Notice of Privacy Practices
THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW YOUR MEDICAL INFORMATION MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION, YOUR RIGHTS CONCERNING YOUR HEALTH INFORMATION AND OUR RESPONSIBILITIES TO PROTECT YOUR HEALTH INFORMATION.
PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.
СƵ of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (“СƵ”) is committed to protecting health information about you. We create a record of services you receive at СƵ for use in your care and treatment. СƵ documents your health information in records that will be maintained in a confidential manner, as required by law. СƵ, their professional staff, employees, and volunteers and all affiliated entities follow the privacy practices described in this Notice. However, СƵ must use and disclose your health information to the extent necessary to provide you with quality health care.
The Purpose of this Notice
This Notice tells you about the uses and disclosures that we make with your health information, certain rights that you have, and obligations that we are bound to with respect to such information. We care about the privacy and confidentiality of your health information. We have developed policies, created procedures, and taken other steps to help keep your health information confidential. This Notice give a summary of those steps, explains your privacy rights, and shares phone numbers and addresses you can use to ask questions or make requests.
Who Will Follow This Notice?
This Notice describes СƵ’s privacy practices, as well as the privacy practices of: (a) all component departments, sections, schools, and units of СƵ; (b) all employees, staff, and other СƵ personnel; and (c) any resident, fellow, or student we train in dental, medical, nursing, or allied health services. The entire workforce in these entities, sites, and locations follow the terms of this Notice. In addition, these entities, sites, and locations may share health information with each other to further the treatment, payment, and health care operation activities described in this Notice.
Our Duties. We are required by law to:
- Make sure health information that identifies you is kept private;
- Let you know promptly if a breach occurs that may compromise the privacy or security of your information;
- Give you this Notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to your health information; and
- Follow the terms of this Notice as long as it is in effect. If we revise this Notice, we will follow the terms of the revised Notice as long as the revised Notice is in effect.
We May Use and Disclose Your Health Information Electronically
We use an electronic health record system to manage your medical information. We may create, receive, maintain, and disclose your health information in electronic format.
We may communicate with you through email, text messages, phone calls, and patient portals. Communications within the patient portals are secure. Emails, text messages, or other electronic communications outside of the СƵ patient portal may not be encrypted or secure and could be read or otherwise accessed by another person or organization. We will assume that you understand these risks if you initiate electronic communication with us outside of a patient portal or agree to receive communications from us in a non-secure format.
EXPLANATION OF USES AND DISCLOSURES OF HEALTH INFORMATION:
How We May Use and Disclose Health Information About You.
The following categories describe different ways that we use and disclose health information. For each category of uses or disclosures we will explain what we mean, and we may provide an example. Not every use or disclosure in a category will be listed. However, all the ways СƵ is permitted to use and disclose information will fall within one of the boldface print categories, below.
- For Treatment. We may use health information about you to provide medical or dental treatment or other services. We may disclose health information about you to dentists, physicians, nurses, technicians, therapists, residents, students, or other personnel who are involved in your care. We may also disclose health information about you to people outside СƵ who may be involved in your health care such as physicians who will provide follow-up care. For example, your physician may share information about your condition with your pharmacist to discuss appropriate medications, or other radiologists or other consultants to make a diagnosis. A СƵ clinician may, while referring you to another health care provider outside of СƵ, disclose your health information to that provider.
- Appointment Reminders and Routine Instructions: We may contact you to provide appointment reminders through MyChart, text message, phone, email, or mail. We may send automated texts or phone calls to contact you for certain routine purposes (for example, appointment reminders, pre-registration instructions, pre-operative instructions, lab results, post-discharge follow-up, prescription instructions, and other treatment-related instructions). By giving us your phone number or email address, we presume that you have consented to be contacted at that number or email address.
- Health Information Exchanges: We participate in electronic Health Information Exchanges (HIEs). HIEs allow your participating health care providers to electronically share certain information from your health records. For example, if you go to a hospital emergency room, that hospital may be able to access parts of your СƵ electronic health record so it can treat you more safely and efficiently. We will allow your health records to be seen by other participating providers unless you inform us that you do not want other participating providers to see your health records.
- Outside Health Care Providers: We may communicate with your referring and follow-up providers and with post-acute care facilities to which you may be transferred, keeping them informed about your care.
- Sensitive Information: Your health record may contain information about your HIV status, sexually transmitted diseases, mental health, genetic makeup, and/or substance abuse treatment. We may need to share this information with your other treating providers so they can treat you safely and effectively. When required by law, we will ask for your written permission before sharing this information with your other treating providers.
- Treatment Alternatives: We may contact you with information about treatment alternatives or other health-related benefits or services that may be of interest to you.
- For Payment. We may use and disclose health information about you so that the treatment and services you receive at СƵ may be billed, and payment collected from you, your insurance company, your managed care company, or a third party. We may also tell your health plan about a treatment you are going to receive to obtain prior approval.
- For Health Care Operations. We may use and disclose health information about you for СƵ operations. These uses and disclosures are necessary to run СƵ, to make sure that all our patients receive quality care, and for СƵ education and other teaching programs.
- Case Management and Care Coordination: We may use and disclose your health information for case management and care coordination to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of care delivered by us.
- Customer Service and Data Analysis: We may use and disclose your health information to review and help improve our patient satisfaction and customer service levels, and for internal data analyses.
- Fundraising: We may use and disclose limited portions of your health information for our fundraising activities to support СƵ’s mission to provide health care, research, education, and community engagement. This information allows us to be more specific with our fundraising efforts. You may opt out of fundraising communications by requesting to be removed from our fundraising database by visiting . Instructions on how to stop receiving future fundraising communications will also be included on each fundraising solicitation.
- MyChart: СƵ provides patients with a secure, online portals to view health records and appointments, communicate with health care providers, and provide information about services available. We use information from your health record, including your demographic information, to provide this service.
- Quality Improvement and Review of Resources and Staff: We may use and disclose your health information to improve the quality of care we provide (for example, for conducting quality assessments, reviewing the qualifications and competence of our medical staff, and selecting, educating, and training our employees and staff).
- Risk Management, Legal Services, Compliance, and Audit Functions: We may use and disclose your health information to facilitate risk management efforts, legal reviews, compliance programs, accreditation processes, licensing and credentialing services, and audit functions.
- Security: We may use or disclose your health information to provide security at СƵ facilities. For example, we use security cameras and share limited health information with СƵ Police Officers, as necessary, for security purposes.
- Social Media: СƵ participates in several online public social media sites. If you or others choose to share your health information on our online social media sites, this information is considered to be public and not protected by privacy laws and may be reposted or shared by СƵ, or others. If you do not want your health information to be public, you should not share it on online public social media sites.
- To Business Associates for Treatment, Payment, and Health Care Operations. There are some services that we provide through contracts with business associates. We may disclose health information about you to one of our business associates to carry out treatment, payment, or health care operations. We require these business associates to protect your privacy in the same manner we do.
- To Individuals Involved in Your Care or Payment for Your Care. To the extent allowed by law and how you direct us, we may release health information about you to a family member, other relative, or close, personal friend who is involved in your health care if the health information released is directly relevant to such person’s involvement with your care. If permitted by law, we may also release information to someone who helps pay for your care. In addition, we may disclose health information about you to an entity assisting in a disaster relief effort so that your family can be notified about your location and general condition.
- Directory Information. If you do not object, we may disclose your location and your general condition to people who ask about you by name. We may also share your name and religious affiliation with members of the clergy, even if they do not ask for you by name.
We May Use and Disclose Your Health Information Without Your Written Authorization as Required or Permitted by Law. We will disclose health information