Notice of Privacy Practices

The medical record is the property of this medical practice, but the information in the medical record belongs to you. The law permits us to use or disclose your health information for the following purposes:

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2. 1. Treatment. We use medical information about you to provide your medical care. We disclose medical information to our employees and others who are involved in providing the care you need. For example, we may share your medical information with other physicians or other health care providers who will provide services that we do not provide or we may share this information with a pharmacist who needs it to dispense a prescription to you, or a laboratory that performs a test. We may also disclose medical information to members of your family or others who can help you when you are sick or injured, or following your death.

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2. 2. Payment. We use and disclose medical information about you to obtain payment for the services we provide. For example, we give your health plan (including Medicare, Medicaid, MediCal or other government support programs) the information required for payment. We may also disclose information to other health care providers to assist them in obtaining payment for services they have provided to you.

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2. 3. Health Care Operations. We may use and disclose medical information about you to operate this medical practice. For example, we may use and disclose this information to review and improve the quality of care we provide, or the competence and qualifications of our professional staff. Or we may use and disclose this information to get your health plan to authorize services or referrals. We may also use and disclose this information as necessary for medical reviews, legal services, and audits, including fraud and abuse detection and compliance programs and business planning and management. We may also share your medical information with our "business associates," that is, other organizations that offer services to help us, such as administrative services. We have a written contract with each of these business associates that contains terms requiring them and their subcontractors to protect the confidentiality and security of your medical information. Although federal law does not protect health information which is disclosed to someone other than another healthcare provider, health plan, healthcare clearinghouse or one of their business associates, California law prohibits all recipients of healthcare information from further disclosing it except as specifically required or permitted by law. We may also share your information with other health care providers, health care clearinghouses or health plans that have a relationship with you, when they request this information to help them with their quality assessment and improvement activities, their patient-safety activities, their population-based efforts to improve health or reduce health care costs, protocol development, case management or care coordination activities, their review of competence, qualifications and performance of health care professionals, their training programs, their accreditation, certification or licensing activities, their activities related to contracts of health insurance or health benefits, or their health care fraud and abuse detection and compliance efforts. We may also share medical information about you with the other health care providers, health care clearinghouses and health plans that participate with us in "organized health care arrangements" (OHCAs) for any of the OHCAs' health care operations. OHCAs include hospitals, physician organizations, health plans, and other entities which collectively provide health care services.

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2. 4. OCHIN and Health Information Exchange. LifeLong Medical Care is part of an organized health care arrangement including participants in OCHIN. A current list of OCHIN participants is available at www.ochin.org. As a business associate of LifeLong Medical Care, OCHIN supplies information technology and related services LifeLong Medical Care and other OCHIN participants. OCHIN also engages in quality assessment and improvement activities on behalf of its participants. For example, OCHIN coordinates clinical review activities on behalf of participating organizations to establish best practice standards and assess clinical benefits that may be derived from the use of electronic health record systems. OCHIN also helps participants work collaboratively to improve the management of internal and external patient referrals. Your personal health information may be shared by LifeLong Medical Care with other OCHIN participants or a health information exchange only when necessary for medical treatment or for the health care operations purposes of the organized health care arrangement. Health care operation can include, among other things, geocoding your residence location to improve the clinical benefits you receive.
   
   The personal health information may include past, present and future medical information as well as information outlined in the Privacy Rules. The information, to the extent disclosed, will be disclosed consistent with the Privacy Rules or any other applicable law as amended from time to time. You have the right to change your mind and withdraw this consent, however, the information may have already been provided as allowed by you. This consent will remain in effect until revoked by you in writing. If requested, you will be provided a list of entities to which your information has been disclosed.

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2. 5. Appointment Reminders. We may use and disclose medical information to contact and remind you about appointments. If you are not home, we may leave this information on your answering machine or in a message left with the person answering the phone.

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2. 6. Sign-in Sheet. We may use and disclose medical information about you by having you sign in when you arrive at our office. We may also call out your name when we are ready to see you.

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2. 7. Notification and Communication with Family. We may disclose your health information to notify or assist in notifying a family member, your personal representative or another person responsible for your care about your location, your general condition or, unless you instruct us otherwise, in the event of your death. In the event of a disaster, we may disclose information to a relief organization so that they may coordinate these notification efforts. We may also disclose information to someone who is involved with your care or helps pay for your care. If you are able and available to agree or object, we will give you the opportunity to object prior to making these disclosures, although we may disclose this information in a disaster even over your objection if we believe it is necessary to respond to the emergency circumstances. If you are unable or unavailable to agree or object, our health professionals will use their best judgment in communication with your family and others.

