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Grand Island Dermatology Notice of Privacy Practices
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 & Accountability Act of 1996 (“F-f 1PM”) is a federal program that requires 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, significant new rights to understand
and control how your health information is used. “HIPAA” provides penalties for covered entities 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.
We may use
and disclose your medical records only for each of the following purposes: treatment, payment and health care operations.
- Treatment means providing, coordinating, or managing health care and related services by one or more health care providers.
An example of this would include referral for a CT scan.
- Payment means such activities as obtaining reimbursement for services, confirming coverage, billing or collection activities,
and utilization review. An example of this would be sending a bill for your visit to your insurance company 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 de-identified 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 actions 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 identified
by you. We are, however not required 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 at 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.
This notice is effective as of April 14, 2003 and 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. We will post and you may request a copy of a revised Notice of Privacy Practices from this
office.
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, about
violations of the provisions of this notice or the policies and procedures of our office. We will not retaliate against you
for filing a complaint.
Please contact us for more information: Grand Island Dermatology 505 N.Diers Grand
Island, NE 68803 308-984-9300
For more information about HIPAA or to file a complaint: The U.S. Department of
HHS Office of Civil Rights 200 Independence Ave Washington, D.C. 20201 Toll free: 1-877-696-6775
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