MEDICAL
INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET
ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY
WORLDWIDE MEDICAL
ESCORTS, LLC is required by law to maintain the privacy of certain
confidential health care information, known as Protected Health
Information or PHI, and to provide you with a notice of our legal
duties and privacy practices with respect to your PHI. WORLDWIDE
MEDICAL ESCORTS, LLC is also required to abide by the terms of the
version of this Notice currently in effect.
Uses and Disclosures of PHI: WORLDWIDE MEDICAL ESCORTS, LLC may use
PHI for
the purposes of treatment, payment, and health care operations, in
most cases without your written permission.
Examples of our use of your PHI: For treatment. This includes such
things as obtaining verbal and written information about your medical
condition and treatment from you as well as from others, such as
doctors and nurses who give orders to allow us to provide treatment to
you. We may give your PHI to other health care providers involved in
your treatment, and may transfer your PHI via radio or telephone to
the hospital or dispatch center.
For payment.
This includes any
activities we must undertake in order to get reimbursed for the
services we provide to you, including such things as submitting bills
to insurance companies, making medical necessity determinations and
collecting outstanding accounts.
For health
care operations. This includes
quality assurance activities, licensing, and training programs to
ensure that our personnel meet our standards of care and follow
established policies and procedures, as well as certain other
management functions.
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 to provider information about other services we
provide.
Use and
Disclosure of PHI Without Your Authorization.
WORLDWIDE MEDICAL
ESCORTS, LLC is permitted to use PHI without your written
authorization, or opportunity to object, in certain situations, and
unless prohibited by a more stringent state law, including:
-
For the
treatment, payment or health care operations activities of another
health care provider who treats you;
-
For health
care and legal compliance activities;
-
To a family member, other relative, or close personal friend or
other individual involved in your care if we obtain your verbal
agreement to do so or if we give you an opportunity to object to
such a disclosure and you do not raise an objection, and in
certain other circumstances where we are unable to obtain your
agreement and believe the disclosure is in your best interests;
-
To a public
health authority in certain situations as required by law (such as
to report abuse, neglect or domestic violence);
-
For health
oversight activities including audits or
government investigations, inspections, disciplinary proceedings,
and other administrative or judicial actions undertaken by the
government (or their contractors) by law to oversee the health
care system;
-
For judicial
and administrative proceedings as required by a court or
administrative order, or in some caves in response to a subpoena
or other legal process;
-
For law
enforcement activities in limited situations, such as when
responding to a warrant;
-
For military,
national defense and security and other special government
functions;
-
To avert a
serious threat in the health and safety of a person or the public
at large;
-
For workers'
compensation purposes, and in compliance with workers'
compensation laws;
-
To coroners,
medical examiners, and funeral directors for identifying a
deceased person, determining cause of death, or carrying on their
duties as authorized by law;
-
If you are an
organ donor-, we may release health information to organizations
that handle organ procurement or organ, eye or
tissue transplantation or to an organ donation bank, as necessary
to facilitate organ donation and transplantation;
-
For research
projects. but this will be subject to strict oversight and
approvals;
-
We may also
use or disclose health information about you in a way that does
not personally identify you or reveal who you are.
Any other use of
disclosure of PHI, other than those listed above will only be made
with your written authorization. You may revoke your authorization at
any time, in writing,
except to the extent that we have already used or disclosed
medical information in reliance on that authorization.
Patient Rights.
As a patient, you
have a number of rights with respect to your
PHI, including:
The
right to access, copy or inspect or PHI. This
means you may inspect and copy most of the medical information about
you that we maintain. We will normally provide you with access to this
information within 30 days of your request. We may also charge you a
reasonable fee for you to copy any medical information that you have
the right to access. In limited circumstances, we may deny you access
to your medical information, and you may appeal certain types of
denials. We have available forms to request access to your PHI
and we will
provide a written response if we deny you access and let you know your
appeal rights. You also have the right to receive confidential
communications of your PHI. If you wish to inspect and copy your
medical information, you should contact our privacy officer.
The right to
amend your PHI.
You have the right to ask us to amend written medical information that
we may have about you. We will generally amend your information within
60 days of your request and will notify you when we have amended the
information. We are permitted by law to deny your request to amend
your medical information only in certain circumstances, like when we
believe the information you have asked us to amend is correct. If you
wish to request that we amend the medical information that we have
about you, you should contact our privacy officer.
The right to request an accounting.
You may request
an accounting from us of certain disclosures of your medical
information that we have made in the six years prior to the date of
your request. We are not required to dive you an accounting of
information we have used or disclosed for purposes of
treatment, payment or health care operations, or when we share your
health information with our business associates, like our billing
company or a medical facility from/to which we have transported you.
We are also not required to give you an
accounting of our uses of protected health information for which you
have already given us written authorization. If you wish to request an
accounting, contact our privacy officer.
The
right to request that we restrict the uses and disclosures of your
PHI.
You have the
right to request that we restrict how we use and disclose your medical
information that we have about you. WORLDWIDE MEDICAL ESCORTS, LLC is
not
required to agree to any restrictions you request, but any
restrictions agreed to by WORLDWIDE MEDICAL ESCORTS, LLC in writing
are binding on WORLDWIDE MEDICAL ESCORTS, LLC.
Internet, Electronic Mail, and the Right to Obtain Copy of Paper
Notice on Request.
If we maintain a web site, we will prominently post a copy of this
Notice on our web site. If you allow us, we will forward you this
Notice by electronic mail instead of on paper and you may always
request a paper copy of this notice.
Revisions to the Notice:
WORLDWIDE MEDICAL
ESCORTS, LLC 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 protected health information that we maintain. Any material
changes to the Notice will be promptly posted in our facilities and
posted to our web site, if we maintain one. You can get a copy of the
latest version of this Notice by contacting our privacy 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 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.
For
more information, please call us toll free at
888-803-6135