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2. 8. Marketing. Provided we do not receive any payment for making these communications, we may contact you to encourage you to purchase or use products or services related to your treatment, case management or care coordination, or to direct or recommend other treatments, therapies, health care providers or settings of care that may be of interest to you. We may similarly describe products or services provided by this practice and tell you which health plans we participate in. We may receive financial compensation to talk with you face-to-face, to provide you with small promotional gifts, or to cover our cost of reminding you to take and refill your medication or otherwise communicate about a drug or biologic that is currently prescribed for you, but only if you either: (1) have a chronic and seriously debilitating or life-threatening condition and the communication is made to educate or advise you about treatment options and otherwise maintain adherence to a prescribed course of treatment, or (2) you are a current health plan enrollee and the communication is limited to the availability of more cost-effective pharmaceuticals. If we make these communications while you have a chronic and seriously debilitating or life-threatening condition, we will provide notice of the following in at least 14-point type: (1) the fact and source of the remuneration; and (2) your right to opt-out of future remunerated communications by calling the communicator's toll-free number. We will not otherwise use or disclose your medical information for marketing purposes or accept any payment for other marketing communications involving your medical information, without your prior written authorization. The authorization will disclose whether we receive any financial compensation for any marketing activity you authorize, and we will stop any future marketing activity to the extent you revoke that authorization.

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2. 9. Sale of Health Information. We will not sell your health information without your prior written authorization. The authorization will disclose that we will receive compensation for your health information if you authorize us to sell it, and we will stop any future sales of your information to the extent that you revoke that authorization.

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2. 10. Required by Law. As required by law, we will use and disclose your health information, but we will limit our use or disclosure to the relevant requirements of the law. When the law requires us to report abuse, neglect or domestic violence, or respond to judicial or administrative proceedings, or to law enforcement officials, we will further comply with the requirement set forth below concerning those activities.

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2. 11. Public Health. We may, and are sometimes required by law, to disclose your health information to public health authorities for purposes related to: preventing or controlling disease, injury or disability; reporting child, elder or dependent adult abuse or neglect; reporting domestic violence; reporting to the Food and Drug Administration problems with products and reactions to medications; and reporting disease or infection exposure. When we report suspected elder or dependent adult abuse or domestic violence, we will inform you or your personal representative promptly unless, in our best professional judgment, we believe the notification would place you at risk of serious harm or would require informing a personal representative we believe is responsible for the abuse or harm.

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2. 12. Health Oversight Activities. We may, and are sometimes required by law, to disclose your health information to health oversight agencies during the course of audits, investigations, inspections, licensure and other proceedings, subject to the limitations imposed by federal and California law.

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2. 13. Judicial and Administrative Proceedings. We may, and are sometimes required by law, to disclose your health information in the course of an administrative or judicial proceeding to the extent expressly authorized by a court or administrative order. We may also disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, discovery request or other lawful process if reasonable efforts have been made to notify you of the request and you have not objected, or if your objections have been resolved by a court or administrative order.

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2. 14. Law Enforcement. We may be, and sometimes are, required by law to disclose your health information to a law enforcement official for purposes such as identifying or locating a suspect, fugitive, material witness or missing person, complying with a court order, warrant, grand jury subpoena, and other law enforcement purposes.

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2. 15. Coroners. We may be, and often are, required by law to disclose your health information to coroners in connection with their investigations of deaths.

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2. 16. Organ or Tissue Donation. We may disclose your health information to organizations involved in procuring, banking or transplanting organs and tissues.

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2. 17. Public Safety. We may be, and sometimes are, required by law to disclose your health information to appropriate persons in order to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of a particular person or the general public.

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2. 18. Proof of Immunization. We will disclose proof of immunization to a school where the law requires the school to have such information prior to admitting a student if you agree to the disclosure on behalf of yourself or your dependent.

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2. 19. Specialized Government Functions. We may disclose your health information for military or national security purposes or to correctional institutions or law enforcement officers that have you in their lawful custody.

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2. 20. Worker's Compensation. We may disclose your health information as necessary to comply with worker's compensation laws. For example, to the extent your care is covered by workers' compensation, we will make periodic reports to your employer about your condition. We are also required by law to report cases of occupational injury or occupational illness to the employer or workers' compensation insurer.

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2. 21. Change of Ownership. In the event that this medical practice is sold or merged with another organization, your health information/record will become the property of the new owner, but you will have the right to request that copies of your health information be transferred to another physician or medical group.

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2. 22. Breach Notification. In the case of a breach of your unsecured protected health information, we will notify you as required by law. If you have provided us with a current email address, we may use email to communicate information related to the breach, if we can do so without disclosing any of your PHI or other private information. In some circumstances our business associate may provide the notification. We may also provide notification by other methods as appropriate.

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2. 23. Psychotherapy Notes. We will not use or disclose your psychotherapy notes without your prior written authorization except with regard to: (1) your treatment, (2) for training our staff, students and other trainees, (3) to defend ourselves if you sue us or bring some other legal proceeding, (4) if the law requires us to disclose the information to you or the Secretary of HHS or for some other reason, (5) in response to health oversight activities concerning your psychotherapist, (6) to avert a serious threat to health or safety, or (7) to the coroner or medical examiner after you die. To the extent you revoke an authorization to use or disclose your psychotherapy notes, we will stop using or disclosing these notes.

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2. 24. Research. We may disclose your health information to those conducting research as approved by an Institutional Review Board or privacy board, and with respect to which your written authorization is not required, in compliance with governing law.

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2. 25. Fundraising. We may use or disclose your demographic information, the dates that you received treatment, the department of service, your treating physician, outcome information and health insurance status in order to contact you for our fundraising activities. If you do not want to receive these materials, notify the Privacy Officer listed at the top of this Notice of Privacy Practices and we will stop any further fundraising communications. Similarly, you should notify the Privacy Officer if you decide you want to start receiving these solicitations again.