Important Information for Our Clients: Notice of Privacy Practices (NPP)

 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.

EMERGE Family Therapy Center & Teaching Clinic (EMERGE FTC) understands the importance of privacy and we are committed to maintaining the confidentiality of your protected health information. We make a record of the care we provide and may receive such records from others. We use these records to provide or enable health care providers to provide quality care, to obtain payment for services provided to you as allowed by your health plan, and to enable us to meet our professional and legal obligations to operate our therapy practice properly. We are required by law to maintain the privacy of protected health information, to provide individuals with notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to protected health information, and to notify affected individuals following a breach of unsecured protected health information. This notice describes how we may use and disclose your health information. It also describes your rights and our legal obligations with respect to your protected information. If you have any questions about this Notice, please contact our front desk and request to speak with our Privacy Officer.

I.        How Our Practice May Use or Disclose Your Health Information

Our Practice collects health information about you and stores it in your chart, as well as limited health information on a computer. This is your therapy record. The therapy record is the property of our Practice, but the information contained in the therapy record belongs to you. The law permits us to use or disclose your health information for the following purposes:

1.        Treatment. We use information about you to provide your therapy care. We may disclose information to our employees and others who are involved in providing the care you need. For example, we may share your therapy information with physicians, attorneys, social workers, or other providers who offer services that we do not provide. We may also disclose medical information to members of your family or others who can help you when you are sick or injured, or after you die. All student therapists, interns, supervisors, faculty and staff must sign confidentiality agreements promising not to look at or disclose clinical information except as a part of their regular duties. All therapy files and client information are stored in locked files in locked offices. In supervision, students and interns seek to protect the identity of the client and discuss only the minimum necessary information for consultation and training purposes. In consultation with other professionals, all therapists and supervisors release only the minimum necessary information. In the event a client participates in a research project, the research team abides by the same privacy practices.

2.        Payment. We may use and disclose information about you to obtain payment for the services we provide. For example, if you are using a health plan, we give your health plan the information it requires before it will pay us. We may also disclose information to other health care providers to assist them in obtaining payment for services they have provided to you.

3.        Health Care Operations. We may use and disclose information about you to operate our Practice. For example, we may use and disclose this information to review and improve the quality of care we provide, or the competence and qualifications of our professional staff. Or we may use and disclose this information to get your health plan to authorize services or referrals. We may also use and disclose this information as necessary for clinic reviews, legal services and audits, including fraud and abuse detection and compliance programs and business planning and management. We may also share your information with our “business associates,” such as our practice management and billing service. We have a written contract with each of these business associates that contains terms requiring them and their subcontractors to protect the confidentiality and security of your protected health information. We may also share your information with other health care providers, health care clearinghouses or health plans that have a relationship with you, when they request this information to help them with their quality assessment and improvement activities, their patient-safety activities, their population-based efforts to improve health or reduce health care costs, their protocol development, case management or care- coordination activities, their review of competence, qualifications and performance of health care professionals, their training programs, their accreditation, certification or licensing activities, or their health care fraud and abuse detection compliance efforts.

4.        Appointment Reminders. We may use and disclose your information to contact and remind you about appointments. We may leave this information on a voicemail if you have indicated we are allowed to do so.

5.        Notification and Communication with Family. We may disclose your health information to notify or assist in notifying a family member, your personal representative, or another person responsible for your care about your general condition or, unless you have instructed us otherwise, in the event of your death. In the event of a natural disaster, we may use and disclose information to a relief organization so that they may coordinate these notification efforts. We may also disclose information to someone who is involved with your care or helps pay for your care. If you are able and available to agree or object, we will give you the opportunity to object prior to making these disclosures, although we may disclose this information in a disaster even over your objection if we believe it is necessary to respond to the emergency circumstances. If you are unable or unavailable to agree or object, our health professionals will use their best judgment in communications with your family and others.

6.        Required by Law. As required by law, we will use and disclose your health information, but we will limit use or disclosure to the relevant requirements of the law. When the law requires us to report abuse, neglect or domestic violence, or respond to judicial or administrative proceedings, or to law enforcement officials, we will further comply with the requirements set forth below concerning those activities.

7.        Public Health. We may, and are sometimes required by law, to disclose your health information to public health authorities for purposes related to preventing or controlling disease, injury or disability; reporting child, elder or dependent adult abuse or neglect; and reporting disease or infection exposure. When we report suspected elder or dependent adult abuse, we will inform you or your personal representative promptly unless in our best professional judgment, we believe the notification would place you at risk of serious harm or would require informing a personal representative we believe is responsible for the abuse or harm.

8.        Health Oversight Activities. We may, and are sometimes required by law, to disclose your health information to health oversight agencies during the course of audits, investigations, inspections, licensure and other proceedings, subject to the limitation imposed by law.

9.        Judicial and Administrative Proceedings. We may, and are sometimes required by law, to disclose your health information in the course of any administrative or judicial proceeding to the extent expressly authorized by a court or administrative order. We may also disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, discovery request or other lawful process if reasonable efforts have been made to notify you of the request and you have not objected, or if your objections have been resolved by a court or administrative order.

