Women's Psychiatry and Well-Being

Women's Psychiatry And Well-Being

Notice of Privacy Practices

Women’s Psychiatry and Well-Being, PLLC

Notice of Privacy Practices

THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY.

The Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a Federal statute that requires that all medical records and other individually identifiable health information used or disclosed by us in any form, whether electronically, on paper, or orally are confidential.  HIPAA gives you, the patient, the right to understand and control how your personal health information (PHI) is used.  As required by HIPAA, and the Texas Health and Safety Code, we have prepared this explanation about the confidentiality of your health information, how we maintain its privacy and under what circumstances it may be disclosed. Communications between you as a patient and us, and records of the identity, diagnosis, evaluation, or treatment of a patient that are created or maintained by us are confidential. 

We may use and disclose your medical records only for the following purposes: treatment, payment, and health care operation.

  • Treatment means providing, coordinating, or managing healthcare and related services by one or more healthcare providers.  An example of this is if you are referred to a primary care doctor or another specialist.
  • Payment means such activities as obtaining reimbursement for services, confirming coverage, billing or collections activities, and utilization review.  An example of this would include sending your insurance company a bill for your visit. 
  • Health Care Operations include the business aspects of running our practice, such as conducting quality assessments and improving activities, auditing functions, cost management analysis, and customer service.  An example of this would be patient survey cards.

The practice may also be required or permitted to disclose your PHI for law enforcement or other legitimate reasons.  In all situations, we shall do our best to assure its continued confidentiality to the extent possible. 

Use and Disclosure of PHI Without Your Authorization: We are permitted to use PHI without your written authorization, or opportunity to object in certain situations, including:

  • For our use in treating you or in obtaining payment for services provided to you or in other health care operations;
  • For the treatment activities of another health care provider;
  •  To another health care provider or entity for the payment activities of the provider or entity that receives the information (such as your hospital or insurance company);
  •  To another health care provider (such as the hospital to which you are transported or First Responder Agencies) for the health care operations activities of the covered entity that receives the information as long as the covered entity receiving the information has or has had a relationship with you and the PHI pertains to that relationship;
  • For health care fraud and abuse detection or for activities related to compliance with the law;

We may also create and distribute de-identified health information by removing all reference to individually identifiable information. 

We may contact you, by phone or in writing, to provide appointment reminders or information about treatment alternatives or other health-related benefits and services, YOUR RIGHT TO YOUR MENTAL HEALTH RECORD.  You are entitled to have access to the content of your record; however, we may deny access to any portion of a record if we determine that release of that portion would be harmful to your physical, mental, or emotional health. If we deny access to any portion of your record, we will give you a signed and dated written statement that having access to the record would be harmful to your physical, mental, or emotional health and we will include a copy of the written statement in your record.  The statement will identify the portion of the record to which access is denied, the reason for denial, and the duration of the denial.

If we deny access to a portion of your record, we shall re-determine the necessity for the denial  each time a request for the denied portion is made.  If access is denied again, we will notify you  of the denial and document the denial. If we deny access to a portion of a confidential record, we will allow examination and copying of the record by another professional if you select that professional to treat you for the same or a related condition. Finally, denial of  your access to any portion of your record may continue until applicable statute of limitations has run on a cause of action in which evidence relevant to the cause of action is in that portion of the record.

The content of your record shall be made available to a person who has your written consent or to your personal representative if you are deceased. We will delete confidential information about another person who has not consented to the release, but may not delete information relating to you that another person has provided, the identity of the person responsible for that information, or the identity of any person who provided information that resulted in your  commitment. We will grant access to any portion of the record to which access is not specifically denied within a reasonable time and may charge a reasonable fee.

 

You may have the following rights with respect to your PHI:

  • The right to reasonable requests to receive confidential communications of Protected Health Information by alternative means or at alternative locations.
  • The right to inspect and copy your PHI subject to denial per above.
  • The right to amend your PHI.
  • The right to receive an accounting of disclosures of your PHI.
  • The right to obtain a paper copy of this notice from us upon request.
  • The right to be advised if your unprotected PHI is intentionally or unintentionally disclosed.

If you have paid for services “out of pocket”, in full and in advance, and you request that we not disclose PHI related solely to those services to a health plan, we will accommodate your request, except where we are required by law to make a disclosure.

We are required by law to maintain the privacy of your Protected Health Information and to provide you the notice of our legal duties and our privacy practice with respect to PHI. 

This notice is effective as of November 1, 2022, and it is our intention to abide by the terms of the Notice of Privacy Practices and HIPAA Regulations currently in effect.  We reserve the right to change the terms of our Notice of Privacy Practice and to make the new notice provision effective for all PHI that we maintain.  We will post and you may request a written copy of the revised Notice of Privacy Practice from our office. It is available in the Women’s Psychiatry and Well-Being patient portal

If you think that your protections have been violated by our office, you have the right to file a formal, written complaint with office and with the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Civil Rights.  We will not retaliate against you for filing a complaint. 

Feel free to contact the clinic over the phone at 512 818 9892 or in writing using the patient portal.