THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION PLEASE READ AND REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.
1. About Protected Health Information "PHI" In this notice, "we" or "us" refer to Inspire Physical Therapy, and our workforce of employees and volunteers. "You" or "your" refers to each ofour patients who are entitled a copy of this notice. We will use good faith regarding protecting your privacy, however, it is no guarantee from any and all potential risks.
We are required by federal and state law to protect the privacy of your health information. For example, federal health information privacy regulations require us to protect health information about you in a manner that we describe here. Certain types of health information may specifically identify you. Because we must protect this health information, we refer to it as "Protected Health Information" or "PHI". In this notice we will tell you about:
How we will use your PHI
When we may disclose your PHI to others
Your privacy rights and how to use them
Our privacy duties
Who to contact for more information or a complaint
2. Some ways we use or disclose your Protected Health Information We will use your PHI to treat you. We will use your PHI and disclose it in order for us to get paid for your care. We are allowed to dispense or disclose your PHI for certain activities that we call "health care operations". Health care operations involve the administration and quality assurance activities in our facility. We will give you examples of each of these to help explain them. However, this is NOT a complete list of all uses or disclosures.
Treatment:
We use and disclose your PHI in your course of treatment. For example, if you are in our clinic and one of our employees has a question about your condition, we may communicate with your treating physician regarding your diagnosis and plan of care SO that we can provide the optimal course of treatment for you. We may also disclose your PHI for other related types of treatment activities. It may be necessary for us to communicate with your referring physician regarding your evaluation and progress in therapy. This may include an introductory letter from our clinic informing the physician of your injury/injuries, as well as who your therapist is in case the physician needs to contact them. This may also include evaluations, progress notes, etc. This allows us to keep a line of communication with your physician about your progress and plan of care.
Marketing:
We may contact you to provide you appointment reminders or information about treatment alternatives or other health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you.
Payment:
After we treat you, we will ask your insurer to pay us. We use a billing company to administer our billing for us. We provide our billing company your medical information SO that they can provide the required information to your insurance company. We, or our billing company, might input some information into our computers to send a claim to your insurance company. In this instance, we or our billing company, tell your insurer what type of health problem you had and what we did to treat you. Your insurer may ask us to give them your claim or subscriber number or your insurer may want to review your medical records to be sure your care was necessary.
Special Uses:
We may also use or disclose your PHI for the purposes that involve your relationship to us as a patient. We may use or disclose your PHI to:
Remind you that you have an appointment with us for treatment
To contact you regarding your patient account.
Your Authorization May be Required:
In many cases summarized here, we may use or disclose your PHI either with your consent or as required or permitted by law. In all other cases we must ask for, and you must agree to give, a written authorization that has specific instructions and/or limits on our disclosure of your PHI. If you later change your mind, you may revoke your authorization.
3. Certain Uses and Disclosures of your PHI that are Required or Permitted by Law.
Many laws and regulations apply to us that affect your PHI. These laws and regulations may either require us or permit us to use or disclose your PHI. From the federal health information privacy regulations, here is a list describing required or permitted uses and disclosures.
If you do not verbally object, we may share some of your PHI with a family member or friend who is involved in your care
We may use your PHI in an emergency when you are not able to express yourself.
When required by law: for example, when a subpoena is ordered by a court to turn over certain types of your PHI, we must do SO.
For public health activities such as reporting a communicable disease or reporting an adverse drug reaction to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA