HIPAA/Notice of Privacy Practices

For the practice of Beautiful Lake Ridge Smiles and Lake Ridge Ortho-TMJ-Sleep Centre

 THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW DENTAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW THIS CAREFULLY. If you have any questions about this Notice please contact our privacy officer,

Dr. Carlos G. Wiesse at (817) 649- 8888

This notice of Privacy Practices describes how we may use and disclose your protected health information to carry out treatment, payment or health care operations, and for other purposes that are permitted or required by law. It also describes your rights to access and control your protected health information. “Protected health information” is information about you, including demographics information, that may identify you and that relates to your past, present, or future physical or mental health or condition and related 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. The new notice will be effective for all protected health information that we maintain at that time. Upon your request, we will provide you with any revised Notice of Privacy Practices. You may request a revised version by accessing our website, calling the office and requesting that a revised copy be sent to you in the mail, or asking for one at the time of your next appointment.

1. USES AND DISCLOSURES OF PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION

Your protected health information may be used and disclosed by your dentist, our office staff, and others outside of our office who are involved in your care and treatment for the purpose of providing health care services to you. Your protected health information may also be used and disclosed to pay your health care bills and to support the operation of your dentist’s practice.

Following are examples of the types of uses and disclosures of your protected health information that your dentist’s office is permitted to make. Theses examples are not meant to be exhaustive, but to describe the types of uses and disclosures that may be made by our office.

Treatment:  We will use and disclose your protected health information to provide, coordinate, or manage your health care and any related services. This includes the coordination or management of your health care with another provider. For example, we would disclose your protected health information, as necessary, to a home health agency that provides care to you. We will also disclose protected health information to another dentist who may be treating you. For example, your protected health information may be provided to a dentist to whom you have been referred to ensure that the dentist has the necessary information to diagnose or treat you. In addition, we may disclose your protected health information from time-to-time to another dentist or health care provider (e.g., a specialist or laboratory) who, at the request of your dentist, becomes involved in your care by providing assistance with your health care diagnosis or treatment to your dentist.

Payment:  Your protected health information will be used and disclosed, as needed, to obtain payment for your health care services provided by us or by another provider. 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 your medical necessity, and undertaking utilization review activities. For example obtaining approval for a hospital stay may require that your relevant protected health information be disclosed to the health plan to obtain approval for the hospital admission.

Health Care Operations: We may use or disclose, as needed your protected health information in order to support the business activities of your dentist’s practice. These activities include, but are not limited to , quality assessment activities, employee review activities, training of dental students, licensing, fundraising activities, and conducting or arranging for other business activities.

We will share your protected health information with third party “business associates” that perform various activities (for example, billing or transcription services) for our practice. Whenever an arrangement between our office and a business associate involves the use or disclosure of your protected health information, we will have a written contract that contains terms that will protect the privacy of your protected health information

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We may use or disclose your protected health information, as necessary, to provide you with information about treatment alternatives or other health related benefits and services that may be of interest to you. You may contact our Privacy Officer to request that these materials not be sent to you.

We may use or disclose your demographic information and the dates that you received treatment from your dentist, as necessary, in order to contact you for fundraising activities supported by our office. If you do not want to receive these materials, please contact our Privacy Officer and request that these fundraising materials not be sent to you.

Other Permitted and Required Uses and Disclosures That May Be Made Without Your Authorization or Opportunity to Agree or Object: We may use or disclose your protected health information in the following situations without your authorization or providing you the opportunity to agree or object. These situations include:

Required By Law: We may use or disclose your protected health information to the extent that the use or disclosure is required by law. The use or disclosure will be made in compliance with the law and will be limited to the relevant requirements by law. You will be notified, if required by law, of any such uses or disclosures.

Public Health: We may disclose your protected health information for public health activities and purposes to a public health authority that is permitted by law to collect or receive the information. For example, a disclosure may be made for the purpose of preventing or controlling disease, injury or disability.

Communicable Disease: We may disclose protected health information, if authorized by law, to a person who may have been exposed to a communicable disease or may otherwise be at risk of contracting or spreading the disease or condition.

Health Oversight: We may disclose protected health information 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 programs, other government regulatory programs, and civil right laws.

Abuse or Neglect: We may disclose protected health information to a public health authority that is authorized by la to receive reports of child abuse or neglect. In addition, we may disclose your protected health information if we believe that you have been a victim of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence to the governmental entity or agency 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 protected health information to a person or company required by the Food and Drug Administration for the purpose of quality, safety, or effectiveness of FDA-regulated products or activities including to report adverse events, product defects or problems, biologic product deviations, to track products, to enable product recalls, to make repairs or replacements, or to conduct post marketing surveillance, as required.

Legal Proceedings: We may disclose protected health information in the course of any judicial or administrative proceeding, in response to an order of a court or administrative tribunal (to the extent such disclosure is expressly authorized), or in certain conditions in response to a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful process.

Law Enforcement: We may also disclose protected health information, so long as applicable legal requirements are met, for law enforcement purposes. These law enforcement purposes include (1) legal processes and otherwise required by law, (2) limited information requests for identification and local purposes, (3) pertaining to victims of a crime, (4) suspicion that death has occurred as a result of criminal conduct, (5) in the event that a crime occurs on the premises of our practices, and (6) medical emergency (not on our practice’s premises) and it is likely that a crime has occurred.

