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THIS
NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW HEALTH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE
USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION.
PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.
Secure Telemedicine,
LLC ("ST")
is required by law to maintain the privacy of certain confidential
health care information, known as Protected Health Information
or PHI, and to provide you with a notice of our legal duties
and privacy practices with respect to your PHI. ST is also
required to abide by the terms of the version of this Notice
currently in effect.
Uses and Disclosures
of PHI: ST may use
PHI for the purposes of treatment, payment, and health care
operations, in most cases without your written permission.
Examples of our use of your PHI:
For treatment: This includes
such things as obtaining verbal and written information
about your medical condition and treatment from you as
well as from others, such as doctors who may have treated
you previously. We may give your PHI to other health care
providers involved in your treatment.
For payment: This
includes any activities we must undertake in order to get
reimbursed for the services we provide to you, including
such things as submitting bills to insurance companies,
making medical necessity determinations and collecting
outstanding accounts.
For health care operations: This
includes quality assurance activities, licensing, and training
programs to ensure that our personnel meet our standards
of care and follow established policies and procedures,
as well as certain other management functions.
Use and
Disclosure of PHI Without Your Authorization: ST is permitted
to use PHI without your written authorization, or opportunity
to object, in certain situations, and unless prohibited by
a more stringent state law, including:
For the treatment,
payment or health care operations activities of another
health care provider who treats you; " For
health care and legal compliance activities; To a family
member, other relative, or close personal friend or other
individual involved in your care if we obtain your verbal
agreement to do so or if we give you an opportunity to object
to such a disclosure and you do not raise an objection, and
in certain other circumstances where we are unable to obtain
your agreement and believe the disclosure is in your best
interests; To a public health authority in certain situations
as required by law (such as to report abuse, neglect or domestic
violence; For health oversight activities including audits
or government investigations, inspections, disciplinary proceedings,
and other administrative or judicial actions undertaken by
the government (or their contractors) by law to oversee the
health care system; For judicial and administrative proceedings
as required by a court or administrative order, or in some
cases in response to a subpoena or other legal process; " For
law enforcement activities in limited situations, such as
when responding to a warrant; For military, national defense
and security and other special government functions; To avert
a serious threat to the health and safety of a person or
the public at large; " For workers' compensation purposes,
and in compliance with workers' compensation laws; To coroners,
medical examiners, and funeral directors for identifying
a deceased person, determining cause of death, or carrying
on their duties as authorized by law; If you are an organ
donor, we may release health information to organizations
that handle organ procurement or organ, eye or tissue transplantation
or to an organ donation bank, as necessary to facilitate
organ donation and transplantation; For research projects,
but this will be subject to strict oversight and approvals;
We may also use or disclose health information about you
in a way that does not personally identify you or reveal
who you are.
Any other use or disclosure of PHI, other
than those listed above will only be made with your written
authorization. You may revoke your authorization at any time,
in writing, except to the extent that we have already used
or disclosed medical information in reliance on that authorization.
Patient Rights: As a patient, you have a number
of rights with respect to your PHI, including:
The right to access,
copy or inspect your PHI: This means you may inspect and
copy most of the medical information about you that we
maintain. We will normally provide you with access to this
information within 30 days of your request. We may also
charge you a reasonable fee for you to copy any medical
information that you have the right to access. In limited
circumstances, we may deny you access to your medical information,
and you may appeal certain types of denials. We have available
forms to request access to your PHI and we will provide
a written response if we deny you access and let you know
your appeal rights. You also have the right to receive
confidential communications of your PHI. If you wish to
inspect and copy your medical information, you should contact
our privacy officer.
The right to amend
your PHI: You have
the right to ask us to amend written medical information
that we may have about you. We will generally amend your
information within 60 days of your request and will notify
you when we have amended the information. We are permitted
by law to deny your request to amend your medical information
only in certain circumstances, like when we believe the
information you have asked us to amend is correct. If you
wish to request that we amend the medical information that
we have about you, you should contact our privacy officer.
The right to request
an accounting: You
may request an accounting from us of certain disclosures
of your medical information that we have made in the six
years prior to the date of your request. We are not required
to give you an accounting of information we have used or
disclosed for purposes of treatment, payment or health
care operations, or when we share your health information
with our business associates, like our billing company
or a medical facility from/to which we have transported
you. We are also not required to give you an accounting
of our uses of protected health information for which you
have already given us written authorization. If you wish
to request an accounting, contact our privacy officer.
The right to request
that we restrict the uses and disclosures of your PHI: You have the right to
request that we restrict how we use and disclose your medical
information that we have about you. ST is not required
to agree to any restrictions you request, but any restrictions
agreed to by ST in writing are binding on ST.
If you use a credit or debit card for
any of your service purchases, we will collect your credit
or debit card information and keep a history of your purchases.
We use this information to process your orders, to ensure
proper delivery or services, and to better assist you when
you visit us online or call us, as well as to improve our
product and service offerings.
Secure Telemedicine, LLC will not trade,
rent or sell your personal information, without your prior
consent, except as otherwise set out herein.
We will maintain
the confidentiality of all personal information collected
on our web site, and will only disclose such information
to employees and contractors who require such information
for the purposes described herein. We maintain administrative,
technical, and physical safeguards to protect against unauthorized
access, use, modification and disclosure of personal information
in our custody and control.
Secure
shopping: When you place orders on our web site, all of your
order information, including your credit card number and
delivery address, is transmitted through the Internet using
Secure Socket Layers (SSL) technology. SSL technology causes
your browser to encrypt your order information before transmitting
it to our secure server. SSL technology, an industry standard,
is designed to prevent someone other than operators of our
web site from capturing and viewing your personal information.
ST also takes the following measures to protect
your personal information online:
Passwords: To provide you with an increased
level of security, online access to your personal information
protected with a password you select. We strongly recommend
that you do not disclose your password to anyone. ST will
never ask you for your password in any unsolicited communication
(including unsolicited correspondence such as letters, phone
calls, or email messages).
Order Information: Since
any order information you provide to us on our website will
be transmitted using a secure connection, if your web browser
cannot support this level of security, you will not be able
to order products through our website. The most recent versions
of Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox
can support a secure connection and can be downloaded for
free from the respective Netscape, Microsoft and Firefox
websites.
No data transmission over the internet
can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. While we strive to protect
your personal information from unauthorized access, use or
disclosure, ST cannot ensure or warrant the security of any
information you transmit to us on our web site.
Internet,
Electronic Mail, and the Right to Obtain Copy of Paper Notice
on Request: If we maintain a web site, we will prominently
post a copy of this Notice on our web site. If you allow
us, we will forward you this Notice by electronic mail instead
of on paper and you may always request a paper copy of the
Notice.
Patient Communications: From time to time, we may contact you about your account
and to possibly offer other complimentary services that may
positively impact your health.
Revisions to the Notice: ST reserves the right
to change the terms of this Notice at any time, and the changes
will be effective immediately and will apply to all protected
health information that we maintain. Any material changes
to the Notice will be promptly posted in our facilities and
posted to our web site, if we maintain one. You can get a
copy of the latest version of this Notice by contacting our
privacy officer.
Your Legal Rights and
Complaints: You also
have the right to complain to us, or to the Secretary of
the United States Department of Health and Human Services
if you believe your privacy rights have been violated. You
will not be retaliated against in any way for filing a complaint
with us or to the government. Should you have any questions,
comments or complaints you may direct all inquiries to our
privacy officer. |