Our Legal Duty
We are required by applicable federal and state law to maintain the privacy of your health information. We are also required to give you this Notice about our privacy practices, our legal duties, and your rights concerning your health information. We must follow the privacy that are described in the Notice while it is in effect. This Notice takes effect on (08/30/2019) and will remain in effect until we replace it.
We reserve the right to change our privacy practices and the terms of the Notice at any time, provided such changes are permitted by the applicable law. We reserve the right to make the changes in our privacy practices and the new terms of our Notice effective for all health information that we maintain, including health information we created or received before we made the changes. Before we make a significant change in our privacy practices, we will change the Notice and make the new Notice available upon request.
You may request a copy of our Notice at any time. For more information about our privacy practices, or for additional copies of this Notice, please contact us using the information listed at the end of this Notice.
USES AND DISCLOSURES OF HEALTH INFORMATION
We use and disclose health information about you for treatment, payment and healthcar5e operations. For example:
Treatment:
We may use or disclose your health information to a dentist, physician or services we provide to you.
Healthcare Operations:
We may use and disclose your health information in connection with our healthcare operations. Healthcare operations include quality assessment and improvement activities, reviewing the competence or qualifications of healthcare professionals, evaluating practitioner and provider performance, conducting training programs, accreditation, certification, licensing or credentialing activities.
Your Authorization:
In addition to our use of your health information for treatment, payment or healthcare operations, you may give us written authorization to use your health information or to disclose it to any one for any purpose. If you give us an any purpose. If your give us an authorization, you may revoke it in writing at any time. Your revocation will not affect any use or disclosures permitted by your authorization while it was in effect. Unless you give us a written authorization, we cannot use or disclose your health information for any reason except those described in the Notice. By state law, your authorization is valid for 90 days.
Persons Involved in Care:
We may use or disclose health information to notify, or assist in the notification of (including identifying or locating) a family member, your personal representative or another person responsible for your care, or your locations, your general condition, or death. If you are present, then prior to use or disclosure of your health information, we will provide you with an opportunity to object to such uses or disclosures. In the event of your incapacity or emergency circumstances, we will disclose health information based on a determination using our professional judgement disclosing only health information that is directly relevant to the person’s involvement in your healthcare. We will also use our professional judgment and our experience with common practice to make reasonable inferences of your best interest in allowing a person to pick up filled prescription’s, medical supplies, x-rays or other similar forms of health information, if a signature from you is on file stating said person has your permission.
Marketing Health-related Services:
We will not use your health information for marketing communications without your written authorization.
Required by Law:
We may use or disclose your health information when we are required to do so by Law.
Abuse or Neglect:
We may disclose your health information to appropriate authorities if we reasonably believe that you are a possible victim of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence or the possible victim of other crimes. We may disclose your health information to the extent necessary to avert a serious threat to your health or safety or the health or safety of others.
National Security:
We may disclose to military authorities the health information of Armed Forces personnel under certain circumstances. We may disclose to authorized federal official’s health information required for lawful intelligence, counterintelligence and other national security activities. We may disclose to correctional institution or law enforcement official having lawful custody of protected health information of inmate or patient under certain circumstances.
Appointment reminders:
We may use or disclose your health information to provide you with appointment reminders (such as voicemail messages, postcards, letters, or texting.