Patient Privacy
Notice
Joint Notice of Privacy Practices for Medical
Information
THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION
ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO
THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.
WHO MUST FOLLOW THIS NOTICE?
St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center
provides you (the patient) with health care by working with doctors
and many other health care providers (referred to as we, our or
us). This is a joint notice of our information privacy
practices. The following people or groups will follow this
notice:
-
any health care provider who comes to St. Joseph's Hospital
and Medical Center to care for you. These professionals
include doctors, nurses, technicians, physician assistants
and others.
-
all departments and units of our organization, including
skilled nursing, home health, clinics, outpatient services,
mobile units, hospice, and emergency department.
-
our employees, contractors, students and volunteers,
including regional support offices and affiliates.
OUR PLEDGE TO YOU
We understand that medical information about
you is private and personal. We are committed to protecting
it. Hospitals, doctors and other staff make a record each
time you visit. This notice applies to the records of
your care at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center whether
created by hospital staff or your doctor. Your doctor
and other health care providers may have different practices or
notices about their use and sharing of medical information in their
own offices or clinics. We will gladly explain this
notice to you or your family member.
We are required by law to:
-
keep medical information about you private.
-
give you this notice describing our legal duties and privacy
practices for medical information about you.
-
follow the terms of the notice that is currently in effect.
HOW WE MAY USE AND SHARE YOUR MEDICAL
INFORMATION
This section of our notice tells how we may
use medical information about you. In all cases not covered
by this notice, we will get a separate written permission from you
before we use or share your medical information. You can
later cancel your permission by notifying us in writing.
We will protect medical information as much
as we can under the law. Sometimes state law gives more
protection to medical information than federal law. Sometimes
federal law gives more protection than state law.
In each case, we will apply the laws that protect medical
information the most.
Catholic Healthcare West is a large health
system. We may use or share medical information about you (in
electronic or paper form) with hospital personnel, including
doctors, at any Catholic Healthcare West hospital or facility for
treatment, payment and health care operations. Please contact the
Facility Privacy Office (at the address below) for a list of all
Catholic Healthcare West facilities.
EXAMPLES:
Treatment: We will use and share medical
information about you for purposes of treatment. An example
is sending medical information about you to your doctor or to a
specialist as part of a referral.
Payment: We will use and share medical
information about you so we can be paid for treating you. An
example is giving information about you to your health plan or to
Medicare.
Health care operations: We will use and share
medical information about you for our health care operations.
Examples are using information about you to improve the quality of
care we give you, for disease management programs, patient
satisfaction surveys, compiling medical information, de-identifying
medical information and benchmarking.
Appointment reminders: We may contact
you with appointment reminders.
Treatment options and health-related benefits
and services: We may contact you about possible treatment
options, health-related benefits or services that you might
want.
Fund-raising activities: We may use
limited information to contact you for fundraising. We may
also share such information with our fundraising foundation.
Research: We may share medical
information about you for research projects, such as studying the
effectiveness of a treatment you received. We will usually
get your written permission to use or share medical information for
research. Under certain circumstances we may
share medical information about you without your written
permission. These research projects, however, must go through
a special process that protects the confidentiality of your medical
information.
Facility Directory: Unless you tell us
otherwise, we may list your name, location in the hospital, your
general condition (good, fair, etc.) and your religious affiliation
in our directory. We will give this information (except your
religious affiliation) to anyone who asks about you by name.
Your religious affiliation will be given only to appropriate clergy
members.
Public Health: We may disclose your health
information as required or permitted by law to public health
authorities or government agencies whose official activities
include preventing or controlling disease, injury, or disability.
For example, we must report certain information about births,
deaths, and various diseases to government agencies. We may use
your health information in order to report to monitoring agencies
any reactions to medications or problems with medical devices. We
may also disclose, when requested, information about you to public
health agencies that track outbreaks of contagious diseases or that
are involved with preventing epidemics.
Required by Law: We are sometimes required by
law to report certain information. For example,
we must report abuse or neglect. We also must give
information to your employer about work-related illness, injury or
workplace-related medical surveillance. Another example is
that we will share information about tumors with state tumor
registries.
