Notice of Privacy Practices.
01How we may use & disclose your information
Federal law allows us to use and disclose your protected health information (PHI) without your written authorisation for the following purposes:
Treatment
To provide, coordinate, or manage your dental care — including consultation with specialists and laboratories that fabricate your restorations.
Payment
To bill and collect payment from you, your insurance carrier, or a third party responsible for your care. We may verify eligibility and obtain pre-authorisations on your behalf.
Health-care operations
To run the practice — quality assessment, staff training, accreditation, legal counsel, business planning, and customer service.
Required by law
To report suspected abuse or neglect, respond to a court order or subpoena, comply with public-health reporting (e.g. communicable disease), or assist a coroner, medical examiner, or workers' compensation program.
02Uses requiring your written authorisation
All other uses require your written authorisation. This includes any use of your information for marketing, any sale of information, and most uses of psychotherapy notes. You may revoke an authorisation in writing at any time.
03Your rights
- Inspect and copy your dental record. We may charge a reasonable, cost-based fee.
- Request an amendment if you believe information is inaccurate or incomplete.
- Request an accounting of certain disclosures we've made in the past six years.
- Request restrictions on how we use or disclose your information for treatment, payment, or operations. We aren't required to agree, except where you pay in full out-of-pocket and ask us not to share with a health plan.
- Request confidential communications — for example, asking us to call your cell, not your home.
- Receive a paper copy of this notice at any time, even if you've agreed to receive it electronically.
- Be notified of any breach of unsecured PHI affecting you.
04Our duties
We are required by law to maintain the privacy and security of your PHI, give you this notice of our legal duties and privacy practices, and follow the terms of the notice currently in effect. We reserve the right to change this notice; if we do, the revised notice will apply to all PHI we maintain and will be posted at our office and on this website.
05Complaints
If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with us or with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. We will never retaliate against you for filing a complaint.
To file with HHS: hhs.gov/hipaa/filing-a-complaint.