Privacy is a very important concern for all those who come to this office. It is also complicated because of federal and state laws and our professional rules. Because the rules are so complicated some parts of this Notice are quite detailed. If you have any questions, I will be happy to help you.
This notice will tell you how we use the information here in this office, how we share it with other professionals and organizations, and how you can see it. We are required to tell you about this because of the privacy regulations of a federal law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Because this law and the laws of this state are very complicated, we have simplified some parts.
The information we collect from you is called, in the law, PHI, which stands for Protected Health Information. This information goes into your medical or healthcare record or file at office. In this office this PHI is likely to include these kinds of information:
 | Your history: As a child, in school and at work, and marital and personal history |
| Reasons you came for treatment: Your problems, complaints, symptoms, needs, and goals. |
| Diagnoses. Diagnoses are the medical terms for your problems or symptoms. |
| A treatment plan: These are the treatment/ services, which are planned to help you. |
| Progress notes: Each time you come in we write down some things about how you are doing, what we observe about you, and what you tell us. |
| Records we get from others who treated you or evaluated you. |
| Psychological test scores, school records, etc. |
| Information about medications you took or are taking. |
| Legal matters |
| Billing and insurance information |
We use this information for many purposes. For example, we may use it:
| To plan your care and treatment. |
| When we talk with other healthcare professionals who are treating you. |
| To show that you actually received the services from us which we billed to you or to your health insurance company. |
| For public health officials trying to improve health care in this country. |
Although your health record is the physical property of the healthcare practitioner who collected it, the information belongs to you. You can inspect, read, or review it. If you want a copy we can make one for you but may charge you for the costs of copying and mailing. In some very unusual situations, you cannot see all of what is in your records. If you find anything in your records that you think is incorrect or something important is missing you can ask us to amend your record although in some rare situations we don't have to agree to do that.
The HIP AA law requires us to keep your PHI private and to give you this notice of our legal duties and our privacy practices, which is called the Notice of Privacy Practices or NPP. If we change the NPP we will post the new Notice in our office where everyone can see. You can also get a copy from our Privacy Officer at any time and it will be posted on our website at http://www.sandrahammondtaylor.com/
Except in some special circumstances, when we use your PHI here or disclose it to others we share only the minimum necessary PHI needed for the purpose. The law also says that we are allowed to make some uses and disclosures without your consent or authorization.
1.
Uses and disclosures of PHI in healthcare with your consent
After you have read this Notice you will be asked to sign a separate Consent
form to allow us to use and share your PHI. In almost all cases we intend to use
your PHI to provide treatment to you, arrange for payment for our services, or
some other business functions called health care operations. Together these
routine purposes are called TPO and the Consent form allows us to use and
disclose your PHI for TPO.
1 a. For treatment, payment, or health
care operations.
We need information about you and your condition to provide care to you. You
will need to sign the Consent form before we begin to treat you because if you
do not agree and consent we cannot treat you.
For treatment
We use your medical information to provide you with psychological treatment
or services. With your approval, we may disclose your PHI to others who provide
treatment to you. We may share your information with your personal physician;
other team members so that the services you receive will be coordinated. We may
refer you to other professionals for services and share some information. We
will get back their findings and opinions and those will go into your records
here. If you receive treatment in the future from other professionals we can
also share your PHI with them.
For payment
We may use your information
to bill you, your insurance or others, to be paid for the treatment we provide
to you. We may contact your insurance company to check on exactly what your
insurance covers. We may have to tell them about your diagnoses, treatments,
expectations, and how you are progressing.
For health care operations
To carry on our business we may need to share PHI. We may be required to
supply some information to some government health agencies so they can study
disorders. If we do, your name and identity will be removed from what we send.
1 b. Other uses in healthcare:
Appointment Reminders. We may use and disclose PHI to reschedule or
remind you of appointments for treatment or other care.
Treatment Alternatives. We may use and disclose your PHI to tell you
about or recommend possible treatments or alternatives that may be of interest
to you.
Business Associates. There is some work we hire other businesses to do
for us. They are called our Business Associates in the law. Examples include a
copy service, a billing service, computer assistance and accounting services.
These business associates need to receive some of your PHI to do their jobs
properly. To protect your privacy they have agreed in their contract with us to
safeguard your information.
2. Uses and disclosures requiring your Authorization
If you do authorize us to use or disclose your PHI, you can revoke that permission, in writing, at any time. After that time, we will not use or disclose your information for the purposes that we agreed to.
3. Uses and disclosures of PHI from mental health records not requiring
Consent or Authorization
When required by law:
There are some federal, state, or local laws, which require us to disclose PHI.
· We have to report suspected child abuse, or suspected abuse to a vulnerable adult.
· If you are involved in a lawsuit or legal proceeding and we receive a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful process we may have to release some of your PHI.
· We have to release some information to the government agencies, which monitor privacy laws.
· For Law Enforcement purposes. We may release medical information if asked to do so by a law enforcement officials for criminal investigations.
· For public health activities. We might disclose some of your PHI to agencies, which investigate diseases or injuries.
· For specific government functions. We may disclose PHI of military personnel and veterans to government benefit programs relating to eligibility and enrollment, to Workers' Compensation programs and for national security reasons.
· To prevent a serious threat to health or safety. If we come to believe that there is a serious threat of physical harm to self or others, the appropriate authorities will be given information to prevent harm from occurring.
4. Uses and disclosures requiring you to
have an opportunity to object
We will only share
information with those involved in your care and anyone else you choose to
release information to. If it is an emergency, we can share information if we
believe that it is what you would have wanted. If we do share information, we
will tell you as soon as we can.
5. An accounting of disclosures
When we disclose your PHI we
keeps some records of whom we sent it to, when we sent it, and what we sent. You
can get an accounting of many of these disclosures.
If you need more information or have questions about the privacy practices described above please speak to the Privacy Officer. If you believe your privacy has been violated please contact the Privacy Officer or The Department of Health and Human Services 200 Independence Ave, SW, Room 5009F. HHH Building, Washington DC 20201 or call the hotline 1800-368-1019.
The privacy officer is:
Sandra Hammond
Taylor, MA LP, PA
5001 W. 80th St #695
Bloomington, MN 55438
952-944-2445
The effective date of this notice is April 14, 2003
We can be reached via e-mail at webmaster@sandrahammondtaylor.com
or you can reach us by telephone at
For each visitor to our Web page, our Web server automatically recognizes only the consumer's domain name, but not the e-mail address (where possible).
We collect only the domain name, but not the e-mail address of visitors to our Web page, the e-mail addresses of those who communicate with us via e-mail, aggregate information on what pages consumers access or visit, information volunteered by the consumer, such as survey information and/or site registrations.
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From time to time, we may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future we will use for these new purposes only data collected from the time of the policy change forward .
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