Public Safety: We may, and sometimes
have to share medical information about you in order to prevent or
lessen a serious threat to the health or safety of a particular
person or the general public.
Health Oversight Activities: We may share
medical information about you for health oversight activities,
audits or inspections.
Coroners, Medical Examiners and Funeral
Directors: We may share medical information about deceased patients
with coroners, medical examiners and funeral directors.
Organ and Tissue Donation: We may share
medical information with organizations that handle organ, eye or
tissue donation or transplantation.
Military, Veterans, National Security and
Other Government Purposes: We may use or share medical information
about you for national security purposes. We may share medical
information about you with the military for military command
purposes when you are a member of the armed forces.
Judicial Proceedings: We may use or share
medical information about you in response to court orders or
subpoenas only when we have followed procedures required by
law.
Law Enforcement Arizona & Nevada:
We may share medical information about you with police or other law
enforcement personnel where permitted or required by state and
federal law. For example, if the police present a
search warrant or court order, we must produce the information
requested.
Family Members and Others Involved in Your
Care: Unless you tell us otherwise, we may share medical
information about you with friends, family members, or others you
have named who help with your care. We may use or share
medical information about you with disaster organizations so that
your family can be notified of your location and condition in case
of disaster or other emergency.
YOUR RIGHTS REGARDING MEDICAL INFORMATION
Requesting Information about
You:
In most cases, when you ask in writing, you can look at or get a
copy of medical information about you. We will give you
a form to fill out to make the request. You can look at
medical information about you for free. If you request copies of
the information we may charge a fee for the cost of copying,
mailing or other related supplies. If we say no to your
request to look at the information or get a copy of it, you may ask
us in writing for a review of that decision.
Correcting Information about
You:
If you believe that information about you is wrong or missing, you
can ask us in writing to correct the records. We will
give you a form to fill out to make the request. We may say
no to your request to correct a record if the information was not
created or kept by us or if we determine the record is complete and
correct. If we say no to your request, you can ask us in
writing to review that denial.
Obtaining a List of Certain Disclosures of
Information: You can ask in writing for a listing of every time we
have shared medical information about you, other than for
treatment, payment, health care operations or where you have given
us written permission for the sharing. Your request must
state the time period for the listing, which must be less than 6
years starting after April 14, 2003. The first request in a
12-month period is free. We will charge you for any
additional requests for our cost of producing the list. We
will give you an estimate of the cost when you request the
additional list.
Restricting How We Use or Share Information
about You: You can ask that medical information be given to
you in a confidential manner. You must tell us in writing of
the exact way or place for us to communicate with you.
You also can ask in writing that we limit our
use or sharing of medical information about you. For example,
you can ask that we use or share medical information about you only
with persons involved in your care. We will consider
your request but we may not be able to agree to it. We are
not legally required to agree to your request. We will tell
you of our decision on your request.
All written requests or requests for review
of denials should be given to our Facility Privacy Office listed at
the end of this notice.
CHANGES TO THIS NOTICE
We may change our privacy practices from time
to time. Changes will apply to current medical information,
as well as new information after the change occurs. If we
make an important change, we will change our notice. We will
also post the new notice in our facilities and on our Web site at:
http://www.stjosephs-phx.org/intradoc-cgi/idc_cgi_isapi.dll?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=5001634
You can ask in writing for a copy of this notice at any time by
contacting the Facility Privacy Office. If our
notice has changed, we will give you a copy of the notice the
next time you register for treatment.
DO YOU HAVE CONCERNS OR COMPLAINTS?
If you think your privacy rights may have
been violated, you may contact our Facility Privacy Office (listed
below). You may also contact our Chief Privacy and Data
Security Administrator at (415) 438-5565. Finally, you may
send a written complaint to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, Office of Civil Rights. Our Facility Privacy Office
can provide you the address. We will not take any action
against you for filing a complaint.
St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical
Center
Facility Privacy Office
350 W. Thomas Road
222 Building Suite 101
Phoenix, AZ 85013
Telephone: 602-406-3355
Fax: 602-798-0965
http://www.stjosephs-phx.org
St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical
Center
General Hospital Information: 602-406-3000
Version effective: April 2007