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Notice of Privacy Practices
I. THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION
ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU
CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT
CAREFULLY.
II. WE HAVE A LEGAL DUTY TO SAFEGUARD YOUR PROTECTED
HEALTH INFORMATION (PHI); ORGANIZED HEALTH CARE
ARRANGEMENT.
Pursuant to the Privacy Rules established by the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), we are legally
required to protect the privacy of your health information. We call this
information “protected health information,” or “PHI” for short. It
includes information that can be used to identify you and that we’ve
created or received about your past, present, or future health
condition, the provision of health care to you, or the payment for this
health care. We are required to provide you with this notice about our
privacy practices. It explains how, when, and why we use and
disclose your PHI. With some exceptions, we may not use or
disclose any more of your PHI than is necessary to accomplish the
purpose of the use or disclosure. We are legally required to follow
the privacy practices that are described in this notice.
We reserve the right to change the terms of this notice and our
privacy policies at any time. Any changes will apply to the PHI we
already have. Whenever we make an important change to our
policies, we will promptly change this notice and post a new notice in
public areas of our offices. You can also request a copy of this notice
from the contact person listed in Section VI below at any time and can
view a copy of this notice on our Web site at
http://thestonecenter.org/.
The Stone Center of New Jersey, LLC (“The Stone Center”) is
providing this Notice of Privacy Practices as part of an organized
health care arrangement with American Anesthesiology of New
Jersey, P.C. (“American Anesthesiology”). Although The Stone
Center and American Anesthesiology are separate and distinct legal
and business entities, American Anesthesiology provides anesthesia
services to patients undergoing procedures at The Stone Center that
require anesthesia. In order to facilitate the care provided to you at
The Stone Center, The Stone Center and American Anesthesiology
may share your PHI with each other for treatment, payment and
health care operations purposes as described in this notice. As such,
the terms of this notice shall apply to both The Stone Center and
Anesthesiology Associates, with respect to uses and disclosures of
your PHI relating to care provided to you at The Stone Center.
References to “we” in this notice shall mean both organizations.
Notwithstanding the above, other than The Stone Center’s
responsibility to provide this notice to you on behalf of itself and
Anesthesiology Associates, under no circumstances will The Stone
Center or American Anesthesia be considered an agent or
representative of the other.
III. 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 and disclosures, we need your specific
authorization. Below, we describe the different categories of uses
and disclosures.
A. Uses and Disclosures That Do Not Require Your
Authorization.
We may use and disclose your PHI without your authorization for
the following reasons:
1. For treatment. We may disclose your PHI to hospitals,
physicians, nurses, and other health care personnel in
order to provide, coordinate or manage your health care or
any related services, except where the PHI is related to
HIV/AIDS, genetic testing, or services from federally-funded
drug or alcohol abuse treatment facilities, or where
otherwise prohibited pursuant to State or Federal law. For
example, if you’re being treated for a condition requiring xrays performed at another facility, we may disclose your
PHI to an x-ray technician or other person at that facility to
coordinate your care. We also disclose your PHI to
anesthesiologists providing and billing for anesthesia
services you receive during procedures at our facility.
These anesthesia providers are independent contractors,
and not employed by The Stone Center.
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 staff and
your health plan to get paid for the health care services we
provided to you. We may also disclose patient information
to another provider involved in your care for the other
provider’s payment activities.
3. For health care operations. We may disclose your PHI,
as necessary, to operate our business. For example, we
may use your PHI in order to evaluate the quality of health
care services that you received or to evaluate the
performance of the health care professionals who provided
health care services to you. We may also provide your PHI
to our accountants, attorneys, consultants, and others in
order to make sure we’re complying with the laws that
affect us or for services they provide to our organization.
4. When a disclosure is required by federal, state or local
law, judicial or administrative proceedings, or law
enforcement. For example, we may disclose PHI 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 or other wounds; for the purpose of identifying or
locating a suspect, fugitive, material witness or missing
person; or when subpoenaed or ordered in a judicial or
administrative proceeding.
