Effective Date: April 1, 2017
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.
If you have any questions about this notice, please contact: Director of Homecare Dunwoody at Home 610-359-4790
In most cases, this Notice will be provided to the client. Accordingly, throughout this Notice we use the terms “you” and “your” primarily with reference to the client. In some cases, however, a resident representative such as a guardian, agent under a power of attorney for healthcare, or conservator, will represent the client. In those situations, in which the client is unable or unwilling to exercise certain patient rights regarding the control of medical information, “you” may pertain to the client representative.
This notice applies to individually identifying health information and records regarding your health care maintained at Dunwoody at Home, including medical records and payment information (medical information).
We understand that medical information about you and your health is personal. We are committed to protecting medical information about you. We create a record of the care and services you receive. We need this record to provide you with quality care and to comply with certain legal requirements. This notice applies to all of the records of your care, whether made by personnel or your personal doctor. Your personal doctor may have different policies or notices regarding the doctor’s use and disclosure of your medical information created in the doctor’s office or clinic.
This notice will tell you about the ways in which we may use and disclose medical information about you. We also describe your rights and certain obligations we have regarding the use and disclosure of medical information.
We are required by law to:
The following categories describe different ways that we use and disclose medical information. For each category of uses or disclosures we will explain what we mean and try to give some examples. Not every use or disclosure in a category will be listed. However, all of the ways we are permitted to use and disclose information will fall within one of the categories. All categories do fall into one of two main groupings.
You have the following rights regarding medical information we maintain about you:
We reserve the right to change this notice. We reserve the right to make the revised or changed notice effective for medical information we already have about you as well as any information we receive in the future. We will post a copy of the current notice in the facility. The notice will contain the effective date on the first page in the top right-hand corner.
Dunwoody may not require you to waive your right to file a complaint as a condition of care, payment, and healthcare operations. Dunwoody at Home will not intimidate, threaten, coerce, discriminate against or take any other retaliatory action against any individual for exercising their right to file a complaint.
If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with Dunwoody at Home or with the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. To file a complaint with Dunwoody, please submit complaint in writing to the Director of Homecare. To file a complaint with the Secretary, mail to: Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, D.C. 20201. For more information, you may also visit the website of the Office for Civil Rights, www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/.
Other uses and disclosures of medical information not covered by this notice or the laws that apply to us will be made only with your written permission. For example, without your permission we may not disclose your medical information for marketing purposes or sales purposes. We also may not disclose your psychotherapy notes without permission. If you provide us permission to use or disclose medical information about you, you may revoke that permission, in writing, at any time. If you revoke your permission, we will no longer use or disclose medical information about you for the reasons covered by your written authorization. You understand that we are unable to take back any disclosures we have already made with your permission, and that we are required to retain our records of the care that we provided to you.