This notice describes the practices of Intercare Therapy, Inc.’s employees and staff. This notice applies to each of these individuals, entities, sites and locations. In addition, these individuals, entities, sites and locations may share medical information with each other for treatment, payment and health care operation purposes described in this notice.
In the ordinary course of receiving treatment and health care services from us, you will be providing us with personal information such as:
In addition, we will gather certain medical information about you and will create a record of the care provided to you. Some information also may be provided to us by other individuals or organizations that are part of your “circle of care”- such as the referring physician or agency, your other doctors, your health plan, and close friends or family members.
We may use and disclose personal and identifiable health information about you for a variety of purposes. All of the types of uses and disclosures of information are described below, but not every use or disclosure in a category is listed.
Required Disclosures. We are required to disclose health information about you to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, upon request, to determine our compliance with HIPAA and to you, in accordance with your right to access and right to receive an accounting of disclosures, as described below.
For Treatment. We may use health information about you in your treatment. For example, we may use your medication history, such as prescription drugs, to assess the effectiveness of therapy.
For Payment. We may use and disclose health information about you to bill for our services and to collect payment from you or your insurance company. For example, we may need to give a payer information about your current medical condition so that they will pay us for the services that we have furnished you. We may also need to inform your payer of the treatment you are going to receive in order to obtain prior approval or to determine whether the service is covered.
For Health Care Operations. We may use and disclose information about you for the general operation of our business. For example, we sometimes arrange for auditors or other consultants to review our practices, evaluate our operations, and tell us how to improve our services. Or, for example, we may use and disclose your health information to review the quality of services provided to you.
Public Policy Uses and Disclosures. There are a number of public policy reasons why we may disclose information about you, which are described below:
Our Business Associates. We sometimes work with outside individuals and businesses that help us operate our business successfully. We may disclose your health information to these business associates so that they can perform the tasks that we hire them to do. Our business associates must sign a contract that they will respect the confidentiality of your personal and identifiable health information.
Disclosures to Persons Assisting in Your Care or Payment for Your Care. We may disclose information to individuals involved in your care or in the payment for your care. This includes people and organizations that are part of your 'circle of care' -- such as your spouse, your other doctors, or an aide who may be providing services to you. We may also use and disclose health information about a patient for disaster relief efforts and to notify persons responsible for a patient’s care about a patient’s location, general condition or death. Generally, we will obtain your verbal agreement before using or disclosing health information in this way. However, under certain circumstances, such as in an emergency situation, we may make these uses and disclosures without your agreement.
Appointment Reminders. We may use and disclose medical information to contact you as a reminder that you have an appointment or that you should schedule an appointment.
Treatment Alternatives. We may use and disclose your personal health information in order to tell you about or recommend possible treatment options, alternatives or health-related services that may be of interest to you.
We are required to obtain written authorization from you for any other uses and disclosures of medical information other than those described above. If you provide us with such permission, you may revoke that permission, in writing, at any time. If you revoke your permission, we will no longer use or disclose personal information about you for the reasons covered by your written authorization, except to the extent we have already relied on your original permission.
We reserve the right to make changes to this notice at any time. We reserve the right to make the revised notice effective for personal health information we have about you as well as any information we receive in the future. In the event there is a material change to this notice, the revised notice will be posted. In addition, you may request a copy of the revised notice at any time.