Coroners, Funeral Directors, and Organ Donation: We may disclose protected health information 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 protected health information 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.  Protected health information may be used and disclosed for cadaveric organ, eye, or tissue donation purposes.

Research:  We may disclose your protected health information to researchers when their research has been approved by an institutional review board that has reviewd the research proposal and established protocols to ensue the privacy of your protected health information.

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

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Military Activity and National Security: When the appropriate conditions apply, we may use or disclose protected health information of 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 Veterans Affairs of your eligibility for benefits, or (3) to foreign military authority if you are a member of that foreign military services. We may also disclose your protected health information to authorized federal officials for conducting national security and intelligence activities, including for the provision of protective services to the President or others legally authorized.

Workers’ Compensation: We may disclose your protected health information as authorized to comply with workers’ dentist created or receive your protected health information in the course of providing care to you.

Inmates: We may use or disclose your protected health information if you are an inmate of a correctional facility and your dentist created or received your protected health information in the course of providing care to you.

Uses and Disclosures of Protected Health Information Based upon Your Written Authorization: Under State law, we are required to notify you of any unauthorized disclosure of your protected health information, whether electronic or printed, will be made only with your written authorization, unless otherwise permitted or required by law as described below. You may revoke this authorization in writing at any time. If you revoke your authorization, we will no longer use or disclose your protected health information for the reasons covered by your written authorization. Please understand that we are unable to take back any disclosures already made with your authorization.

Other Permitted and Requires Uses and Disclosures That Require Providing You the Opportunity to Agree or Object:  Unless you object, we may disclose to a member of your family, a relative, a close friend or any other person you identify, your protected health information that directly relates to that person’s involvement in your health care. If you are unable to agree or object to such a disclosure, we may disclose such information as necessary if we determine that it is in your best interest based on our professional judgement. We may use or disclose protected health information 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 protected health information to an authorized public or private entity to assist in disaster relief efforts and to coordinate uses and disclosures to family or other individuals involved in your health care.

2. YOUR RIGHTS

Following is a statement of your rights with respect to your protected health information and a brief description of how you may exercise these rights.

Under Texas law, you have the right to request an electronic copy of your patient records. We must provide the records within 15 days of your request.

You have the right to inspect and copy your protected health information. This means you may inspect and obtain a copy of your protected health information about you for so long as we maintain the protected health information. You may obtain your dental record that contains dental and billing records and any other records that your dentist and the practice uses for making decisions about you. As permitted by federal or state law, we may charge you a reasonable copy fee for a copy of your records.

Under federal law, however, you may not inspect or copy the following records: psychotherapy notes; information compiled in reasonable anticipation of, or use in, a civil, criminal, or administrative action or proceeding: and laboratory results that are subject to law that prohibited access to protected health information. Depending on the circumstances, a decision to deny access may be review able. In some circumstances, you may have a right to have this decision reviewed. Please contact our Privacy officer if you have questions about our access to your dental record.

You have the right to request a restriction of your protected health information. This means you may ask us not to use or disclose any part of your protected health information for the purposes of treatment, payment, or health care operations. You may also request that any part of your protected health information not be disclosed to family members, friends who may be involved in your care, or for notification purposes as described in this Notice of Privacy Practices. Your request must state the specific restrictions requested and to who, you want the restriction to apply.

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Your dentist is not required to agree to a restriction that you may request. If your dentist does agree to the requested restriction, we may not use or disclose your protected health health information in violation of that restriction unless it is needed to provide emergency treatment. With this in mind, please discuss any restrictions you wish to request with your dentist. You may request a restriction by contacting our Privacy Officer.

You have the right to request to receive confidential communications from us by the alternative means or at an alternative location. We will accommodate reasonable requests. We may also condition this accommodation by asking you for information as to how payment will be handled of specification of an alternative address or other method of contact. We will not request an explanation from you as to the basis for the request. Please make this request in writing to our Privacy officer.

You may have the rights to have your dentist amend your protected health information. This means you may request an amendment of protected health information about you in a designated record set for so long as we maintain this information. In certain cases, we may deny your request for an amendment. If we deny your request for amendment, you have the right to file a statement of disagreement with us, and we may prepare a rebuttal to your statement and will provide you with a copy of any such rebuttal. Please contact our Privacy Officer if you have questions about amending your dental record.

You have the right to receive an accounting of certain disclosures we have made, if any, of your protected health information. This right applies to disclosures for purposes other than treatment, payment, or health care operations as described in this Notice of Privacy Practices. It excludes disclosures we may have made to you if you authorized us to make the disclosure for a facility directory, to family members or friends involved in your care, or for notification purposes, for national security or intelligence, to law enforcement (as provide in the privacy rule), or correctional facilities as part of a limited data set disclosure. 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, even if you have agreed to accept this notice electronically.

3. Complaints

You may complain to us, to the State Attorney General’s office, or to the Secretary of Health and Human Services of Health and Human Services if you believe your privacy rights have been violated by us. You may file a complaint with us by notifying our Privacy Officer of your complaint. We will not retaliate against you for filing a complaint.

You may contact our Privacy Officer at (817) 649- 8888 for further information about the complaint process.

This notice was published and became effective on 11/01/2013.

Practice name:  Beautiful Lake Ridge Smiles and Lake Ridge Ortho-TMJ-Sleep Centre 

Privacy Officer Name:  Carlos G. Wiesse, DDS 

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