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Main Office
BHC - Lancaster
1755 Oregon Pike
Lancaster
PA 17601-4272
Phone : 717-581-5255
Fax No : 717-581-5259
BHC - Lititz
6 West Newport Road
Lititz PA 17543
Phone: (717) 627-2190
BHC - Lemoyne
1013 Mumma Rd. Suite 303
Lemoyne PA 17043
Phone:(717) 730-2090
BHC - York
2550 Kingston Road
Suite 211
York PA 17402
Phone:(717) 755-5736
bhclanc@comcast.net
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HIPAA
April 14, 2003
To Our Clients:
The federal government requires that we make available to you our
"Notice of Privacy Practices" so that you have a very detailed accounting
of what information we disclose and to whom we disclose it.
We want to reassure you that all written and spoken information related
to services provided by us is held in strictest confidence.
We do not provide information to any third party without prior written
authorization from you to do so except where legal exceptions apply.
These legal exceptions involve information regarding suspected child abuse,
potential harm to oneself or others, and instances where we receive a court
order for information. If you want us to release information to a third
party (e.g., an attorney, insurance company to obtain reimbursement, etc)
we need your written request to do so.
Regarding information released to insurance and managed care companies:
if you indicate to us that you expect all or some of your charges to be covered
by a third party, we will obtain from you written permission to release to
the third party the minimum amount of information necessary to obtain reimbursement.
Most insurance and managed care companies require your name, address,
social security number, the "insured’s" name, address and social security number,
dates of service, types of service and diagnosis code. Some managed care companies
(including Value Options) require treatment plans and updates on your progress
in therapy. Please discuss with your therapist any concerns you may have about
this information.
BEHAVORIAL HEALTHCARE CONSULTANTS
1755 Oregon Pike
Lancaster PA 17601
April 14, 2003
To our clients:
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.
Notice of Privacy Practices
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 profession. Because the rules are so complicated, some parts of this Notice are quite detailed and you probably will have to read them several times to understand them. If you have any questions, our Privacy Officer will be happy to help you. His or her name and address are at the end of this Notice.
Contents of this Notice
A. Introduction - To Our Clients
B. What we mean by your medical information
C. Privacy and the laws about privacy
D. How your protected health information can be used and shared
1. Uses and disclosures with your consent
a. The basic uses and disclosures - For treatment, payment,
and health care operations (TPO)
2. Other uses and disclosures in health care uses and disclosures
requiring your Authorization
3. Uses and disclosures not requiring your Consent or Authorization
4. Uses and disclosures requiring you to have an opportunity to object
5. An Accounting of disclosures we have made
If you have questions or problems
Introduction - To our clients
This notice will tell you how we handle information about you. It tells how
we use this information, how we share it with other professionals and organizations,
and how you can see it. We want you to know this so you can make the best decisions
for yourself and your family. We are also required to tell you about these issues
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 and we don’t want to make you read a lot that may not apply to
you, we have simplified some parts. If you have any questions or want to know more
about anything in this Notice, please ask our Privacy Officer for more explanation
or details.
B. What we mean by your medical information
Each time you visit us or any doctor’s office, hospital, clinic, or any other
"healthcare provider," information is collected about you and your physical and
mental health. It may be information about your past, present or future health
or conditions, or the treatment or other services you received from us or from
others, or about payment for healthcare. 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 on file at our
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, goals.
- Diagnoses: Diagnoses are the medical terms for your problems or symptoms.
- A treatment plan: Details treatment and other services which we think will
best 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 evaluated or treated you.
- Psychological test scores, school records, etc.
- Information about medications you have or are taking.
- Legal matters.
- Billing and insurance information.
This list is just to give you an idea; there may be other kinds of information
that go into your healthcare record in our office.
We use this information for many purposes. For example, we may use it:
- To plan your care and treatment.
- To decide how well our treatments are working for you.
- When we talk with other healthcare professionals who are also treating you, such
as your family doctor or the professional who referred you to us.
