It is our duty to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of your protected health information (PHI). We will create records regarding your and the treatment and service we provide to you. We are required by law to maintain the privacy of your PHI, which includes any individually identifiable information that we obtain from you or others that relates to your past, present or future physical or mental health, the health care you have received, or payment for your health care. We will share protected health information with one
another, as necessary, to carry out treatment, payment or health care operations relating to the services to be rendered at
the pharmacy.
As required by law, this notice provides you with information about your rights and our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to the privacy of PHI. This notice also discusses the uses and disclosures we will make of your PHI. We must comply with the
provisions of this notice as currently in effect, although we reserve the right to change the terms of this notice from time to time and to make the revised notice effective for all PHI we maintain.You can always request a written copy of our most current privacy notice from our Privacy Officer.
PERMITTED USES AND DISCLOSURES
We can use or disclose your PHI for purposes of treatment, payment and health care operations. For each of these categories of uses and disclosures, we have provided a description and an example below. However, not every particular use or disclosure in every
category will be listed.
Treatment means providing services as ordered by your physician. Treatment also includes coordination and consultations with other health care providers relating to your care and referrals for health care from one health care provider to another. We may also disclose PHI to outside entities performing other services related to your treatment such as hospital, diagnostic laboratories, home health or hospice agencies, etc.
Payment means the activities we undertake to obtain reimbursement for the health care provided to you, including billing, collections, claims management, prior
approval, determinations of eligibility and coverage and other utilization review activities. Federal or state law may require us to obtain a written release from you prior to disclosing certain specially protected PHI for payment purposes, and we will ask you to sign a release when necessary under applicable law. Health care operations means the support functions of the pharmacy, related to treatment and payment, such as quality assurance activities, case management, receiving and responding to patient comments and complaints, physician reviews, compliance programs, audits, business planning, development, management and administrative activities. We may use your PHI to evaluate the performance of our staff when caring for you. We may also combine PHI about many patients to decide what additional services we should offer, what services are not needed, and whether certain new treatments are effective. We may also disclose PHI for review and learning purposes. In addition, we may remove information that identifies you so that others can use the de-identified information to study health care and health care delivery without learning
who you are.
OTHER USES AND DISCLOSURES OF PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION
We may also use your PHI in the following ways:
-
- To provide appointment reminders for treatment or medical care.
- To tell you about or recommend possible treatment alternatives or other health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you.
- To disclose to your family or friends or any other individual identified by you to the extent directly related to such person’s involvement in your care or the payment for your care. We may use or disclose your PHI to notify, or assist in the notification of, a family member, a personal representative, or another person responsible for your care, of your location, general condition or death. If you are available, we will give you an opportunity to object to these disclosures, and we will not make these
disclosures if you object. If you are not available, we will determine whether a disclosure to your family or friends is in your best interest, taking into account the
circumstances and based upon our professional judgment.
When permitted by law, we may coordinate our uses and disclosures of PHI with public or private entities authorized by law or by charter to assist in disaster
relief efforts.
We will allow your family and friends to act on your behalf to pick up filled prescriptions, medical supplies, X-rays, and similar forms of PHI, when we determine, in our professional judgment that it is in your best interest to make such disclosures.
We may contact you as part of our fundraising and marketing efforts as permitted by applicable law. You have the right to opt out of receiving such fundraising communications.
We may use or disclose your PHI for research purposes, subject to the requirements of applicable law. For example, a research project may involve comparisons of the health and recovery of all patients who received a particular medication. All research projects are subject to a special approval process which balances research needs with a patient’s need for privacy. When required, we will obtain a written authorization from you prior to using your health information for research.
We will use or disclose PHI about you when required to do so by applicable law.
In accordance with applicable law, we may disclose your PHI to your employer if we are retained to conduct an evaluation relating to medical surveillance of your
workplace or to evaluate whether you have a work-related illness or injury. You will be notified of these disclosures by your employer or the pharmacy as required by applicable law.
Note: incidental uses and disclosures of PHI sometimes occur and are not considered to be a violation of your rights. Incidental uses and disclosures are by-products of otherwise permitted uses or disclosures which are limited in nature and cannot be reasonably prevented.