5. For public health activities. For example, we may
disclose PHI to report information about births, deaths,
various diseases, adverse events and product defects to
government officials in charge of collecting that information;
to prevent, control, or report disease, injury or disability as
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permitted by law; to conduct public health surveillance,
investigations and interventions as permitted or required by
law; or to notify a person who has been exposed to a
communicable disease or who may be at risk of contracting
or spreading a disease as authorized by law.
6. For health oversight activities. For example, we may
disclose PHI to assist the government or other health
oversight agency with activities including audits; civil,
administrative, or criminal investigations, proceedings or
actions; or other activities necessary for appropriate
oversight as authorized by law.
7. To coroners, funeral directors, and for organ donation.
We may disclose PHI to organ procurement organizations
to assist them in organ, eye, or tissue donations and
transplants. We may also provide coroners, medical
examiners, and funeral directors necessary PHI relating to
an individual’s death.
8. For research purposes. In certain circumstances, we
may provide PHI in order to conduct medical research.
9. To avoid harm. In order to avoid a serious threat to the
health or safety of you, another person, or the public, we
may provide PHI to law enforcement personnel or persons
able to prevent or lessen such harm.
10. For specific government functions. We may disclose
PHI of military personnel and veterans in certain situations.
We may also disclose PHI for national security and
intelligence activities.
11. For workers’ compensation purposes. We may provide
PHI in order to comply with workers’ compensation laws.
12. 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 health care services or benefits we
offer. Please let us know if you do not wish to have us
contact you for these purposes, or if you would rather we
contact you at a different telephone number or address.
B. Uses and Disclosures Where You to Have the Opportunity
to Object:
1. Disclosures to family, friends, or others. 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 health care, unless you object.
C. All Other Uses and Disclosures Require Your Prior Written
Authorization. Other than as stated herein, we will not disclose
your PHI without your written authorization. You can later
revoke your authorization in writing except to the extent that we
have taken action in reliance upon the authorization.
D. Authorization for Marketing Communications. We will obtain
your written authorization prior to using or disclosing your PHI for
marketing purposes. However, we are permitted to provide you
with marketing materials in a face-to-face encounter, without
obtaining a marketing authorization. We are also permitted to
give you a promotional gift of nominal value, if we so choose,
without obtaining a marketing authorization. In addition, as long
as we are not paid to do so, we may communicate with you
about products or services relating to your treatment, case
management or care coordination, or alternative treatments,
therapies, providers or care settings. We may use or disclose
PHI to identify health-related services and products that may be
beneficial to your health and then contact you about the services
and products.
E. Sale of PHI. We will disclose your PHI in a manner that
constitutes a sale only upon receiving your prior authorization.
Sale of PHI does not include a disclosure of PHI for: public
health purposes; research; treatment and payment purposes;
sale, transfer, merger or consolidation of all or part of our
business and for related due diligence activities; the individual;
disclosures required by law; any other purpose permitted by and
in accordance with HIPAA.
F. Fundraising Activities. We may use certain information (name,
address, telephone number, dates of service, age and gender)
to contact you for the purpose of various fundraising activities. If
you do not want to receive future fundraising requests, please
write to the Privacy Officer at the below address.
G. Incidental Uses and Disclosures. Incidental uses and
disclosures of information may occur. An incidental use or
disclosure is a secondary use or disclosure that cannot
reasonably be prevented, is limited in nature, and that occurs as
a by-product of an otherwise permitted use or disclosure.
However, such incidental uses or disclosure are permitted only
to the extent that we have applied reasonable safeguards and
do not disclose any more of your PHI than is necessary to
accomplish the permitted use or disclosure. For example,
disclosures about a patient within the office that might be
overheard by persons not involved in your care would be
permitted.
H. Business Associates. We may engage certain persons to
perform certain of our functions on our behalf and we may
disclose certain health information to these persons. For
example, we may share certain PHI with our billing company or
computer consultant to facilitate our health care operations or
payment for services provided in connection with your care. We
will require our business associates to enter into an agreement
to keep your PHI confidential and to abide by certain terms and
conditions.
