MEDICAL ANSWERING SERVICES, LLC.
NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES GUARDING PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION
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.
Medical
Answering Services, LLC., through its subsidiaries
and affiliates, provides medical transportation, fire protection services and
related services. These subsidiaries and affiliates providing such services
are hereinafter referred to as "Medical Answering Services,"
"we," "our," or "us." Due to the nature of
these services, we are required by law to maintain the privacy of certain
confidential health care information, known as Protected Health Information
(PHI), and to provide you with a notice of our legal duties and privacy
practices with respect to your PHI. We are also required to abide by the
terms of the version of this Notice currently in effect.
Uses and Disclosures of PHI: We 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 and nurses who give orders to allow us to provide treatment to
you. We may give your PHI to other health care providers involved in
your treatment, and may transfer your PHI via radio or telephone to the
hospital or dispatch center.
- 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.
- Reminders for Scheduled
Transports and Information on Other Services. We may also contact you
with a reminder of any scheduled appointments for non-emergency
ambulance and medical transportation, or to inform you about other services
we provide.
Use and Disclosure of PHI Without Your Authorization. We are
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;
- 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,
as state law permits, to provide a copy of any medical information 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 forms available 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 or obtain a copy of
your medical information, you should contact our local privacy
representative.
- The Right to Amend Your PHI.
You have the right to ask us to amend written medical information 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 an amendment of the medical information we have about you,
please contact our local privacy representative to obtain an amendment
request form.
- The Right to Request an
Accounting. You may request an accounting from us of certain disclosures
of your medical information we have made in the six years prior to the
date of your request. However, your requests for an accounting of
disclosures cannot precede the implementation date of HIPAA April 14,
2003. 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, such as 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 PHI for which you have already given us
written authorization. If you wish to request an accounting, contact our
local privacy representative.
- 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 we have about you. We are not required to agree to any
restrictions you request, but any restrictions agreed to by us in
writing are binding on us.
- Internet and the Right to
Obtain a Paper Copy of the Notice on Request. If you would like a paper
copy of this Notice, you may print this off your computer by choosing
that option, or you may contact us at the address listed below and we
will provide you a paper copy of the Notice upon request.
Revisions to the Notice: We reserve the right to change the
terms of this Notice at any time, and the changes will be effective
immediately and will apply to all PHI 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 official.
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 official.
Privacy Official Contact Information:
Privacy Official
Medical Answering Services
PO Box 11998, Syracuse, NY 13218-1998
(315) 701-7551
Effective Date of the Notice: April 14, 2003
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