Back to Privacy
Each time you visit a nursing facility, a record of your visit is made. Typically, this record contains your symptoms, examination and test results, diagnoses, treatment, and a plan for future care or treatment. This information, often referred to as your health or medical record, serves as a:
- basis for planning your care and treatments
- means of communication among the many health professionals who contribute
to your care
- legal document describing the care you received
- means by which you or a third-party payer can verify that services billed
were actually provided
- tool in educating health professionals
- source of data for medical research
- source of information for public health officials who oversee the delivery
of health care in the United States
- source of data for facility planning and marketing
- tool with which we can assess and continually work to improve the care we render and the outcomes we achieve
How We Will Use or Disclose your Health Information
- Treatment: We will use or disclose your health
information for treatment purposes, including for the treatment activities
of other health care providers. For example, information obtained by a
nurse, physician, or other member of your healthcare team will be recorded
in your record and used to determine the course of treatment that should
work best for you. Your physician will document in your record his or her
expectations of the members of your healthcare team. Members of your healthcare
team will then record the actions they took and their observations. In
that way, the physician will know how you are responding to treatment.
We will also provide your physician or a subsequent healthcare provider
with copies of various reports that should assist him or her in treating
you once you are discharged from our nursing facility.
- Payment: We will use or disclose your health
information for payment, including for the payment activities of other
health care providers or payers. For example, a bill may be sent to you
or a third-party payer, including Medicare or Medicaid. The information
on/or accompanying the bill may include information that identifies you,
as well as your diagnosis, procedures, and supplies used.
- Health Care Operations: We will use or disclose
your health information for our regular health operations. For example,
members of the medical staff, the risk or quality improvement manager,
or members of the quality improvement team may use information in your
health record to assess the care and outcomes in your case and others like
it. This information will then be used in an effort to continually improve
the quality and effectiveness of the health care and service we provide.
In addition, we will disclose your health information for certain health care operations of other entities. However, we will only disclose your information under the following conditions: (a) the other entity must have, or have had in the past, a relationship with you; (b) the health information used or disclosed must relate tot hat other entity’s relationship with you; and (c) the disclosure must only be for one of the following purposes: (i) quality assessment and improvement activities; (ii) population-based activities relating to improving health or reducing health care costs; (iii) case management and care coordination; (iv) conducting training programs; (v) accreditation, licensing, or credentialing activities; or (vi) health care fraud and abuse detection or compliance.
- Business Associates: There are some services
provided in our organization through the use of outside people and entities.
Examples of these “business associates” include our accountants,
consultants and attorneys. We may disclose your health information to our
business associates so that they can perform the job we’ve asked
them to do. To protect your health information, however, we require the
business associates to appropriately safeguard your information.
- Directory: Unless you notify us that you object,
we may use your name, location in the facility, general condition, and
religious affiliation for directory purposes. This information may be provided
to members of the clergy and, except for religious affiliation, to other
people who ask for you by name. We may also use your name on a nameplate
next to or on your door in order to identify your room, unless you notify
us that you object.
- Notification: We may use or disclose information
to notify or assist in notifying a family member, personal representative,
or another person responsible for your care, of your location, and general
condition. If we are unable to reach your family member or personal representative,
then we may leave a message for them at the phone number that they have
provided us, e.g., on an answering machine.
- Communication with Family: We may disclose to
a family member, other relative, close personal friend or any other person
involved in your health care, health information relevant to that person’s
involvement in your care or payment related to your care.
- Research: We may disclose information to researchers
when certain conditions have been met.
- Transfer of Information at Death: We may disclose
health information to funeral directors, medical examiners, and coroners
to carry out their duties consistent with applicable law.
- Organ Procurement Organizations: Consistent with
applicable law, we may disclose health information to organ procurement
organizations or other entities engaged in the procurement, banking, or
transplantation of organs for the purpose of tissue donation and transplant.
- Marketing: We may contact you regarding your
treatment, to coordinate your care, or to direct or recommend alternative
treatments, therapies, health care providers or settings. In addition,
we may contact you to describe a health-related product or service that
may be of interest to you, and the payment for such product or service.
- Fund Raising: We may contact you as part of a
fund raising effort.
