Privacy Policy

Privacy Statement
The following discloses our information gathering and usage practices for The Specialty Hospital of Washington - Hadley web site. The SHW - Hadley web site offers several opportunities for visitors to view and receive assistance in evaluating our services.

Sharing and Usage
SHW - Hadley is the sole owner of the information collected on this site, including email lists. We will not sell, rent, loan, trade or lease this information to others without your advance permission or unless ordered by a court of law. Information submitted to us is only available to employees managing this information for purposes of contacting you or sending you emails based on your request for information.

Notification of Changes
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on our main page of our web site so that our customers are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
    
SHW - Hadley will prominently post its notice on any web sites that it maintains that provides information about is its customer services or benefits, and will make the notice available electronically through the web site.  

Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act

The Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) is a federal program that requires that all medical records and other individually identifiable health information used or disclosed by us in any form, whether electronically, on paper, or orally, are kept properly confidential. This ACT gives you, the patient, significant new rights to understand and control how your health information is used. “HIPAA” provides penalties for covered entities that misuse personal health information.

As required by “HIPAA”, we have prepared this explanation of how we are required to maintain the privacy of your health information and how we may use and disclose your health information.

We may use and disclose your medical records only for each of the following purposes: treatment, payment, and health care operations. 

• Treatment means providing, coordinating, or managing heath care and related services by one or more health care providers. An example of this would include teeth cleaning services.
• Payment means such activities as obtaining reimbursement for services, confirming coverage, billing or collection activities, and utilization review. An example of this would be sending a bill for your visit to your insurance company for payment.
• Health care operations include the business aspects of running our practice, such as conducting quality assessment and improvement activities, auditing functions, cost-management analysis, and customer service. An example would be an internal quality assessment review.

We may also create and distribute de-identified health information by removing all references to individually identifiable information.

We may contact you to provide appointment reminders or information about treatment alternatives or other health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you.

Any other uses and disclosures will be made only with your written authorization. You may revoke such authorization in writing and we are required to honor and abide by that written request, except to the extent that we have already taken actions relying on your authorization.

You have the following rights with respect to your protected health information, which you can exercise by presenting a written request to the Privacy Officer:

• The right to request restrictions on certain uses and disclosures of protected health information, including those related to family members, other relatives, close personal friends, or any other person identified by you. We are, however, not required to agree to a requested restriction. If we do agree to a restriction, we must abide by it unless you agree in writing to remove it. The right to reasonable requests to receive confidential communications of protected health information from us by alternative means or at alternative locations.
• The right to inspect and copy your protected health information.
• The right to amend your protected health information.
  The right to receive an accounting of disclosures of protected health information.
• The right to obtain a paper copy of this notice from us upon request.
• We are required by law to maintain the privacy of your protected health information and to provide you with notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to protected health information.

This notice is effective as of April 14, 2003 and we are required to abide by the terms of the Notice of Privacy Practices currently in effect. We reserve the right to change the terms of our Notice of Privacy Practices and to make the new notice provisions effective for all protected health information that we maintain. We will post and you may request a written copy of a revised Notice of Privacy Practices from this office.

You have recourse if you feel that your privacy protections have been violated. You have the right to file written complaint with our office, or with the Department of Health & Human Services, Office of Civil Rights, about violations of the provisions of this notice or the policies and procedures of our office. We will not retaliate against you for filing a complaint.

Feel free to contact us for more information:

For more information about HIPAA or to file a complaint contact:

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Office of Civil Rights
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201
(202) 619-0257
Toll Free: 1-877-696-6775