HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices

THIS DOCUMENT DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION.
PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

WE ARE REQUIRED BY LAW TO PROTECT MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

We are required by law to protect the privacy of medical information about you and information that identifies you. This medical information may be information about health care we provide to you or payment for health care provided to you. It may also be information about your past, present, or future medical condition. We are also required by law to provide you with this Notice of Privacy Practices explaining our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to medical information. We are legally required to follow the terms of this Notice. In other words, we are only allowed to use and disclose medical information in the manner that we have described in this Notice. We may change the terms of this Notice in the future. We reserve the right to make changes and to make the new Notice effective for all medical information that we maintain. If we make changes to the Notice, we will notify all employees of the change and have copies of the new Notice available upon request. The rest of this Notice will discuss how we may use and disclose medical information about you, explain your rights with respect to medical information about you, and describe how and where you may file a privacy-related complaint. If, at any time, you have questions about information in this Notice or about our privacy policies, procedures, or practices, you can contact our Privacy Officer.

WE MAY USE AND DISCLOSE MEDICAL INFORMATION
ABOUT YOU IN SEVERAL CIRCUMSTANCES

We use and disclose medical information about patients every day. This section of our Notice explains in some detail how we may use and disclose medical information about you in order to provide health care, obtain payment for that health care, and operate our business efficiently. This section then briefly mentions several other circumstances in which we may use or disclose medical information about you.

1. Authorizations
Other than the uses and disclosures described below, we will not use or disclose medical information about you without the “authorization” – or signed permission – of you or your legal representative. In some instances, we may wish to use or disclose medical information about you, and we may contact you to ask you to sign an authorization form. In other instances, you may contact us to ask us to disclose medical information and we will ask you to sign an authorization form. If you sign a written authorization allowing us to disclose medical information about you, you may later revoke (or cancel) your authorization in writing (except in very limited circumstances related to obtaining insurance coverage). If you would like to revoke your authorization, you may write us a letter revoking your authorization or fill out an Authorization Revocation Form. Authorization Revocation Forms are available from our Privacy Officer. If you revoke your authorization, we will follow your instructions except to the extent that we have already relied upon your authorization and taken some action.

2. Treatment
We may use and disclose medical information about you to provide health care treatment to you. In other words, we may use and disclose medical information about you to provide, coordinate, or manage your health care and related services. This may include communicating with other healthcare providers regarding your treatment and coordinating and managing your health care with others.

3. Payment
We may use and disclose medical information about you to obtain payment for health care services that you received. This means that we may use medical information about you to arrange for payment (such as preparing bills and managing accounts). We also may disclose medical information about you to others (such as insurance companies, collection agencies, and consumer reporting agencies). In some instances, we may disclose medical information about you to an insurance company before you receive certain health care services because, for example, we may want to know whether your insurance plan will pay for a particular service.

4. Healthcare Operations
We may use and disclose medical information about you in performing a variety of business activities that we call “health care operations.” These “health care operations” activities allow us to, for example, improve the quality of care we provide and reduce health care costs. For example, we may use or disclose medical information about you in performing the following activities:

Reviewing and evaluating the skills, qualifications, and performance of healthcare providers taking care of you.
Providing training programs for students, trainees, healthcare providers or non-healthcare professionals to help them practice or improve their skills.
Cooperating with outside organizations that evaluate, certify, or license healthcare providers, staff, or facilities in a particular field or specialty.
Reviewing and improving the quality, efficiency, and cost of care that we provide to you and our other patients.
Improving health care and lowering costs for groups of people who have similar health problems and helping manage and coordinate the care for these groups of people.
Cooperating with outside organizations that assess the quality of the care others and we provide, including government agencies and private organizations.
Planning for our organization’s future operations.
Resolving grievances within our organization.
Reviewing our activities and using or disclosing medical information in the event that control of our organization significantly changes.
Working with others (such as lawyers, accountants, and other advisors) who assist us to comply with this Notice and other applicable laws.

5. Required by Law
We will use and disclose medical information about you whenever we are required by law to do so. There are many state and federal laws that require us to use and disclose medical information. For example, state law requires us to report gunshot wounds and other injuries to the police and to report known or suspected child abuse or neglect to the Department of Social Services. We will comply with those state laws and with all other applicable laws.

6. National Priority Uses and Disclosures
When permitted by law, we may use or disclose medical information about you without your permission for various activities that are recognized as “national priorities.” In other words, the government has determined that under certain circumstances (described below), it is so important to disclose medical information that it is acceptable to disclose medical information without the individual’s permission. We will only disclose medical information about you in the following circumstances when we are permitted to do so by law. Below are brief descriptions of the “national priority” activities recognized by law.

