Notice of Privacy Practices
A.S.A.P. Home Care & Home Nurses, Inc.

This notice describes how medical information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to the information.

Please review it carefully.

The Health Insurance and Portability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) grants individuals the right to adequate notice of the use and disclosures of protected health information (PHI) to carry out treatment, payment, health care operations or other purposes that are permitted or required by law. It also describes your rights to access and control your PHI. PHI is information about you, including demographic information that may identify you and may relate to your past, present or future physical or mental health or condition and related health care services.

We are required to abide by the terms of this Notice of Privacy Practices. We may change the terms of our notice, at any time, and will notify you of any such changes before they become effective. The new notice will be effective for all PHI that we maintain at the time. Upon your request, we will provide you with any revised Notice of Privacy Practices when you call the office and requesting that a revised copy be sent to you in the mail.

Uses and Disclosures of Protected Health Information

Your PHI may be used and disclosed by your physician, or mid-level providers, our office staff and other outside of office that are directly involved in your care and treatment, for the purpose of providing health care services to you. Your PHI may also be used and disclosed to enable us to obtain payment for your health care bills and to support the operation of our home care office.

Following are examples of uses and disclosures of your PHI that your home care office is permitted to make once you have been provided a copy of this Notice of Privacy Protection. These examples are not meant to be exhaustive, but to describe the typical uses and disclosures that may occur.

Treatment

We will use and disclose your PHI to provide, coordinate or manage your health care and any related services. This includes the coordination or management f your health care with a third party that has already obtained your permission to have access to your PHI. for example, we would disclose your PHI, as necessary, to a physician's office that provides care to you, to ensure that the physician has the necessary information to diagnose or treat you.

In addition, we may disclose your protected health information from time to time to another healthcare provider or physician (e.g., a specialist or laboratory) who, at the request of your physician, becomes involved in your care by providing assistance with your helath care diagnosis or treatment to your physician.

Payment

Your PHI will also be used, as needed, to obtain payment for your health care services. This may include certain activities that your health insurance plan may undertake before it approves or pays for the health care services we recommend for you such as, making a determination of eligibility or coverage for insurance benefits, reviewing services provided to you for medical necessity, and undertaking utilization review activities. for example, obtaining approval for home care services that your relevant PHI be disclosed to your insurance company.

Health Care Operations

We may use or disclose, as needed, you PHI in order to support the business activities of our homecare company. These activities include, but are not limited to, quality assessment activities, employee review activities, training of medical employees (RN's, LPN's, and PCA's, etc.), licensing, marketing or conducting and arranging for other business activities.

For example, we may disclose your PHI to medical and non-medical employees in the office. We may use or disclose your PHI, as necessary, to contact you to see how are employees our doing with your care.

We will share your PHI with "business associates" that perform various activities (e.g., billing, transcription services) for the company. Whenever an arrangement between our office and a business associate involves the use or disclosure of your PHI we will have a written contract with this business associate that contains terms that will protect the privacy of your PHI.

we may use or disclose your PHI, as necessary, to provide you with information about treatment alternatives or other health related benefits and services that may be of interest to you. We may also use and disclose your PHI for other marketing activities. For example, your name and address may be used to send you a newsletter about our home care agency and services we offer. We may also send you information about products or services that we believe may be beneficial to you. You may contact our Privacy Contact (identified below) in writing to request that these materials not be sent to you.

Uses and Disclosures of PHI Based Upon your Written Authorization

Other uses and disclosures of your PHI will be made only with your written authorization, unless otherwise permitted or required by law as described below. You may revoke this authorization, at any time, in writing, except to the extent that your home care agency has taken an action in reliance on the use or disclosure indicated in the authorization.

Other Permitted and Required Uses and Disclosures That May Be Made With Your Authorization or Opportunity to Object

We may use or disclose your PHI in the following instances. You have the opportunity to agree or object to the use and disclosure of all or part of your PHI if you are not present or able to agree or object to the use or disclosure of your PHI then your home care agency may, using professional judgment, determine whether or not the disclosure is in your best interest. In this case, only the PHI that is relevant to your health care will be disclosed.

Others Involved In Your Health Care

Unless you object, in writing, we may disclose to a member of your family, a relative, a close friend or other person you may identify, you're PHI that directly relates to that person's involvement in your helath care. If you are unable to agree or object to such a disclosure, we may disclose such information as is necessary if we determine that it is in your best interest based upon our professional judgment. We may use or disclose PHI to notify or assist in notifying a family member, personal representative, or any other person that is responsible for your care of your location, general condition or death. Finally, we may use or disclose your PHI to an authorized public or private entity to assist in disaster relief efforts and to coordinate uses and disclosure to family or other individuals involved in your health care.

Emergencies

We may use or disclose the minimum necessary of your PHI in an emergency treatment situation.

Communication Barriers

We may use and disclose your PHI if your physician or another physician in the practice encounters substantial communication barriers and the physician determines, using professional judgment, that you intend for us to use or disclose the minimum necessary PHI.

Other Permitted and Required Uses and Disclosures That May Be Made Without Your Authorization or Opportunity to Object

Required by Law

We may use or disclose your PHI to the extent that the use or disclosure is required by law. The use or disclosure will be made in compliance with the law ans will be limited to the relevant requirements of the law. You will be notified,as required by law, of any such use or disclosure.

Public Health

We may use or disclose your PHI if authorized by law to a person who may have been exposed to a communicable disease or may otherwise be at risk of spreading the disease or the condition.