10.    Law Enforcement. We may, and are sometimes required by law, to disclose your health information to a law enforcement official for purposes such as identifying or locating a suspect, fugitive, material witness or missing person, complying with a court order, warrant, grand jury subpoena and other law enforcement purposes.

11.    Coroners. We may, and are often required by law, to disclose your health information to coroners in connection with their investigations of deaths.

12.    Organ or Tissue Donation. We may disclose your health information to organizations involved in procuring, banking, or transplanting organs and tissues.

13.    Public Safety. We may, and are sometimes required by law, to disclose your health information to appropriate persons in order to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of a particular person in the general public.

14.    Specialized Government Functions. We may disclose your health information for military or national security purposes or to correctional institutions or law enforcement officers that have you in their lawful custody.

15.    Change of Ownership. In the event that this therapy practice is sold or merged with another organization, your health information and record will become the property of the new owner, although you will maintain the right to request that copies of your health information be transferred to another physician or medical group.

I. Our Practice Will Not Use or Disclose Your Health Information

Except as described in this Notice of Privacy Practices, our Practice will not, consistent with its legal obligations, use or disclose health information which identifies you without your written authorization. If you do authorize this Practice to use or disclose your health information for another purpose, you may revoke your authorization in writing at any time. We protect your personal information in several ways.

II.      SMS Consent and Terms & Conditions

If you consent to receive SMS from EMERGE FTC, you agree to receive messages for appointment scheduling, appointment reminders, and billing notifications SMS from your therapist at EMERGE FTC. Reply STOP to opt-out; Reply HELP for support or contact our office at (864) 583-1010; Message & data rates may apply; Messaging frequency may vary. SMS consent and phone numbers are not shared with any third parties/affiliates for marketing purposes. Privacy Policy available on our website at https://www.emergeftc.org/privacy-policy

III.    Your Health Information Rights

1.        Right to Copy of Notice Privacy Practices. You have a right to receive a copy of our Notice of Privacy Practices.

2.        Right to Access, Inspect, and Copy. You have the right to access, inspect, and copy your health information with limited exceptions. To access your therapy information, you must submit a written request detailing what information you want access to, and whether you want to inspect it or get a copy of it. We will also send a copy of your health information to another person whom you designate in writing. We will charge a reasonable fee which covers our costs for labor, supplies, postage, and if requested and agreed to in advance, the cost of preparing an explanation or summary. We may deny your request under limited circumstances. If we deny your request to access your child’s records or the records of an incapacitated adult you are representing because we believe allowing access would be reasonably likely to cause substantial harm to the patient, you will have a right to appeal our decision.

3.        Right to Amend or Supplement. You have the right to request that we amend your health information that you believe is incorrect or incomplete. You must make a request to amend in writing and include the reasons you believe the information is inaccurate or incomplete. We are not required to change your health information and will provide you with information about our Practice’s denial and how you can disagree with the denial. We may deny your request if we do not have the information, if we did not create the information (the person or entity that created the information is no longer available to make the amendment), if you would not be permitted to inspect or copy the information at issue, or if the information is accurate and complete as is. If we deny your request, you may submit a written statement of your disagreement with that decision, and we may, in turn, prepare a written

rebuttal. All information related to any request to amend will be maintained and disclosed in conjunction with any subsequent disclosure of the disputed health information.

4.        Right to an Accounting of Disclosures. You have a right to receive an accounting of all disclosures of your health information made by our Practice, except: we do not have to account for disclosures provided to you, or disclosures made pursuant to Paragraph 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, or 14 of Section I of this Notice of Privacy Practices or disclosures for purposes of research or public health which exclude direct patient identifiers, or which are incident to a use or disclosure otherwise permitted or authorized bylaw.

5.        Right to Request Special Privacy Protections. You have the right to request restrictions on certain uses and disclosures of your health information by a written request specifying what information you want to limit, and what limitations on our use or disclosure of that information you wish to have imposed. If you tell us not to disclose information to your commercial health plan concerning health care items or services for which you paid for in full out-of-pocket, we will abide by your request unless we must disclose this information for treatment or legal reasons. We reserve the right to accept or reject any other request, and will notify you of our decision.

6.        Right to Request Alternative Channels of Communications. You have the right to request that you receive your health information in a specific way or at a specific location. For example, you may ask that we send information to a particular address. We will comply with all reasonable requests submitted in writing which specify how or where you wish to receive these communications.

IV.    Changes to Notice of Privacy Practices

We reserve the right to amend or revise this Notice of Privacy Practices at any time in the future. Until such amendment or revision is made, we are required by law to comply with the terms of this Notice currently in effect. After an amendment or revision is made, the revised Notice Privacy Practices will apply to all protected health information that we maintain, regardless of when it was created or received. A copy of the revised Notice will be available at each appointment and will be posted in our main reception area.

V. Complaints

Complaints about this Notice of Privacy Practices or how our Practice handles your health information should be directed to our Privacy Officer:   OJ Taylor, Privacy/Security Officer                                                                                                                                                                                                           138 Dillon Drive, Spartanburg, SC 29307                                                                                                                                                                                           Telephone: 864-583-1010