- To show that you actually received the services from us which we billed
to you or to your health insurance company.
- For teaching and training other healthcare professionals.
(without any identifying information)
- For medical or psychological research.(with your written, informed consent)
- For public health officials trying to improve health care in this country.
(without any identifying information)
- To improve the way we do our job by measuring the results of our work.
When you understand what is in your record and what it is used for, you can make
better decisions about who, when, and why others should have this information.
Although your health record is the physical property of the healthcare practitioner
or facility that collected it, the information belongs to you. You can inspect,
read, or review it. Your therapist may need to be present to answer any questions
or concerns you may have If you want a copy we can usually make one for you but
may charge you for the costs of copying (and mailing if you want it mailed to you).
In some 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 (add information to) your record, although in
some rare situations we do not have to agree to do that. Our Privacy Officer,
whose name is at the end of this Notice, can explain more about this.
C. Privacy and the laws
The HIPAA 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. We will obey the roles of this notice as long as it is in effect, but if we
change it, the rules of the new NPP will apply to all of the PHI we keep. If we
change the NPP we will post the new Notice in our office where everyone can see.
You or anyone else can get a copy from our Privacy Officer at any time and it
will be posted on our web site at www.bhclanc.com.
D. How your protected health information can be used and shared
When your information is read by your therapist, in this office, that is called, in the law,
"use". If the information is shared with or sent to others outside this office, that is
called, in the law, "disclosure." 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 gives you the right to know about your PHI, how it is used,
and to have a say in how it is disclosed.
We use and disclose PHI for several reasons. Mainly, we will use and disclose (share)
it for routine purposes and we will explain more about these below. For most uses we
must tell you about them and have a written Authorization Form signed by you, unless
the law requires us to make the use or disclosure without your authorization.
1. Uses and disclosure 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 here or share your PHI with other people or organizations 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. However, even with
your signature on the Consent Form, we only disclose your PHI with your informed
written consent except where the law requires us to disclose information.
1a. For treatment, payment, or health care operations
We need information about you and your condition to provide care to you.
You have to agree to let us collect the information and to use it and
share it as necessary to care for you properly. Federal regulations require
that you sign the Consent Form before we begin to treat you, except
in emergency situations.
When you come to see us, several people in our office may collect demographic
and insurance information about you and all of it may go into your healthcare
records here. Your therapist will collect clinical information. Generally,
we may use or disclose your PHI for three purposes: treatment, obtaining payment,
and what are called healthcare operations. Let’s see what these are about:
For treatment. We use medical information to provide you with psychological
treatment or services. These might include individual, family, or group therapy,
psychological, educational, or vocational testing, treatment planning, or
measuring the effects of our services.
We may share or disclose your PHI with your prior written consent to others who
provide treatment to you. We are likely to ask to share your information with
your personal physician. If you are being treated by a team at BHC, we can share
some of your PHI with them so that the services you receive will be coordinated.
They will also enter their findings, the actions they took, and their plans into
your record so we all can decide what treatments work best for you and make up a
Treatment Plan. We may refer you to other professionals for services we cannot
offer, such as special testing or treatments. When we do this we need to tell
them some things about you and your conditions with your written consent.
We will get 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 with your written consent. These are some examples so that
you can see how we use and disclose your PHI for treatment.
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 always give the minimum amount
of information required to obtain payment. We may contact your insurance company
to check on exactly what your insurance covers. We may have to tell them about
your diagnoses, what treatment you have received, and what we expect as we treat
you. We also may need to tell them about when we met, your progress, provider
treatment plan, and other similar things.
For health care operations. There are some other ways we may use or disclose
your PHI which are called health care operations. For example, we may use your
PHI to see where we can make improvements in the care and services we provide.
We may be required to supply some information to some government health agencies
without identifying information so they can study disorders and treatment and
make plans for services that are needed. If we do, your name and identity will
be removed from what we send.
