Patient confidentiality, simply stated, is your right to have your personal, identifiable medical information kept private. Our team takes patient privacy and confidentiality seriously. Our providers and staff are regularly trained about confidentiality and privacy practices and apply these on a daily basis.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act – or HIPAA as it is better known – was enacted in 1996 to ensure that employees would continue to receive health insurance coverage when they were between jobs. HIPAA has expanded over the years to include requiring healthcare organizations to apply rules to secure patient’s protected health information (PHI) to prevent healthcare fraud and added standards to improve efficiency in healthcare, requiring healthcare organizations to reduce paperwork.
Please review our Notice of Privacy Practices and Patient Rights and Responsibilities form. In order to protect your PHI, we will ask for your written authorization if you want us to disclose your PHI to a significant other, family member, close friend or caregiver or to another organization not engaged in your treatment, payment or healthcare operations other than that which is exempted by law.
Also related to privacy and confidentiality, our team has adopted a best-practice Chaperone policy. We now have a medical professional chaperone all sensitive exams (such as rectal exam or breast exam) to protect patients and healthcare clinicians while supporting the professional environment of the exam.