Threat to health or safety: We may use or disclose medical information about you if we believe it is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious threat to health or safety.
Public health activities: We may use or disclose medical information about you for public health activities. Public health activities require the use of medical information for various activities, including, but not limited to, activities related to investigating diseases, reporting child abuse and neglect, monitoring drugs or devices regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, and monitoring work-related illnesses or injuries. For example, if you have been exposed to a communicable disease (such as a sexually transmitted disease), we may report it to the State and take other actions to prevent the spread of the disease.
Abuse, neglect, or domestic violence: We may disclose medical information about you to a government authority (such as the Department of Social Services) if you are an adult and we reasonably believe that you may be a victim of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence.
Health oversight activities: We may disclose medical information about you to a health oversight agency – which is basically an agency responsible for overseeing the healthcare system or certain government programs. For example, a government agency may request information from us while they are investigating possible insurance fraud.
Court proceedings: We may disclose medical information about you to a court or an officer of the court (such as an attorney). For example, we would disclose medical information about you to a court if a judge orders us to do so.
Law enforcement: We may disclose medical information about you to a law enforcement official for specific law enforcement purposes. For example, we may disclose limited medical information about you to a police officer if the officer needs the information to help find or identify a missing person.
Coroners and others: We may disclose medical information about you to a coroner, medical examiner, or funeral director or to organizations that help with organ, eye, and tissue transplants.
Workers’ compensation: We may disclose medical information about you in order to comply with workers’ compensation laws.
Research organizations: We may use or disclose medical information about you to research organizations if the organization has satisfied certain conditions about protecting the privacy of medical information.
Certain government functions: We may use or disclose medical information about you for certain government functions, including but not limited to military and veterans’ activities and national security and intelligence activities. We may also use or disclose medical information about you to a correctional institution in some circumstances.

YOU HAVE RIGHTS WITH RESPECT TO MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

You have several rights with respect to medical information about you. This section of the Notice will briefly mention each of these rights.

1. Right to a Copy of This Notice
You have the right to have a paper copy of our Notice of Privacy Practices at any time.

2. Right of Access to Inspect and Copy
You have the right to inspect (which means see or review) and receive a copy of medical information about you that we maintain in certain groups of records. If we maintain your medical records in an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system, you may obtain an electronic copy of your medical records. You may also instruct us in writing to send an electronic copy of your medical records to a third party. If you would like to inspect or receive a copy of medical information about you, you must provide us with a request in writing. You may write us a letter requesting access or fill out an Access Request Form. We may deny your request in certain circumstances. If we deny your request, we will explain our reason for doing so in writing. We will also inform you in writing if you have the right to have our decision reviewed by another person. We may be able to provide you with a summary or explanation of the information.

3. Right to Have Medical Information Amended
You have the right to have us amend (which means correct or supplement) medical information about you that we maintain in certain groups of records. If you believe that we have information that is either inaccurate or incomplete, we may amend the information to indicate the problem and notify others who have copies of the inaccurate or incomplete information. If you would like us to amend information, you must provide us with a request in writing and explain why you would like us to amend the information. We may deny your request in certain circumstances. If we deny your request, we will explain our reason for doing so in writing. You will have the opportunity to send us a statement explaining why you disagree with our decision to deny your amendment request and we will share your statement whenever we disclose the information in the future.

4. Right to an Accounting of Disclosures We Have Made
You have the right to receive an accounting (which means a detailed listing) of disclosures that we have made for the previous ten (10) years. The accounting will not include several types of disclosures, including disclosures for treatment, payment, or healthcare operations. If we maintain your medical records in an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system, you may request that include disclosures for treatment, payment, or healthcare operations. If you request an accounting more than once every twelve (12) months, we may charge you a fee to cover the costs of preparing the accounting.

5. Right to Request Restrictions on Uses and Disclosures
You have the right to request that we limit the use and disclosure of medical information about you for treatment, payment, and healthcare operations. Under federal law, we must agree to your request and comply with your requested restriction(s) if:

Except as otherwise required by state or federal law, the disclosure is to an insurance company for purpose of carrying out payment of healthcare operations (and is not for purposes of carrying out treatment); and,
The medical information pertains solely to a health care item or service for which the health care provided involved has been paid out-of-pocket in full.

Once we agree to your request, we must follow your restrictions (except if the information is necessary for emergency treatment). You may cancel the restrictions at any time. In addition, we may cancel a restriction at any time as long as we notify you of the cancellation and continue to apply the restriction to information collected before the cancellation.

6. Right to Request an Alternative Method of Contact
You have the right to request to be contacted at a different location or by a different method. For example, you may prefer to have all written information mailed to your work address rather than to your home address. We will agree to any reasonable request for alternative methods of contact. If you would like to request an alternative method of contact, you must provide us with a request in writing.

YOU MAY FILE A COMPLAINT ABOUT OUR PRIVACY PRACTICES

If you believe that your privacy rights have been violated or if you are dissatisfied with our privacy policies or procedures, you may file a written complaint either with us or with the federal government.

We will not take any action against you or change our treatment of you in any way if you file a complaint.

To file a written complaint with us, you may bring your complaint directly to our Privacy Officer, or you may mail it to the following address:

Pearsanta, Inc.
737 N. 5th Street, Suite 200
Richmond, VA 23219
ATTN: Privacy Officer

To file a written complaint with the federal government, please use the following contact information:

Centralized Case Management Operations
Office for Civil Rights
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Room 509F, HHH Building
Washington, D.C. 20201
Toll-Free Phone: (800) 368-1019
TDD Toll-Free: (800) 537-7697
Website: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/complaints/index.html
Email: OCRMail@hhs.gov

Last Revised Date: April 1, 2023