Privacy Notice
We have a legal duty to safeguard your Protected Health
Information (PHI)
As a healthcare organization, we are legally required to
protect the privacy of your health information. We call this information
“Protected Health Information”, or “PHI” for short. PHI includes information
that can be used to identify you; information that we’ve created or received
about you; information regarding your present, past or future health or
condition; information regarding the payment for your healthcare and
information regarding the provision of the care you’ve received.
Additionally, we are legally required to provide you with
this notice on our privacy practices that explains how, when and why
we may use and/or disclose your PHI.
With few specific exceptions, we will only disclose the
amount of PHI that is necessary to accomplish the purpose of the use or
disclosure. KVCH is legally held to and is in support of the PHI privacy
practices that are described in this notice.
We do reserve the right to change the terms of this
notice as well as our privacy policies at any time. Changes will apply to the PHI
we already have collected. Prior to making PHI policy changes, this notice will
be updated and a new notice will be posted within the organization.
Our customers/patients may request a copy of all PHI
notices by contacting the admissions desk in the main lobby, or you may contact
the Privacy Officer at 962-7339, or by visiting the KVCH website at
www.kvch.com.
SECTION I
How We may Use and Disclose Your Protected Health
Information
We use and disclose health
information for many different reasons. For some of these uses or disclosures,
we need your prior consent or specific authorization. Below, we describe the
different categories of our uses and disclosures and give you some examples for
each category.
A. Uses and disclosures
relating to your treatment, payment or health
We may use and disclose your
PHI with your consent for the following reasons:
1. For treatment - We may disclose your PHI to physicians, nurses, medical
students, and other medical personnel who provide you with healthcare services
or are involved in your care.
For
example: If you’re being treated for a knee injury, we may disclose your PHI to
the physical rehabilitation department in order to coordinate your care.
2. To obtain payment for treatment - We may use and disclose your PHI in order to bill and
collect payment for the treatment and services provided to you.
For
example: We may provide portions of your PHI to our billing department and your
insurance provider to receive payment for the healthcare services we provide.
We may also provide your PHI to our business associates,
such as billing companies, claims processing companies, and others that process
our healthcare claims.
3. For healthcare operations - We may disclose your PHI
in order to operate this hospital.
For
example: We may use your PHI to evaluate the quality of healthcare services
that you received or to evaluate the performance of the healthcare professionals
who provided healthcare services to you. We may also
provide your PHI to our accountants, attorneys, consultants and others to make
sure we’re complying with the laws that affect us.
B. Certain uses and disclosures that DO NOT require your
consent
We may use and disclose your
PHI without your consent or authorization for the following reasons:
1. When a disclosure is required by federal, state or
local law, judicial or administrative proceedings or law enforcement –
For
example: We make disclosures when a law requires that we report information to
government agencies and law enforcement personnel about victims of abuse,
neglect or domestic violence; when dealing with gunshot and other wounds; or
when ordered in a judicial or administrative proceeding.
If you are an inmate
of a correctional institution or under the custody of a law enforcement
officer, we may release medical information about you to the correctional
institution or law enforcement official. This release would be necessary for
the institution to provide you with healthcare, to protect your health and
safety or the health and safety of others or for the safety and security of the
correctional institution.
2. For public
health activities –
For example: We report information about births, deaths and
various diseases to government officials
in charge of collecting that information, and we provide coroners, medical
examiners and funeral directors necessary information relating to an
individual’s death.
3. For health
oversight activities –
For example: We will provide information to assist the
government when it conducts an investigation or inspection of a healthcare
provider or organization.
4. For purposes
of organ donation -
We may notify organ
procurement organization(s) to assist them in organ, eye, tissue donation and
transplants.
5. For research
purposes -
In
certain circumstances, we may provide PHI in order to conduct medical research.
6. To avoid harm
-
In order to avoid a
serious threat to the health or safety of a person or the public, we may
provide PHI to law enforcement personnel or persons able to prevent or lessen
such threat of harm.
For example: Victims of animal bites.
7. For specific government functions - We may disclose the PHI of military personnel and veterans
under certain situations, and we may also disclose PHI for national security purposes,
such as protecting the president of the
8. For workers’ compensation purposes - We may provide PHI in order to comply with workers’
compensation laws.
9. Appointment reminders and health-related
benefits or services - We
may use PHI to provide appointment reminders or give you information about
treatment alternatives, or other healthcare services or benefits we offer.
