HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act. This act, approved by Congress in 1996, provides patients with
uniform access to their medical records and more control over how their
personal health information is used and disclosed. It also requires
health care providers to safeguard the security and confidentiality of
medical records. Full information about the Act is provided on the US Department of Health & Human Services, Office of Civil Rights web site.
Our office has taken all required steps to be in compliance with HIPAA
regulations. We have adopted a privacy plan and trained our employees
on its procedures. We have identified an employee who is responsible
for ensuring that the procedures are implemented and up-to-date with
current regulations. We have adopted an Electronic Medical Records
(EMR) system that is certified in compliance with the Act. In short, we
take our obligations very seriously.
An important aspect of HIPAA is patient notification. When you first
visit our offices, you will be asked to read and acknowledge receiving
a copy of the following guidelines. Please read them carefully and feel
free to ask any questions about how your child's medical records will
be maintained.
Please read our complete Notice of Privacy Practices for complete details related to privacy of Protected Health Information (PHI).
Our office is committed to protecting our patients’ privacy. The
confidentiality of our patients is of greatest concern to our physician
and employees alike. Our Privacy Notice details how our practice
collects, handles, and protects personal information about our
patients. This policy is offered on your first visit to our office,
upon request (oral or written), and is also available for viewing on
our web site (linked here).
We will review this policy on an annual basis and monitor our
compliance with this policy. Should it be necessary to revise this
policy more often due to circumstances, we will do so in a timely
fashion. Our policy may be changed without notice.
Some of the information we collect and maintain includes:
* Past medical history
* Review of Systems
* History of the present illness/complaint
* Family and social history
* Drug, Alcohol, Tobacco use
* Medications and allergies
* Insurance and billing information
* Patient demographics (although some information may be in the public
domain, i.e. address and phone number listed in phone books)
Information we may disclose and purpose
No PHI will be released without proper written consent from the patient
or parent or guardian of the minor patient, except as outlined and
provided in our Notice of Privacy Practices
or unless the request is made from another healthcare provider during
an emergency (per Texas Board of Medicine rules and regulations).
Any privacy issue complaints should be directed to the
Privacy Officer
. If satisfaction is not received, the patient may notify the Department of Health & Human Services, Office of Civil Rights.
We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.