Hospice of the Carolina Foothills

HOSPICE OF THE CAROLINA FOOTHILLS
NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES

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.

USE AND DISCLOSURE OF HEALTH INFORMATION

Hospice of the Carolina Foothills may use your health information for purposes of providing you treatment, obtaining payment for your care and conducting health care operations. Hospice of the Carolina Foothills has established a policy to guard against unnecessary disclosure of your health information.

THE FOLLOWING IS A SUMMARY OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH AND PURPOSES FOR WHICH YOUR HEALTH INFORMATION MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED:

To Provide Treatment. Hospice may use your health information to coordinate care within the Hospice and with others involved in your care, such as your attending physician, members of the Hospice interdisciplinary team and other health care professionals who have agreed to assist the Hospice in coordinating care. For example, physicians involved in your care will need information about your symptoms in order to prescribe appropriate medications. Hospice also may disclose your health information to individuals outside of Hospice involved in your care including family members, clergy whom you have designated, pharmacists, suppliers of medical equipment or other health care professionals that Hospice uses in order to coordinate your care.

To Obtain Payment. Hospice may include your health information in invoices to collect payment from third parties for the care you may receive from Hospice. For example, Hospice may be required by your health insurer to provide information regarding your health care status so that the insurer will reimburse you or Hospice. Hospice also may need to obtain prior approval from your insurer and may need to explain to the insurer your need for hospice care and the services that will be provided to you.

To Conduct Health Care Operations. Hospice may use and disclose health care information for its own operations in order to facilitate the function of Hospice and as necessary to provide quality care to all of Hospice's patients. Health care operations include such activities as:

Quality assessment and improvement activities.
Activities designed to improve health or reduce health care costs
Protocol development, case management and care coordination.
Contacting health care providers and patients with information about treatment alternatives and other related functions that do not include treatment.
Professional review and performance evaluation.
Training programs including those in which students, trainees or practitioners in health care learn under supervision.
Accreditation, certification, licensing or credentialing activities.
Review and auditing, including compliance reviews, medical reviews, legal services and compliance programs.
Business planning and development including cost management and planning related analyses and formulary development.
Business management and general administrative activities of the Hospice.
Fundraising for the benefit of the Hospice and certain marketing activities.

For example, Hospice may use your health information to evaluate its staff performance, combine your health information with other Hospice patients in evaluating how to more effectively serve all Hospice patients, disclose your health information to Hospice staff for training purposes, use your health information to contact you as a reminder regarding a visit to you, or contact you or your family as part of general fundraising and community information mailings (unless you tell us you do not want to be contacted).

For Fundraising Activities. Hospice may use information about you including your name, address, phone number and the dates you received care from Hospice in order to contact you or your family to raise money for Hospice. If you do not want Hospice to contact you or your family, notify us and indicate that you do not wish to be contacted.

For Memorial Activities. Hospice may use your name in printed materials for memorial service programs and for other memorial opportunities.

Facility Directory Hospice may disclose certain information about you, including your name, your general health status, and where you are in the Hospice House, in a directory while you are in the Hospice inpatient facility. Hospice may disclose this information to people who ask for you by name. Please inform us if you do not want your information to be included in the directory.

THE FOLLOWING IS A SUMMARY OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH AND PURPOSES FOR WHICH YOUR HEALTH INFORMATION MAY ALSO BE USED AND DISCLOSED:

When Legally Required. Hospice will disclose your health information when it is required to do so by any Federal, State or local law.

When There Are Risks to Public Health. Hospice may disclose your health information for public activities and purposes in order to:

Prevent or control disease, injury or disability, report disease, injury, vital events such as birth or death and the conduct of public health surveillance, investigations and interventions
To report adverse events, product defects, to track products or enable product recalls, repairs and replacements and to conduct post-marketing surveillance and compliance with requirements of the Food and Drug Administration.
To notify a person who has been exposed to a communicable disease or who may be at risk of contracting or spreading a disease
To an employer about an individual who is a member of the workforce as legally required.

To Report Abuse, Neglect Or Domestic Violence. Hospice is allowed to notify government authorities if we believe a patient is the victim of abuse, neglect or domestic violence. Hospice will make this disclosure only when specifically required or authorized by law or when the patient agrees to the disclosure.

To Conduct Health Oversight Activities. Hospice may disclose your health information to a health oversight agency for activities including audits, civil administrative or criminal investigations, inspections, licensure or disciplinary action. Hospice, however, may not disclose your health information if you are the subject of an investigation and your health information is not directly related to your receipt of health care or public benefits.

In Connection With Judicial And Administrative Proceedings. Hospice may disclose your health information in the course of any judicial or administrative proceeding in response to an order of a court or administrative tribunal as expressly authorized by such order or in response to a subpoena, discovery request or other lawful process, but only when Hospice makes reasonable efforts to either notify you about the request or to obtain an order protecting your health information

For Law Enforcement Purposes. Hospice may disclose your health information to a law enforcement official for law enforcement purposes as follows:

As required by law for reporting of certain types of wounds or other physical injuries pursuant to the court order, warrant, subpoena or summons or similar process.
For the purpose of identifying or locating a suspect, fugitive, material witness or missing person.
Under certain limited circumstances, when you are the victim of a crime.
To a law enforcement official if the Hospice has a suspicion that your death was the result of criminal conduct including criminal conduct at the Hospice.
In an emergency in order to report a crime

To Coroners And Medical Examiners. Hospice may disclose your health information to coroners and medical examiners for purposes of determining your cause of death or for other duties, as authorized by law.