10. Fundraising activities - We
may use PHI to contact you about your interest in supporting philanthropic
efforts through The Foundation at KVCH. The Foundation raises funds to
enhance programs that promote, encourage, and assist the improvement and
expansion of healthcare services at KVCH. If you do not wish to be
contacted regarding fundraising, please contact our Privacy Officer (509) 962-7339.
11. Exceptions to
consent requirement for treatment, payment and healthcare operations - Although your consent is required for numbers1 through 3
of section 1A of this section, we may disclose your PHI to others without your
consent in certain situations. Your consent is not required if you need
emergency treatment, as long as we attempt to get your consent following
treatment or we try to obtain your consent but you are unable to communicate
with us.
For example:
You are unconscious or in severe pain.
C. Two uses and
disclosures require that you are given the opportunity to object
1. Patient Directories - We may include in our patient directories, for use by
clergy and visitors, your name, location in our facility, a general condition
report and your religious affiliation. This information will be disclosed only
if the requestor asks for you by your name. You have the right to object to
having this PHI disclosed either in part or in whole. You will be asked about
your right to object to this disclosure at the time that you are being registered
into our facility. In certain emergency situations, your consent may be
obtained retroactively.
2. Disclosures to family, friends or others - Unless you object in whole or in part, we may provide
your PHI to a family member, friend or other person that you indicate is
involved in your care or the payment for your healthcare. The opportunity to
consent may be obtained retroactively in certain emergency situations.
D. Other uses and
disclosures require prior written authorization
In any other situation not described in the sections
proceeding, we will ask for your written authorization before using or disclosing
any of your PHI.
If you choose to sign an authorization to disclose your
PHI, you can later revoke that authorization in writing. This will stop any
future uses and disclosures.
SECTION II
What Rights You Have Regarding Your PHI
You have the following rights with respect to your PHI:
A. The right to request
limits on uses and disclosures of your PHI
You have the right to request that
we limit how we use and disclose your PHI. You may not limit, however, the uses
and disclosures that we are legally required or authorized to make. We will
always consider your request, but we are not required by law to accept it. If
your request is accepted, we will put any limitations in on disclosure in
writing. Emergency situations may prevent us from upholding your request.
B. The right to choose
how we send PHI to you
You have the right to ask that we send
information to you at an alternate address.
For example: Sending information to your work address
rather than your home address or by alternate means (i.e., e-mail instead of
regular mail).
We must agree to your
request so long as we can easily provide your information in the format you
requested.
C. The right to see
and get copies of your PHI
In most cases you have
the right to look at or get copies of your PHI. We require that you make this
request in writing. If we don’t have your PHI, but we know who does, we will
tell you how to access it.
D. The right to get
a list of the disclosures we have made
You have the right to
get a list of instances in which we have disclosed your PHI. The list will
include the date of the disclosure, to whom PHI was disclosed (including their
address, if known), a description of the information disclosed and the reason
for the disclosure.
This list will not
include uses or disclosures that you have already consented to, such as those
made for treatment, payment or healthcare operations or disclosures made directly
to you, to your family or in our facility directory. The list also won’t
include uses and disclosures made for national security purposes, to corrections
or law enforcement personnel or before January 1, 2003.
We will respond within
60 days of receiving your request. The list we will provide will include
disclosures made in the last six years unless you request a shorter time
period.
We will provide the
list to you at no charge, unless you make more than one request in the same
year and then we will charge for each additional request.
E. The right to correct
or update your PHI
If you believe that
there is a mistake in your PHI or that a piece of important information is
missing, you have the right to request that we correct the existing information
or add the missing information. You must provide the request and your reason
for the request in writing. We will respond within 10 days of receiving the
request. We may deny your request in writing if the PHI is determined to be:
·
Correct
and complete
·
Not
created by us
·
Not
allowed to be disclosed
·
Not
part of our records
Our written denial
will state the reasons for the denial and explain your right to file a written
statement of disagreement. If you don’t file a written statement of
disagreement to the denial, you have the right to ask that your request and our
denial be attached to all future disclosures of your PHI.
If we approve your
request, we will make the change to your PHI, inform you of the change and
inform those who need to know about the change to your PHI.
F. The Right to
Get This Notice by E-Mail
You have the right to
get a copy of this notice by e-mail. Even if you have agreed to receive this notice
via email, you also have the right to request a paper copy of this notice.
SECTION III
Contact Information About this Notice or to Inquire About
Our Privacy Practices
Please contact our Privacy Officer at:
(509) 962-7339
You may also send written comments to the Secretary of the Department of
Health and Human Services.
SECTION IV
Effective Date of This Notice
This
notice was effective on
April
1, 2003
