If you have any questions about this notice, please contact the Privacy Official by dialing the main facility number at 972-414-CURA (2872)
Each time you visit a hospital, physician, or other healthcare provider, a record of your visit is made. Typically, this record contains your symptoms, examination and test results, diagnoses, treatment, a plan for future care or treatment, and billing-related information. This notice applies to all of the records of your care generated by the facility, whether made by facility personnel, agents of the facility, or your personal doctor. Your personal doctor may have different policies or notices regarding the doctor’s use and disclosure of your health information created in the doctor’s office or clinic.
We are required by law to maintain the privacy of your health information, provide you a description of our privacy practices, and to notify you following a breach of unsecured protected health information. We will abide by the terms of this notice.
The following categories describe examples of the way we use and disclose health information:
For Treatment: We may use health information about you to provide you treatment or services. We may disclose health information about you to doctors, nurses, technicians, medical students, or other facility personnel who are involved in taking care of you at the facility. For example: a doctor treating you for a broken leg may need to know if you have diabetes because diabetes may slow the healing process. Different departments of the facility also may share health information about you in order to coordinate the different things you may need, such as prescriptions, lab work, meals, and x-rays.
We may also provide your physician or a subsequent healthcare provider with copies of various reports that should assist him or her in treating you once you’re discharged from this facility.
For Payment: We may use and disclose health information about your treatment and services to bill and collect payment from you, your insurance company or a third party payer. For example, we may need to give your insurance company information about your surgery so they will pay us or reimburse you for the treatment. We may also tell your health plan about treatment you are going to receive to determine whether your plan will cover it.
For Health Care Operations: Members of the medical staff and/or quality improvement team may use information in your health record to assess the care and outcomes in your case and others like it. The results will then be used to continually improve the quality of care for all patients we serve. For example, we may combine health information about many patients to evaluate the need for new services or treatment. We may disclose information to doctors, nurses, and other students for educational purposes. And we may combine health information we have with that of other facilities to see where we can make improvements. We may remove information that identifies you from this set of health information to protect your privacy.
Fundraising: We may contact you to raise funds for the facility; however, you have the right to elect not to receive such communications.
We may also use and disclose health information:
When disclosing information, primarily appointment reminders and billing/collections efforts, we may leave messages on your answering machine/voice mail.
Business Associates: There are some services provided in our organization through contracts with business associates. Examples include physician services in the emergency department and radiology, certain laboratory tests, and a copy service we use when making copies of your health record. When these services are contracted, we may disclose your health information to our business associates so that they can perform the job we’ve asked them to do and bill you or your third-party payer for services rendered. To protect your health information, however, business associates are required by federal law to appropriately safeguard your information.
Directory: We may include certain limited information about you in the facility directory while you are a patient at the facility. The information may include your name, location in the facility, your general condition (e.g., good, fair) and your religious affiliation. This information may be provided to members of the clergy and, except for religious affiliation, to other people who ask for you by name. If you would like to opt out of being in the facility directory please request the Opt Out Form from the admission staff or Facility Privacy Official.
Individuals Involved in Your Care or Payment for Your Care and/or Notification Purposes: We may release health information about you to a friend or family member who is involved in your medical care or who helps pay for your care or 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 and general condition. In addition, we may disclose health information about you to an entity assisting in a disaster relief effort in order to assist with the provision of this notice.
Research: The use of health information is important to develop new knowledge and improve medical care. We may use or disclose health information for research studies but only when they meet all federal and state requirements to protect your privacy (such as using only de-identified data whenever possible). You may also be contacted to participate in a research study.
Future Communications: We may communicate to you via newsletters, mail outs or other means regarding treatment options, health related information, disease-management programs, wellness programs, research projects, or other community based initiatives or activities our facility is participating in.
Organized Health Care Arrangement: This facility and its medical staff members have organized and are presenting you this document as a joint notice. Information will be shared as necessary to carry out treatment, payment and health care operations. Physicians and caregivers may have access to protected health information in their offices to assist in reviewing past treatment as it may affect treatment at the time.
Affiliated Covered Entity: Protected health information will be made available to facility personnel at local affiliated facilities as necessary to carry out treatment, payment and health care operations. Caregivers at other facilities may have access to protected health information at their locations to assist in reviewing past treatment information as it may affect treatment at this time. Please contact the Facility Privacy Official for further information on the specific sites included in this affiliated covered entity.
Health Information Exchange/Regional Health Information Organization: Federal and state laws may permit us to participate in organizations with other healthcare providers, insurers, and/or other health care industry participants and their subcontractors in order for these individuals and entities to share your health information with one another to accomplish goals that may include but not be limited to: improving the accuracy and increasing the availability of your health records; decreasing the time needed to access your information; aggregating and comparing your information for quality improvement purposes; and such other purposes as may be permitted by law.
As required by law. We may disclose information when required to do so by law.
As permitted by law, we may also use and disclose health information for the following types of entities, including but not limited to:
Law Enforcement: We may disclose health information to a law enforcement official for purposes such as providing limited information to locate a missing person or report a crime.
For Judicial or Administrative Proceedings: We may disclose protected health information as permitted by law in connection with judicial or administrative proceedings, such as in response to a court order, search warrant or subpoena.
Authorization Required: We must obtain your written authorization in order to use or disclose psychotherapy notes, use or disclose your protected health information for marketing purposes, or to sell your protected health information.
State-Specific Requirements: Many states have requirements for reporting including population-based activities relating to improving health or reducing health care costs. Some states have separate privacy laws that may apply additional legal requirements. If the state privacy laws are more stringent than federal privacy laws, the state law preempts the federal law.
Although your health record is the physical property of the healthcare practitioner or facility that compiled it, you have the Right to:
To exercise any of your rights, please obtain the required forms from the Privacy Official and submit your request in writing.
We reserve the right to change this notice and the revised or changed notice will be effective for information we already have about you as well as any information we receive in the future. The current notice will be posted in the facility and on our website and include the effective date. In addition, each time you register at or are admitted to the facility for treatment or health care services as an inpatient or outpatient, we will offer you a copy of the current notice in effect.
If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with the facility by following the process outlined in the facility’s Patient Rights documentation. You may also file a complaint with the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. All complaints must be submitted in writing.
You will not be penalized for filing a complaint.
Other uses and disclosures of health information not covered by this notice or the laws that apply to us will be made only with your written authorization. If you provide us permission to use or disclose health information about you, you may revoke that authorization, in writing, at any time. If you revoke your authorization, we will no longer use or disclose health 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 authorization, and that we are required to retain our records of the care that we provided to you.