1b. Other uses in healthcare
Appointment Reminders. We may use and disclose medical information to
reschedule or remind you of appointments for treatment or other care.
If you want us to call or write to you only at your home or your work or
prefer some other way to reach you, we usually can arrange that. Just tell us.
Treatment Alternatives. We may use (or disclose with your written consent) your
PHI to tell you about or recommend possible treatments or alternatives that may
be of interest to you.
Other Benefits and Services. We may use ((or disclose with your written consent)
your PHI to tell you about health-related benefits or services that may be of
interest to you.
Research. We may use or share your information to do research and improve treatments.
For example, we may compare two treatments for the same disorder to see which
works better of faster or costs less. In all cases your name, address and other
information that reveals who you are will be removed form the information given
to researchers. If they need to know who you are, we will discuss the research
project with you and you will have to sign a special Authorization Form before
any information is shared.
Business Associates. There are some jobs we hire other businesses to do for us.
They are called our Business Associates in the law. For example, we use an
electronic service to send secure, encrypted information over the internet to
many insurance companies. 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 we want to use your information for any purpose besides the TPO or those we
described above, we need your permission on an Authorization Form. We don’t
expect to need this very often.
If you do authorize us to use or disclose your PHI, you can revoke (cancel) 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. Of course, we cannot take
back any information we had already disclosed with your permission or that we
had used in our office.
3. Uses and disclosures of PHI from mental health records NOT requiring Consent
or Authorization
The laws requires us to use and disclose some of your PHI without your consent
or authorization in some cases.
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.
- If you are involved in a lawsuit or legal proceeding and we receive a court order, we may have to release some of your PHI. We will only do so after trying to tell you about the request, consulting your lawyer, or trying to get a court order to protect the information they requested.
- We have to release (disclose) some information to government agencies which check on us to see that we are obeying the privacy laws.
For Law Enforcement Purposes. We may release medical information if asked to do so by a
law enforcement official to investigate a crime or criminal without identifying
information.
For public health activities. We might disclose some of your PHI to agencies which
investigate diseases or injuries.
Relating to decedents. We might disclose PHI to coroners, medical examiners or funeral
directors, and to organizations relating to organ, eye, or tissue donations or
transplants.
For specific government functions. We may disclose PHI of military personnel and
veterans to governmental benefit programs relating to eligibility and enrollment,
to Workers’ Compensation programs, to correctional facilities if you are an inmate,
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 to your health or safety or that of another person or the public,
we can disclose some of your PHI. We will only do this to persons who can prevent
the danger.
4. Uses and disclosures requiring you to have an opportunity
to object
We can share information about you with your family or close others. We will only
share information with those involved in your care and anyone else you choose,
such as close friends or clergy. We will ask you about who you want us to tell what
information about your condition or treatment. You can tell us what you want and we
will honor your wishes as long as it is not against the law.
If it is an emergency - so we cannot ask if you disagree-we can share information
if we believe that it is what you would have wanted and if we believe it will help
you if we do share it. If we do share information, in an emergency, we will tell
you as soon as we can. If you do not approve we will stop, providing that we are
not violating the law.
5. An accounting of disclosures
When we disclose your PHI we keep records of whom we sent it to, when we sent it,
and what we sent. You can get an accounting (a list) of many of these disclosures.
E. If you have questions or problems
If you need more information or have questions about the privacy practices
described above, please speak to the Privacy Officer, whose name and telephone
number are listed below. If you have a problem with how your PHI has been handled
or if you believe your privacy rights have been violated, contact the Privacy Officer.
You have the right to file a complaint with us and with the Secretary of the Federal
Department of Health and Human Services. We promise that we will not in any way
limit your care here or take any actions against you if you complain.
If you have any questions regarding this notice or our health information privacy
policies, please contact our Privacy Officer who is Roger Sheaffer and can be reached
by phone at (717) 581-5255.
The effective date of this notice is April 14, 2003
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