La Red Health Center

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

The Health Insurance Portability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal program that stipulates that all medical records and other individually identifiable health information used or disclosed by us in any form, whether electronically, on paper, or orally, are kept properly confidential. This Act gives you, the patient, new rights to understand and control how your health information is used.

As required by HIPAA, we have prepared this explanation of how we are required to maintain the privacy of your health information and how we may use and disclose your health information.

We may use and disclose your medical records only for each of the following purposes: treatment, payment and health care operation.

• Treatment means providing, coordination, or managing health care and related services by one or more health care providers. An example of this would include a physical examination.
• Payment means such activities as obtaining reimbursement for services, confirming coverage, billing or collection activities, and utilization review. An example of this would be a call to your insurance carrier to verify coverage, or sending a bill for your visit to your insurance carrier for payment.
• Health Care Operations include the business aspects of running our practice, such as conducting quality assessment and improvement activities, auditing functions, cost management analysis, and customer service. An example would be an internal quality assessment review.

We may also create and distribute unidentified health information by removing all references to individually identifiable information.

We may contact you to provide appointment reminders or information about treatment alternatives or other health related benefits and services that may be of interest to you.

Any other uses and disclosures will be made only with your written authorization. You may revoke such authorization in writing and we are required to honor and abide by that written request, except to the extent that we have already taken action relying on your authorization.

You have the following rights with respect to your protected health information, which you can exercise by presenting a written request to the Privacy Officer;

• The right to request restrictions on certain uses and disclosures of protected health information, including those related to disclosures to family members, other relatives, close personal friends, or any other person indentified by you. We are, however, not required to agree to a requested restriction. If we do agree to a restriction, we must abide by it unless you agree in writing to remove it.
• The right to reasonable requests to receive confidential communications of protected health information from us by alternative means or alternative locations.
• The right to inspect and copy your protected health information
• The right to amend your protected health information.
• The right to receive an accounting of disclosures of protected health information.
• The right to obtain a paper copy of this notice from us upon request.

We are required by law to maintain the privacy of your protected health information and to provide you with notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to protected health information.

You have recourse if you feel that your privacy protections have been violated. You have the right to file a written complaint with our office, or with the Department of Health & Human Services, Office of Civil Rights, retaliate against you for filing a complaint