PRIVACY POLICY

We can use or disclose your protected health information for purposes of treatment, payment and health care operations. Treatment means the provision, coordination or management of your health care, including consultations between health care providers regarding your care and referrals for health care from one health care provider to another. For example, a doctor treating you for a broken leg may need to know if you have diabetes because diabetes may slow the healing process. Therefore, the doctor may review your medical records to assess whether you have potentially complicating conditions like diabetes. Payment means activities we undertake to obtain reimbursement for the health care provided to you, including determinations of eligibility and coverage and other utilization review activities. For example, prior to providing health care services, we may need to provide to your insurance carrier (or other third party payor) information about your medical condition to determine whether the proposed course of treatment will be covered. When we subsequently bill the carrier or other third party payor for the services rendered to you, we can provide the carrier or other third party payor with information regarding your care if necessary to obtain payment. Health Care Operations mean the support functions of our practice related to treatment and payment, such as quality assurance activities, case management, receiving and responding to patient complaints, physician reviews, compliance programs, audits, business planning, development, management and administrative activities. For example, we may use your medical information to evaluate the performance of our staff in caring for you. We may also combine medical information about many patients to decide what services are not needed, and whether certain new treatments are effective.

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 or relate specifically to your medical care through our office. For example, we may leave appointment reminders on your answering machine or with a family member or other person who may answer the telephone at the number that you have given us in order to contact you. We may disclose your protected health information to your family or friends or any other individual identified by you when they are involved in your care or the payment for your care. We will only disclose the protected health information directly relevant to their involvement in your care or payment. We may also use or disclose your protected health information to notify, or assist in the notification of, a family member, a personal representative, or another person responsible for your care of your location, general condition or death. If you are available, we will give you an opportunity to object to these disclosures, and we will not make these disclosures if you object. If you are not available, we will determine whether a disclosure to your family or friends is in your best interest, and we will disclose only the protected health information that is directly relevant to their involvement in your care. We will allow your family and friends to act on your behalf to pick up prescriptions, medical supplies, X-rays, and similar forms of protected health information, when we determine, in our professional judgment, that it is in your best interest to make such disclosures.

1. You have the right to request restrictions on our uses and disclosures of protected health information for treatment, payment and health care operations. However, we are not required to agree to your request.
2. You have the right to reasonably request to receive communications of protected health information by alternative means or at alternative locations.
3. Subject to payment of a reasonable copying charge as provided by state law, you have the right to inspect or obtain a copy of the protected health information contained in your medical and billing records and in any other practice records used by us to make decisions about you, except for: -Psychotherapy notes, which are notes recorded by a mental health professional documenting or analyzing the contents of conversation during a private counseling session or a group, joint or family counseling session and that have been separated from the rest of your medical record
-Information compiled in a reasonable anticipation of, or for use in, a civil, criminal, or administrative action or proceeding.
-Protected health information involving laboratory tests when your access is required by law
-If you are a prison inmate and obtaining such information would jeopardize your health, safety, security, custody, or rehabilitation or that of other inmates, or the safety of any officer, employee, or other person at the correctional institution or person responsible for transporting you
– If we obtained or created protected health information as part of a research study for as long as the research is in progress, provided that you agreed to the temporary denial of access when consenting to participate in the research
– Your protected health information is contained in records kept by a federal agency or contractor when your access is required by law&
– If the protected health information was obtained from someone other than us under a promise of confidentiality and the access requested would be reasonably likely to reveal the source of the information
We may also deny a request for access to protected health information if:
– A licensed health care professional has determined, in the exercise of professional judgment, that the access requested is reasonably likely to endanger your life or physical safety or that of another person
– The protected health information makes reference to another person (unless such other person is a health care provider) and a licensed health care professional has determined, in the exercise of professional judgment, that the access requested is reasonably likely to cause substantial harm to such other person
– The request for access is made by the individual’s personal representative and a licensed health care professional has determined, in the exercise of professional judgment, that the provision of access to such personal representative is reasonably likely to cause substantial harm to you or another person
If we deny a request for access for any of the three reasons described above, then you have the right to have our denial reviewed in accordance with the requirements of applicable law.
1. You have the right to request a correction to your protected health information, but we may deny your request for correction, if we determine that the protected health information or record that is the subject of the request:
-Was not created by us, unless you provide a reasonable basis to believe that the originator of protected health information is no longer available to act on the requested amendment
-Is not part of your medical or billing records
-Is not available for inspection as set forth above
-Is not accurate and complete
-In any event, any agreed upon correction will be included as an addition to, and not a replacement of, already existing records.
2. You have the right to receive an accounting of disclosures of protected health information made by us to individuals or entities other than to you for the period provided by law, except for disclosures:
-To carry out treatment, payment and health care operations as provided above
-To persons involved in your care or for other notification purposes as provided by law For national security or intelligence purposes as provided by law
-To correctional institutions or law enforcement officials as provided by law
-That occurred prior to April 14, 2003
-That are otherwise not required by law to be included in the accounting
3.You have the right to request and receive a paper copy of this notice from us.
The above rights may be exercised only by written communication to us. Any revocation or other modification of consent must be in writing delivered to us.

If you believe that your privacy rights have been violated, you should immediately contact our Practice or our Privacy Officer. All complaints must be submitted in writing. We will not take action against you for filing a complaint. You also may file a complaint with the Secretary of Health and Human Services. We use Google AdSense Advertising on our website. Google, as a third-party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on our site. Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to our users based on previous visits to our site and other sites on the Internet. Users may opt-out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google Ad and Content Network privacy policy. We have implemented the following: We, along with third-party vendors such as Google use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookies) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) or other third-party identifiers together to compile data regarding user interactions with ad impressions and other ad service functions as they relate to our website. Opting out: Users can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Settings page. Alternatively, you can opt out by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative Opt Out page or by using the Google Analytics Opt Out Browser add on.