To Funeral Directors. Hospice may disclose your health information to funeral directors consistent with applicable law and if necessary, to carry out their duties with respect to your funeral arrangements. If necessary to carry out their duties, the Hospice may disclose your health information prior to and in reasonable anticipation, of your death.

For Organ, Eye Or Tissue Donation. Hospice may use or disclose your health information to organ procurement organizations or other entities engaged in the procurement, banking or transplantation of organs, eyes or tissue for the purpose of facilitating the donation and transplantation.

For Research Purposes. Hospice may, under very select circumstances, use your health information for research. Before Hospice discloses any of your health information for such research purposes, the project will be subject to an extensive approval process. The Hospice will ask your permission if any researcher will be granted access to your individually identifiable health information

In the Event of A Serious Threat To Health Or Safety. Hospice may, consistent with applicable law and ethical standards of conduct, disclose your health information if Hospice, in good faith, believes that such disclosure is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to your health or safety or to the health and safety of the public.

For Specified Government Functions. In certain circumstances, the Federal regulations authorize Hospice to use or disclose your health information to facilitate specified government functions relating to military and veterans, national security and intelligence activities, protective services for the President and others, medical suitability determinations and inmates and law enforcement custody.

For Worker's Compensation. Hospice may release your health information for worker's compensation or similar programs.

Limited Data Set. Hospice may use or disclose a limited data set of your health information, that is, a subset of your health information for which all identifying information has been removed, for purposes of research, public health, or health care operations. Prior to our release, any recipient of that limited data set must agree to appropriately safeguard your health information

AUTHORIZATION TO USE OR DISCLOSE HEALTH INFORMATION

Other than is stated above, Hospice will not disclose your health information other than with your written authorization. If you or your representative authorizes Hospice to use or disclose your health information, you may revoke that authorization in writing at any time.

YOUR RIGHTS WITH RESPECT TO YOUR HEALTH INFORMATION

You have the following rights regarding your health information that Hospice maintains:

Right to request restrictions. You may request restrictions on certain uses and disclosures of your health information. You have the right to request a limit on Hospice's disclosure of your health information to someone who is involved in your care or the payment of your care. However, Hospice is not required to agree to your request unless your request is for a restriction on a disclosure to a health plan for purposes of payment or health care operations (and is not for purposes of treatment) and the medical information you are requesting to be restricted from disclosure pertains solely to a health care item or service for which you have paid out of pocket in full. If you wish to make a request for restrictions, please contact the Privacy Official at 828-894-7000.

Right to receive confidential communications. You have the right to request that Hospice communicate with you in a certain way. For example, you may ask that Hospice only conduct communications pertaining to your health information with you privately with no other family members present. If you wish to receive confidential communications, please contact the Privacy Official at 828-894-7000. Hospice will not request that you provide any reasons for your request and will attempt to honor your reasonable requests for confidential communications.

Right to inspect and copy your health information. You have the right to inspect and copy your health information, including billing records. A request to inspect and copy records containing your health information may be made to the Privacy Official. If you request a copy of your health information, Hospice may charge a reasonable fee for copying and assembling costs associated with your request.

You have the right to request that Hospice provide you, an entity or a designated individual with a n electronic copy of your electronic health record containing your health information, if Hospice uses or maintains electronic health records containing patient health information. Hospice may require you to pay the labor costs incurred in responding to your request.

Right to amend health care information. If you or your representative believes that your health information records are incorrect or incomplete, you may request that Hospice amend the records. That request may be made as long as the information is maintained by Hospice. A request for an amendment of records must be made in writing to the Privacy Official. Hospice may deny the request if it is not in writing or does not include a reason for the amendment. The request also may be denied if your health information records were not created by Hospice, if the records you are requesting are not part of Hospice's records, if the health information you wish to amend is not part of the health information you or your representative are permitted to inspect and copy, or if, in the opinion of Hospice, the records containing your health information are accurate and complete.

Right to an accounting. You or your representative have the right to request an accounting of disclosures of your health information made by Hospice for any reason other than for treatment, payment or health operations. The request for an accounting must be made in writing to the Privacy Official. The request should specify the time period for the accounting starting on April 14, 2003. Accounting requests may not be made for periods of time in excess of six years. Hospice would provide the first accounting you request during any 12-month period without charge. Subsequent accounting requests may be subject to a reasonable cost-based fee.

Right to a paper copy of this notice. You or your representative have a right to a separate paper copy of this Notice at any time even if you or your representative have received this Notice previously. To obtain a separate paper copy, please contact the Privacy Official. You may also obtain a copy of the current version of the Notice of Privacy Practices on our website at www.hocf.org.

DUTIES OF HOSPICE

Hospice is required by law to maintain the privacy of your health information and to provide to you and your representative this Notice of our duties and privacy practices. Hospice is required to abide by terms of this Notice as may be amended from time to time. Hospice reserves the right to change the terms of this Notice and to make the new Notice provisions effective for all health information that it maintains. If we change this Notice, we will provide a copy of the revised Notice to you or your appointed representative.

COMPLAINTS

You or your personal representative have the right to express complaints to Hospice and to the Secretary of Health and Human Services if you or your representative believe that your privacy rights have been violated. Any complaints to Hospice should be made in writing to the Privacy Official. Hospice encourages you to express any concerns you may have regarding the privacy of your information. You will not be retaliated against in any way for filing a complaint.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Hospice's contact person for all issues regarding patient privacy and your rights under the Federal privacy standards:

Privacy Official
Hospice of the Carolina Foothills
130 Forest Glen Drive
Columbus, NC 28722
(828) 894-7000

U.S. Office of Civil Rights Complaint Hotline: 1-800-368-1019

EFFECTIVE DATE

This notice is effective April 14, 2003.
Revised May 11, 2005
Revised February 17, 2010