HIPAA
HIPAA
- Maintain the privacy of your health information;
- Provide you with this Notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to health information we collect and maintain about you;
- Abide by the term of this Notice, currently in effect, and as amended from time to time;
- Notify you if we are unable to honor your request to restrict a use or disclosure of, or to amend, your health information; and
- Accommodate reasonable requests you have to communicate your health information by alternative means or at alternative locations.
Communication with Persons Involved in Your Case: We may disclose your health information that is directly relevant to your care to individuals you wish to receive such information, including family members, relatives, close personal friends, or other persons you identify. Before we do so, we will ask you, and follow your instructions, as to whether or not to make such disclosures. If you are incapacitated, or involved in an emergency, we may use or make disclosures of your health information that we believe in our professional judgment are in your best interests, but only to the extent that such health information is directly relevant to the recipients’ involvement in your case.
Each time you visit the Shiawassee County Health Department, or another physician or health care provider contacts us concerning your medical needs or history a record is made. This record contains medical information generated during your visits to our Department, received by our Department from other health care providers, or provided by you. In this “Notice of Health Information Practices,” we shall refer to the information contained in your record as your “health information.” This term shall have the same meaning as “protected health information” defined in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, as amended (“HIPAA”).
-
You may exercise any of the above rights by submitting a signed letter detailing your request and mailing or delivering the letter to the Director of Personal and Community Health. However, we encourage you to call first so that we can help you be as specific as possible with your request. We will promptly provide you with any forms needed to process your request.
-
Request restrictions on certain uses and disclosures of your health information;
-
Receive confidential communications of your health information. You may request that we communicate with you about your health information by alternative means or at an alternative location.
-
Inspect and obtain a copy of your health information, except with regard to psychotherapy notes or information compiled in reasonable anticipation of certain civil, criminal or administrative proceedings;
-
Request an amendment to your health information that we have created, except with regard to those portions of your health information that you are precluded from inspecting and copying as set forth above.
-
Obtain an accounting of certain disclosures of your health information; and
-
Receive a copy of this Notice in addition to any electronic copy you may receive.