trying to tell you about the request, consulting your lawyer, or trying to get
a court order to protect the information they requested.*
We have to release (disclose) some
information to the government agencies which check on us to see that we are
obeying the privacy laws.
For
Law Enforcement Purposes
We may release medical information if asked
to do so by a law enforcement official to
investigate a crime or criminal.
For
public health activities
We might disclose some of your PHI to
agencies which investigate diseases or injuries.
Relating
to decedents **
We might disclose PHI to coroners, medical
examiners or funeral directors, and to
organizations relating to organ, eye, or
tissue donations or transplants.
For
specific government functions
We may disclose PHI of military personnel and
veterans to government benefit programs relating to eligibility and enrollment,
to Workers' Compensation programs, to correctional facilities if you are an
inmate, and for national security reasons.
To
Prevent a Serious Threat to Health or Safety *** If
we come to believe that there is a serious threat to your health or safety or
that of another person or the public we can disclose some of your PHI. We will
only do this to persons who can prevent the danger.
4.
Uses and disclosures requiring you to have an opportunity to object
We can share some
information about you with your family or close others. We will only
share information
with those involved in your care and anyone else you choose such as close friends
or clergy.We will ask you about what
you want us to tell what information aboutyour condition or treatment. You can tell us what you want and we will
honor your wishes as long as it is not against the law.
If it is an emergency - so we cannot ask if
you disagree - we can share information if we
believe that it is what you would have wanted
and if we believe it will help you if we do
share it. If we do share information, in an
emergency, we will tell you as soon as we can. If you don't approve we will
stop, as long as it is not against the law.
5.
An accounting of disclosures
When we disclose your PHI we keeps some
records of whom we sent it to, when we sent it, and what we sent. You can get
an accounting (a list) of many of these disclosures.
E.
Your rights regarding your health information
1. You can ask us to communicate
with you about your health and related issues in a
particular way or at a certain place which is more private for you. For example, you can ask us to call you at
home, and not at work to schedule or cancel an appointment. We will try our
best to do as you ask.
2.
You have the right to ask us to limit what we tell people involved in your care
or the payment for your care, such as
family members and friends.
3.
You have the right to look at the health information we have about you such as your medical and billing records.* You can
even get a copy of these records but we may charge you. Contact our Privacy
Officer to arrange how to see your records. See below.
4.
If you believe the information in your records is incorrect or missing
important
information, you can ask us to make some
kinds of changes (called amending) to your health information. You have to
make this request in writing and send it to our Privacy Officer. You must tell us
the reasons you want to make the changes.
5.
You have the right to a copy of this notice. If we change this NPP we will post
the new version in our waiting area and
you can always get a copy of the NPP from the Privacy Officer.
6.
You have the right to file a complaint if you believe your privacy rights have been violated. You can file a complaint
with our Privacy Officer and with the Secretary of the Department of Health and
Human Services. All complaints must be in writing.Filing a complaint will not change the health
care we provide to you in any way.
F.
If you have questions or problems
If you need more
information or have questions about the privacy practices described above please
speak to the Privacy Officer whose name and telephone number are
listed below. If you
have a problem with how your PHI has been handled or if you believe your
privacy rights have been violated, contact the Privacy Officer. You have the
right to file a complaint with us and with the Secretary of the Federal
Department of Health and Human Services. We promise that we will not in any way
limit your care here or take any actions against you if you complain.
If you have any questions regarding this notice
or our health information privacy policies, please contact our Privacy Officer
who is Maureen Lansat and can be reached
by phone at 561-373-4697 or by e-mail
at: hacac1@msn.com.
The effective date of this notice is February
17, 2009.
Copyright 2003 by Edward Zuckerman, www
.hipaahelp.info