Health Oversight

We may disclose PHI to a health oversight agency for activities authorized by law such as audits, investigations and inspections. Oversight agencies seeking this information include government agencies that oversee the health care system. Government benefit or regulatory programs and civil rights laws.

Abuse and Neglect

We may disclose PHI to a public health authority that is authorized by law to receive reports of child abuse or neglect. In addition, we may disclose your PHI if we believe that you have been a victim of abuse, neglect or domestic violence to the governmental agency or entity authorized to receive such information. In this case the disclosure will be made consistent with the requirements of applicable federal and state laws.

Food and Drug Administration

We may disclose your PHI to a person or company required by the FDA to report adverse events, product defects or problems, biologic product deviations, track products, to enable product recalls, to make repairs or replacements or to conduct post marketing activities if required.

Legal Proceedings

We may disclose PHI in the course of any judicial or administrative proceeding, in response to an order of the court, subpoena, discovery request or other lawful process.

Law Enforcement

We may also disclose PHI so long as applicable legal requirements are met, for law enforcement purposes. These law enforcement purposes include (1) legal processes and otherwise as required by law (2) limited information requests for identification and location purposes (3) pertaining to victims of a crime (4) if there is a suspicion that death has occurred as a result of criminal conduct (5) medical emergency and it is likely that a crime has occurred.

Corners, Funeral Directors, and Organ Donation

We may disclose PHI to a coroner or medical examiner for identification purposes, determining cause of death or for the coroner or medical examiner to perform other duties authorized by law. We may also disclose PHI to a funeral director, as authorized by law, in order to permit the funeral director to carry out their duties. We may disclose such information in reasonable anticipation of death. PHI may be used and disclosed for cadaver organ, eye or tissue donation purposes.

Criminal Activity

Consistent with applicable federal and state laws, we may disclose your PHI if we believe that the use or disclosure is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the health and safety of a person or the public. We may also disclose PHI if it is necessary for law enforcement authorities to identify or apprehend an individual.

Military Activity and National Security

When that appropriate conditions apply, we may use or disclose PHI to individuals who are Armed Forces personnel (1) for activities deemed necessary by appropriate military command authorities (2) for the purpose of a determination by the Department of Veteran's Affairs of your eligibility for benefits (3) to foreign military authority if you are a member of that foreign military services. We may also disclose your PHI to authorized federal officials for conducting national security and intelligence activities.

Worker's Compensation

Your PHI may be disclosed by us as authorized to comply with worker's compensation laws and other similar legally established programs.

Inmates

We may use or disclose your PHI if you are an inmate of a correctional facility and your physician created or received your PHI in the course of providing care to you.

Required Uses and Disclosures

Under the law we must make disclosures to you when required by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate or determine our compliance with the requirement of Section 16.500 et seq.

Your Rights

Following is a statement of your rights with respect to your PHI and a brief description of how you may exercise your rights.

You have the right to inspect and copy your PHI

We have a procedure in place to allow you to inspect and obtain a copy of PHI about you that is contained in our "designated record set" for as long as we maintain the PHI. A "designated record set" contains medical and billing records as well as any other records that your physician and the practice uses for making health care decisions about you.

Under federal law you may not inspect or copy the following records: psychotherapy notes, information compiles in reasonable anticipation of, or use in, a civil, criminal or administrative action or proceeding as well as PHI that is subject to law that prohibits access to PHI. Depending on the circumstances, a decision to deny access may be re viewable. In some circumstances you have the right to have this decision to deny access reviewed. Please contact our Privacy Contract if you have question regarding access to your medical record.

You have the right to request a restriction of your PHI

This means that you may ask us not to disclose any part of your PHI for the purposes of treatment, payment or health care operations. You may also request that any part of your PHI not be disclosed to family or friends who may be involved in your care or for the purposes described in this Notice of Privacy Practices. Your written request must state the restriction requested and to whom you want the restriction to apply.

Your physician is not required to agree to a restriction that you might request. Restricting such usage may mean that your physician may be unable to continue your health care. We are bound only by those restrictions to which we agree in writing.

You have the right to request to receive confidential communications from us by alternative means or at an alternative location

A.S.A.P. Home Care & Home Nurses, Inc. will accommodate all reasonable requests. We may also condition this accommodation by asking you for information as to how payment will be handled and/or for the specification by you of an alternative address or method of contacting you. We will not request an explanation from you as to the basis for the request. Please make this request in writing to our Privacy Contract.

You have the right to have your physician amend your PHI

This means that you may request an amendment of PHI about you in a designated record set for as long as we maintain the information. In certain cases, we may deny your request. If we deny your request, you have the right to file a statement of disagreement with us and we may prepare a rebuttal to your statement. Please contact our Privacy Contact if you have further questions regarding an amendment to your PHI.

You have the right to receive an accounting of certain disclosures we have made of your PHI

This right applies to disclosures for other than treatment, payment or healthcare operations as explained in this Notice of Privacy Practices. It excludes disclosures we have made to you, to family members or friends involved in your care or for notification purposes. You have the right to receive specific information regarding any other disclosures that occurred after April 14, 2003. You may request a shorter time frame. The right to receive this information is subject to certain exceptions, restrictions and limitations.

You have the right to obtain a paper copy of this notice from us, upon request.

Anti Discriminatory Polcicy

A.S.A.P. Home Care & Home Nurses, Inc. does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, or age in admission, treatment, or participation in its programs, services and activities, or in employment. For further information about this policy, please contact:

Luke Harmon, 504 Coordinator
330-334-7027

TDD/ 800-750-0750