Patients

HIPAA/Privacy

Professional Ambulance Service
(Pro EMS)
Notice of Privacy Practices

IMPORTANT: 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.

Pro EMS is required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”) to maintain the privacy of your protected health information (“PHI”). We are also required by law to provide you with the attached detailed Notice of Privacy Practices (“Notice”) explaining our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to your PHI.

Uses and Disclosures for Treatment, Payment or Healthcare Operations

Pro EMS may use or disclose your PHI without your authorization, for the following purposes:

Treatment

We can use your PHI for treatment provided to you by us and other medical personnel (including doctors and nurses who give orders to allow us to provide treatment to you). We may also share your PHI with other individuals involved in your care. For example, we may share PHI via radio or telephone to the hospital or dispatch center as well as provide the hospital with a copy of the record we create in the course of providing you with treatment and transport. We may also share your PHI with other healthcare providers for their treatment activities.

Payment

We may use and disclose your PHI for any activities we must undertake in order to get reimbursed for the services that we provide to you. This includes such things as organizing your PHI, submitting bills to insurance companies (either directly or through a third party billing company), managing billed claims for services rendered, performing medical necessity determinations and reviews, performing utilization reviews, and collecting outstanding accounts. We may also disclose PHI to another healthcare provider or entity for the payment activities of the provider or entity that receives the PHI (such as your hospital).

Healthcare Operations

We may use or disclose your PHI for things such as quality assurance activities, licensing, and training programs to ensure that our personnel meet our standards of care and follow established policies and procedures, obtaining legal and financial services, conducting business planning, processing grievances and complaints, creating reports that do not individually identify you for data collection purposes, fundraising, and certain marketing activities. We may also disclose your PHI to another healthcare provider (such as the hospital to which you are transported) for the healthcare operations activities of the entity that receives the information as long as the entity receiving the information has or has had a relationship with you and the PHI pertains to that relationship.

Fundraising

We may contact you when we are in the process of raising funds for Pro EMS, or to provide you with information about our annual subscription program. We may also share this information with another organization that may contact you to raise money on our behalf. If Pro EMS does use your PHI to conduct fundraising activities, you have the right to opt out of receiving such fundraising communications from Pro EMS by contacting us.

Reminders for Scheduled Transports and Information on Other Services

We may also contact you to provide you with a reminder of any scheduled appointments for non-emergency ambulance and medical transportation, or for other information about alternative services we provide or other health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you.

Other Uses and Disclosure of Your PHI We Can Make Without Authorization

Pro EMS is also permitted to use or disclose your PHI without your written authorization the following situations:

Uses and Disclosures of Your PHI That Require Your Written Authorization

Any other use or disclosure of PHI, other than those listed above, will only be made with your written authorization. You make revoke this authorization at any time by contacting us. Specifically, we must obtain your written authorization before using or disclosing your: (a) psychotherapy notes, other than for the purpose of carrying out our own treatment, payment or health care operations purposes, (b) PHI for marketing when we receive payment to make a marketing communication; or (c) PHI when engaging in a sale of your PHI.

Your Rights Regarding Your PHI

Review Records Request to see your rights.

Internet, Email and the Right to Obtain Copy of Paper Notice

If we maintain a web site, we will prominently post a copy of this Notice on our web site and make the Notice available electronically through the web site. If you allow us, we will provide our Notice of Privacy Practices to you electronically instead of on paper. You may always request a paper copy of our Notice.

Revisions to the Notice

Pro EMS is required to abide by the terms of the version of this Notice currently in effect. However, Pro EMS reserves the right to change the terms of this Notice at any time, and the changes will be effective immediately and will apply to all PHI that we maintain. Any material changes to the Notice will be promptly posted in our facilities and on our web site, if we maintain one. You can get a copy of the latest version of this Notice by contacting our HIPAA Compliance Officer.

Your Legal Rights and Complaints

You also have the right to complain to us, or to the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, if you believe that your privacy rights have been violated. You will not be retaliated against in any way for filing a complaint with us or to the government. If you have any questions or if you wish to file a complaint or exercise any rights listed in this Notice, please contact:

Pro EMS HIPAA Compliance Officer

William Mergendahl

Pro EMS

31 Smith Place

Cambridge, MA 02138

(617) 682-1829

 

Effective Date of the Notice: 01/01/2016