We are required by the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), to maintain the privacy of your health information. We are also required to give you this notice about our privacy practices, our legal duties and your rights concerning your health information. Protected Health Information (PHI) is considered to be your medical records and other health information that identifies you.

We must follow the privacy practices that are described in this Notice while it is in effect. This Notice is effective April 14, 2003, and will remain in effect until we change it. This includes any information we keep, use, or disclose in any form, whether electronically, on paper, or orally.

We reserve the right to change our privacy practices and the terms of this Notice at any time, as may be permitted by applicable law. We reserve the right to make the changes in our privacy practices and the new terms of our Notice effective for all health information we maintain, including health information we created or received before we made the changes. Before we make any significant changes to our privacy practices, we will change this Notice and make the new Notice available upon request.

You may request a copy of this Notice at any time. For more information about our privacy practices, or for additional copies of this Notice, please contact our Privacy Officer at the address listed at the end of this Notice.

This Notice explains how we will use and disclose your PHI while maintaining your privacy, explains your rights with respect to PHI and explains our duty to abide by terms of the Notice and any updates that we may make in the future.

OUR USE OF YOUR INFORMATION

Under HIPAA, we are permitted to use and disclose your PHI without your authorization for the purposes of Treatment, Payment and Health Care Operations.

Treatment: We may use or disclose your health information to a physician or other health care providers to provide you with medical treatment and service.

Payment: We may use or disclose your health information in order to receive payment for the supplies and or services that have been provided to you as, for example, billing Medicare.

Health Care Operations: Health care operations includes business aspects of our operations such as planning, financial analysis and customer service.

We may also use your PHI without your authorization to provide you with reminders to reorder supplies and new product and service information.

We may also disclose your health information to our Business Associates-organizations or individuals who carry out certain functions for us such as utilization review and claims administration. However, before we disclose your health information under these circumstances, we require the Business Associate to whom we make such disclosure to provide assurance that the privacy of your health information will be protected.

We may release information about you to a family member or others who are involved in your medical care. You may restrict or prohibit us from doing so if you are able to do so before we make such disclosure. 

Other instances where information may be provided without your authorization include:

As required during an investigation by law enforcement agencies.

In response to a legal proceeding.

In emergency situations.

YOUR RIGHTS REGARDING HEALTH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

You have the following rights regarding your PHI which you can exercise through a written request to our Privacy Officer:

The right to request restrictions on certain uses and disclosures, including any group of persons or person identified by you. However, we are not required to agree to such requested restrictions.


The right to reasonable requests to receive confidential communications from us by alternative means or alternative locations.

The right to inspect and copy your PHI. We reserve the right to schedule this activity and charge a reasonable fee to gather the information and for copy expenses.

The right to amend your PHI, if you believe that the health information we have is incorrect or incomplete. Your request must be in writing and must explain why the information should be amended. We may deny your request under certain circumstances.

The right to receive a list of disclosures of your PHI after April 14, 2003, other than for treatment, payment, or health care operations. The right to receive this information is subject to certain limitations.

COMPLAINT PROCESS

If you believe that your privacy rights have been violated, you have the right to file a formal, written complaint with us at the address below, or with the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. To file a complaint with us or to receive further information about our privacy practices or the content of this Notice, please write to:

Privacy Officer
American Medical Supplies, Inc.
PO Box 294009
Boca Raton, FL 33429-4009
Phone: (561) 862-5213