- Food & Drug Administration (FDA): We may
disclose to the FDA, or to a person or entity subject to the jurisdiction
of the FDA, health information relative to adverse events with respect
to food, supplements, product and product defects, or post marketing surveillance
information to enable product recalls, repairs, or replacement.
- Workers Compensation: We may disclose health
information to the extent authorized by and to the extent necessary to
comply with laws relating to workers compensation or other similar programs
established by law.
- Public Health: As required by law, we may disclose
your health information to public health or legal authorities charged with
preventing or controlling disease, injury or disability.
- Correctional Institution: Should you be an inmate
of a correctional institution, we may disclose to the institution or agents
thereof health information necessary for your health and the health and
safety of other individuals.
- Law Enforcement: We may disclose health information
for law enforcement purposes as required by law or in response to a valid
subpoena.
- Reports: Federal law makes provision for your
health information to be released to an appropriate health oversight agency,
public health authority or attorney, provided that a work force member
or business associate believes in good faith that we have engaged in unlawful
conduct or have otherwise violated professional or clinical standards and
are potentially endangering one or more patients, workers or the public.
Although your health record is the physical property of the nursing facility, information in your health record belongs to you. You have the following rights:
- You may request that we not use or disclose your health information
for a particular reason related to treatment, payment, Regency House’s
general health care operations, and/or to a particular family member, other
relative or close personal friend. We ask that such requests be made in
writing on a form provided by our facility. Although we will consider your
requests with regard to the use of your health information, please be aware
that we are under no obligation to accept it or to abide by it. We will
abide by your requests with regard to disclosure of your clinical and personal
records to anyone outside of the facility, except in an emergency, if you
are being transferred to another health care institution, or the disclosure
is required by law. 42 C.F.R. 483.10(e) provides that a nursing facility
must abide by a resident’s rights to refuse the release of his/her
personal or clinical records to any individual outside of the facility,
unless the release is necessary because the resident is being transferred
to another health care institution, or that it is required by law.
- If you are dissatisfied with the manner in which or the location where
you are receiving communications from us that are related to your health
information, you may request that we provide you with such information
by alternative means or at alternative locations. Such a request must be
made in writing, and submitted to the Medical Records Department at Regency
House. We will attempt to accommodate all reasonable requests. For more
information about this right, see 45 C.F.R. 164.522(b).
- You may request to inspect and/or obtain copies of health information
about you, which will be provided to you in the time frames established
by law. You may make such requests orally or in writing; however, in order
to better respond to your request we ask that you make such requests in
writing on our facility’s standard form. If you request to have copies
made, we will charge you a reasonable fee. For more information about this
right, see 45 C.F.R. 164.524
- If you believe that any health information in your record is incorrect
or if you believe that important information is missing, you may request
that we correct the existing information or add the missing information.
Such requests must be made in writing, and must provide a reason to support
the amendment. We ask that you use the form provided by our facility to
make such requests. For a request form, please contact the Privacy Officer.
For more information about this right, see 45 C.F.R. 164.526
- You may request that we provide you with a written accounting of all
disclosures made by us during the time period for which you request (not
to exceed 6 years). We ask that such requests be made in writing on a form
provided by our facility. Please note that an accounting will not apply
to any of the following types of disclosures: disclosures made for reasons
of treatment, payment or health care operations; disclosures made to you
or to your legal representative, or any other individual involved with
your care; disclosures to correctional institutions or law enforcement
officials; and disclosures for national security purposes. You will not
be charged for your first accounting request in any 12 month period. However,
for any requests that you make thereafter, you will be charged a reasonable,
cost-based fee. For more information about this right see 45 C.F.R. 164.528
- You have the right to obtain a paper copy of our Notice of Privacy Practices
upon request. You may also access and print a copy of our notice from our
website: www.palmsofsebring.com
- You may revoke an authorization to use or disclose health information, except to the extent that action has already been taken. Such a request must be made in writing.
For More Information or to Report a Problem
If you have any questions and would like additional information, you may contact our facility’s Privacy Officer at (863)385-0161.
If you believe that your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with us. The complaints must be filed in writing on a form provided by our facility. The complaint form may be obtained from the Medical Records Department, and when completed to the same office. You may also file a complaint with the secretary of the federal Department of Health & Human Services. There will be no retaliation for filing a complaint.
Effective Date: April 12, 2003