THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW HEALTH INFORMATION ABOUT OYOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY. THE PRIVACY OF YOUR HEALTH INFORMATION IS IMPORTANT TO US.
Our Legal Duty
We are required by applicable federal and state law to maintain the privacy of your protected health information. We are also required to give you this notice about our privacy practices, our legal duties, and your rights concerning your protected health information. We must follow the privacy practices that are described in this notice while it is in effect. This notice takes effect April 1, 2013, and will remain in effect until we replace it.
We reserve the right to change our privacy practices and the terms of this notice at any time, provided such changes are permitted by applicable law. We reserve the right to make the changes in our privacy practices and the new terms of our notice effective for al 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 this notice and provide the new notice at our practice location, and we will distribute it 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 suing the information listed at the end of this notice.
Your Authorization: In addition to our use of your health information for the following purposes, you may give us written authorization to use your health information or to disclose it to anyone for any purpose. If you 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 this notice.
Uses and Disclosures of Health Information
We use and disclose health information about you without authorization for the following purpose.
Treatment: We may use or disclose your health information for your treatment. For example, we may disclose your health information to a physician or other healthcare provider providing treatment to you.
Payment: We may use and disclose your health information to obtain for services we provide to you. For example, we may send claims to your dental health plan containing certain health information.
Healthcare Operation: We may use and disclose your health information in connection with our healthcare operations. For example, 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, and certification, licensing or credentialing activities.
To You or Your Personal Representative: We must disclose your health information to you, as described in the Patient Rights section of this notice. We may disclose your health information to your personal representative, but only if you agree that we may do so.
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, of your location, 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 absence or incapacity or in an emergency circumstance, 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 prescriptions, medical supplies, x-rays, or other similar forms of health information.
Disaster Relief: We may use or disclose your health information to assist in disaster relief efforts.
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.
Public Health and Public Benefit: We may use or disclose your health information to report abuse, neglect, or domestic violence: to report certain information to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); to alert someone who may be at risk of contracting or spreading a disease; for health oversight activities; for certain judicial and administrative proceedings; for certain law enforcement purposes; to avert a serious threat to health or safety; and to comply with workers’ compensation or similar programs.