The Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) requires all health care records and other individually identifiable health information used or disclosed to us in any form, whether electronically, on paper, or orally, be kept confidential. This federal law gives you, the patient, significant new rights to understand and control how your health information is used. HIPAA provides penalties for covered entitles that misuse personal health information. 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.

Treatment: We may use health information about you to provide you with medical treatment or services. We may disclose health information about you to doctors, nurses, technicians, office staff or other personnel who are involved in taking care of you and your health.

Payment: We may use and disclose health information about you so that the treatment and services you receive may be billed and/or payment may be collected from you, and/or an insurance company or a third party.

Healthcare Operations: We may use and disclose health information about you in order to make sure that patients receive quality care.

Appointment Reminders: We may contact you as a reminder that you have an appointment for consultation, treatment or medical care. Please notify us if you do not wish to be contacted for appointment reminders, or if you do not wish to receive communications about treatment alternatives or health-related products and services. If you do not wish to receive such communications, we will not use or disclosure your information for these purposes. We will disclose health information about you when required to do so by federal, state or local law.

MILITARY, VETERANS, NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE: If you are a member of the armed forces or part of the national security or intelligence communities, we may be required by military command or other government authorities to release health information about you. We may also release information about foreign military personnel to the appropriate foreign military.

Public Health Risks:
We may disclose health information to health oversight agency for audits, investigations, inspections, or licensing purposes. These disclosures may be necessary for certain state and federal agencies to monitor the healthcare system, government programs, and compliance with civil rights laws.

Lawsuits and Disputes:
If you are involved in a lawsuit or a dispute, we may disclose health information about in response to a court or administrative order. Subject to all applicable legal requirements we may also disclose health information about you in response to a subpoena.

Law Enforcement:
We may release health information if asked to do so by a law enforcement official in response to a court order, subpoena, warrant, summons or similar process, subject to all applicable legal requirements. Information Not Personally Identifiable: We may use or disclose health information about you in a way that does not personally identify you or reveal who you are.

Family and Friends: We may disclose health information about you and your family members and friends only if we obtain your verbal agreement to do so. We may also disclose health information to your family or friends if we can infer from the circumstances, based on our professional judgement that you would not object.

OTHER USES AND DISCLOSURES OF HEALTH INFORMATION: We will not use or disclose your health information for any purposes other than those identified in the previous sections without your specific, written Authorization. We must obtain your authorization separate from any consent we may have obtained from you. If you give us authorization to use or disclose health information about you, you may revoke that authorization, in writing, at any time.

YOUR RIGHTS REGARDING HEALTH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU: You have the following rights regarding health information we maintain about you.

RIGHTS TO INSPECT AND COPY: You have the right to inspect and copy your health information such as medical and billing records that we use to make decisions about your care. If you request a copy of information, we may charge a fee for the costs of copying, mailing or other associated supplies. We may deny your request to inspect and/or copy in certain limited circumstances. If you are denied access to your health information, you may ask that the denial be reviewed. If such a review is required by law, we will select a licensed healthcare professional to review your request and our denial. The person conducting the review will not be the person who denied your request, and we will comply with the outcome of the review.

RIGHT TO AMEND: If you believe health information about you is incorrect or incomplete, you may ask us to amend the information. We may deny your request for an amendment if it is not in writing or does not include a reason to support the request.

RIGHT TO AN ACCOUNTING OF DISCLOSURES: You have the right to request an accounting of disclosures. This is a list of the disclosures we made of medical information about you for purposes other than treatment, payment and healthcare operations.

RIGHT TO REQUEST RESTRICTIONS: You have the right to request a limit on the health information we use or disclose about you for treatment, payment or healthcare operations. You also have the right to request a limit on the health information we disclose about you to someone who is involved in your care or the payment for it, like a family member or a friend.

RIGHT TO REQUEST CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATIONS: You have the right to request that we communicate with you about medical matters in a certain way or at a certain location. For example, you can ask that we only contact you at work or by mail.

RIGHT TO A PAPER COPY OF THIS NOTICE: You have the right to a paper copy of this notice.

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 the right to file a complaint with us by calling the phone number below, or with the Department of Health & Human Services, Office of Civil Rights in the event you feel your privacy rights have been violated. We are required to abide by the terms of the Notice of Privacy Practices currently in effect. We reserve the right to change the terms of our Notice of Privacy Practices and to make the new notice provisions effective for all protected health information that we maintain. Revisions to our Notice of Privacy Practices will be posted on the effective date.