THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY. 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 health care and related services by one or more health care providers. An example of this would be, “if we refer you to a specialist we may provide them with a history of treatment as it relates to the problem at hand.” Payment means such activities as obtaining reimbursement, confirming coverage, billing or collection activities, and utilization review. An example of this would be sending an insurance claim 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 of this is our accountants may see your name, dates of treatment and procedure codes during audits of our books. 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. We may send you postcards through the mail with regards to needing your next check-up and cleaning, with the date and time of your next check-up and cleaning or to remind you of overdue treatment. We may send postcards/correspondence to acknowledge special occasions, i.e. birthday, anniversary. We may leave messages on your home, work or cell phone answering machine with the date and time of your next appointment. We may leave messages on your home, work or cell phone answering machine to remind you of premedication for your next appointment. We may discuss your treatment with your spouse or parents as it relates to your insurance coverage, insurance payment, direct payment to this office or to help in the clarification of treatment. We may send you information with regards to the products and services we provide. Any other uses and disclosures will be made only with your written authorization. You may revoke such authorizations 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 disclosures to family members, other relatives, 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 or disclosures of protected health information. The right to obtain and we have the obligation to provide to you a paper copy of this notice from us at your first service delivery date. The right to provide and we are obligated to receive a written acknowledgement that you have received a copy of our Notice of Privacy Practices. 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 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 a formal, written complaint with us at the address below, 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.