HIPAA

Notice of Privacy Practices

Uses and Disclosures of Your PHI

The law permits or requires us to use or disclose your PHI for various reasons, which we explain in this Notice. We have included some examples, but we have not listed every permissible use or disclosure. When using or disclosing PHI or requesting your PHI from another source, we will make reasonable efforts to limit our use, disclosure, or request about your PHI to the minimum we need to accomplish our intended purpose.

Uses and Disclosures for Treatment, Payment, or Health Care Operations

• Treatment. We may use or disclose your PHI and share it with other professionals who are treating you, including doctors, nurses, technicians, medical students, or hospital personnel involved in your care. For example, we might disclose information about your overall health condition to physicians who are treating you for a specific injury or condition.
• Payment. We may use and disclose your PHI to bill and get payment from health plans or others. For example, we share your PHI with your health insurance plan so it will pay for the services you receive.
• Health Care Operations. We may use and disclose your PHI to run our practice and improve your care. For example, we may use your PHI to manage the services you receive or to monitor the quality of our health care services. We may disclose your PHI to provide online tracking information about your eyewear. We may use and disclose your PHI to outside persons or entities that perform services on our behalf, such as auditing, legal, or transcription. The law requires our business associates and their subcontractors to protect your PHI in the same way we do. We also contractually require these parties to use and disclose your PHI only as permitted and to appropriately safeguard your PHI.
• As Authorized by You – We will provide copies of your medical record, or parts of your medical record, as directed by you. This may be done verbally in person or by written authorization. We may share your information with a friend, family member, or personal representative without written authorization only if we believe it is in your best interest, according to our best judgment, and: If you are unable to tell us your preference. For example, if you are unconscious, incapacitated, or incarcerated, we will use our best judgement and release only the minimum information necessary.
• As required to by Law – If we are required by law to provide your personal health information we will abide by the law as written. Examples of this include the required reporting of certain contagious diseases to public health agencies, for judicial proceedings or law enforcement by subpoena, required reporting of abuse, neglect or domestic violence, for workers compensation claims, as needed when donating tissue or organs, or to avert a serious threat to public health or safety.

Other uses and disclosures will be made only with your written authorization, and you may revoke such authorization by writing to us at our practice address or delivering a written revocation to us in person.

Your Rights

When it comes to your health information, you have certain rights. This section explains your rights and some of our responsibilities to help you.

You have the right to:

• Inspect and Obtain a Copy of Your PHI. You have the right to see or obtain an electronic or paper copy of the PHI that we maintain about you.
• Make Amendments. You may ask us to correct or amend PHI that we maintain about you that you think is incorrect or inaccurate.
• Request Additional Restrictions. You have the right to ask us to limit what we use or share about your PHI. You can contact us and request us not to use or share certain PHI for treatment, payment, or operations or with certain persons involved in your care. For these requests we are not required to agree. We may say “no” if it would affect your care; but we will agree not to disclose information to a health plan for purposes of payment or health care operations if the requested restriction concerns a health care item or service for which you or another person, other than the health plan, paid in full out-of-pocket, unless it is otherwise required by law.
• Request an Accounting of Disclosures. You have the right to request an accounting of certain PHI disclosures that we have made. For these requests we will include all the disclosures except for those about treatment, payment, and health care operations, and certain other disclosures, such as any you asked us to make; and we will provide one accounting a year for free.
• Choose Someone to Act for You. If you have given someone medical power of attorney or if someone is your legal guardian, that person can exercise your rights and make choices about your PHI. We will confirm the person has this authority and can act for you before we take any action.
• Request Confidential Communications. You have the right to request that we communicate with you about health matters in a certain way or at a certain location. For example, you can ask that we only contact you at work or at a specific address. For these requests, you must specify how or where you wish to be contacted; and we will accommodate reasonable requests.
• Make Complaints. You have the right to complain if you feel we have violated your rights. We will not retaliate against you for filing a complaint. You may either file a complaint directly with us by submitting a written complaint to our privacy office or by filing a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights at the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Our Responsibilities:

We are obligated by law to protect your privacy and we take this obligation very seriously. We will strive to always do our best to fulfill this obligation to you and follow the policies as summarized above. We may need to change procedures regarding this issue as events occur and other options arise. You are entitled to a copy of any changes we make in procedure that affects your protected health information. We will include updates to this policy with statements mailed to patients or in other practice publications.

This notice was published and becomes effective on 8/26/2022.