IV. 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 in writing that we limit
how we use and disclose your PHI. You may not limit the uses
and disclosures that we are legally required to make. We will
consider your request but are not legally required to accept it.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, you have the right to ask us to
restrict the disclosure of your PHI to your health plan for a
service we provide to you where you have directly paid us (out of
pocket, in full) for that service, in which case we are required to
honor your request. If we accept your request, we will put any
limits in writing and abide by them except in emergency
situations. Under certain circumstances, we may terminate our
agreement to a restriction.
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 (for
example, via e-mail instead of regular mail). We must agree to
your request so long as we can easily provide it in the manner
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 that we
have, but you must make the request in writing. If we don’t have
your PHI but we know who does, we will tell you how to get it.
We will respond to you within 30 days after receiving your written
request. In certain situations, we may deny your request. If we
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do, we will tell you, in writing, our reasons for the denial and
explain your right to have the denial reviewed.
If you request a copy of your information, we will charge
reasonable fees for the costs of copying, mailing or other costs
incurred by us in complying with your request, in accordance
with applicable law. Instead of providing the PHI you requested,
we may provide you with a summary or explanation of the PHI
as long as you agree to that and to the cost in advance. Note
also that, you have the right to access your PHI in an electronic
format (to the extent we maintain the information in such a
format) and to direct us to send the e-record directly to a third
party. We may charge for the labor costs to transfer the
information; and charge for the costs of electronic media if you
request that we provide you with such media.
**Please note, if you are the parent or legal guardian of a minor,
certain portions of the minor’s records may not be accessible to
you. For example, records relating to care and treatment to
which the minor is permitted to consent himself/herself (without
your consent) may be restricted unless the minor patient
provides an authorization for such disclosure. **
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 not include uses or disclosures
made for purposes of treatment, payment, or health care
operations, those made pursuant to your written authorization, or
those made directly to you or your family. The list also won’t
include uses and disclosures made for national security
purposes, to corrections or law enforcement personnel, or prior
to April 14, 2003.
We will respond within 60 days of receiving your written request.
The list we will give you will include disclosures made in the last
six years unless you request a shorter time. 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. We will provide
one (1) list during any 12-month period without charge, but if you
make more than one request in the same year, we will charge
you $10 for each additional request.
To the extent that we maintain your PHI in electronic format, we
will account all disclosures including those made for treatment,
payment and health care operations. Should you request such
an accounting of your electronic PHI, the list will include the
disclosures made in the last three years.
E. The Right to Receive Notice of a Breach of Unsecured PHI.
You have the right to receive notification of a “breach” of your
unsecured PHI.
F. 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, in writing,
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 60 days of
receiving your request in writing. We may deny your request if
the PHI is (i) correct and complete, (ii) not created by us, (iii) not
allowed to be disclosed, or (iv) 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 with the
denial. If you don’t file one, you have the right to have your
request and our denial attached to all future disclosures of your
PHI. If we approve your request, we will make the change to
your PHI, tell you that we have done it, and tell others that need
to know about the change to your PHI.
G. 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 notice via e-mail, you also have the right to request a
paper copy of this notice.
V. HOW TO COMPLAIN ABOUT OUR PRIVACY PRACTICES.
If you think that we may have violated your privacy rights, or you
disagree with a decision we made about access to your PHI, you may
file a complaint with the person listed in Section VI below. You also
may send a written complaint to the Secretary of the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services via email at OCRComplaint@hhs.gov
or through the mail at 200 Independence Ave., S.W.; Room 509F;
HHH Bldg., Washington, DC 20201. We will take no retaliatory action
against you if you file a good-faith complaint about our privacy
practices.
VI. PERSON TO CONTACT FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THIS
NOTICE OR TO COMPLAIN ABOUT OUR PRIVACY PRACTICES.
If you have any questions about this notice or any complaints about
our privacy practices, please contact our Privacy Officer at 973-564-
5642 or megoser@thestonecenter.org. Written correspondence to
the Privacy Officer should be sent to The Stone Center of New
Jersey, LLC, 830 Morris Turnpike, Suite 303, Short Hills, New Jersey
07078.
VII. EFFECTIVE DATE OF THIS NOTICE
REVISED NOTICE – EFFECTIVE JUNE 1, 2019
