Patient Confidentiality Information

Notice of Privacy Practices

Gorham EMS members pride themselves on offering the highest quality patient care with the utmost confidentiality.  Below outlines our confidentiality statement.  Anyone with questions should contact our office.   

Important:  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.

Gorham Emergency Medical Services is required by law to maintain the privacy of certain confidential health care information, known as Protected Health Information (PHI), and to provide you with a notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to your PHI.  Gorham Emergency Medical Services is also required to abide by the terms of the version of this Notice currently in effect.

Uses and Disclosures of PHI: Gorham EMS may use PHI for the purposes of treatment, payment, and health care operations, in most cases without your written permission.  Examples of our use of your PHI:

For treatment.  This includes such things as obtaining verbal and written information about your medical condition and treatment from you as well as from others, such as doctors and nurses who give orders to allow us to provide treatment to you.  We may give your PHI to other health care providers involved in your treatment, and may transfer your PHI via radio or telephone to the hospital.

For payment.  This includes any activities we must undertake in order to get reimbursed for services we provide to you, including submitting bills to insurance companies, management of billed claims for services rendered, medical necessity determinations and reviews, utilization review, and collection of outstanding accounts.

For health care operations.  This includes quality assurance activities, licensing, and training programs to ensure that our personnel meet our standards of care and follow established policies and procedures, as well as certain other management functions.

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

• For the treatment, payment or health care operations activities of another health care provider who treats you
• For health care and legal compliance activities
• To a family member, other relative, or close personal friend or other individual involved in your care if we obtain your verbal agreement to do so or if we give you an opportunity to object to such a disclosure and you do not raise an objection.  We may also disclose health information to your family, relatives, or friends if we infer from the circumstances that you would not object; and in certain other circumstances where we are unable to obtain your agreement and believe the disclosure is in your best interest.
• To a public health authority in certain situations as required by law (such as to report abuse, neglect or domestic violence;
• For health oversight activities including audits or government investigations, inspections, disciplinary proceedings, and other administrative or judicial actions undertaken by the government (or their contractors) by law to oversee the health care system;
• For judicial and administrative proceedings as required by a court or administrative order, or in some cases in response to a subpoena or other legal process;
• For law enforcement activities in limited situations, such as when responding to a warrant, or when the information is needed to locate a suspect or stop a crime;
• For military, national defense and security and other special government functions;
• To avert a serious threat to the health and safety of a person or the public at large;
• For workers’ compensation purposes, and in compliance with workers’ compensation laws;
• To coroners, medical examiners, and funeral directors for identifying a deceased person, determining cause by death, or carrying on their duties as authorized by law;
• If you are an organ donor, we may release health information to organizations that handle organ procurement or organ, eye or tissue transplantation or to an organ donation bank, as necessary to facilitate organ donation and transplantation;
• For research projects, but this will be subject to strict oversight and approvals and health information will be released only when there is a minimal risk to your privacy and adequate safeguards are in place in accordance with the law;
• We may use or disclose health information about you in a way that does not personally identify you or reveal who you are.

Any other use or disclosure of PHI, other than those listed above will only be made with your written authorization. You may revoke your authorization at any time, in writing, except to the extent that we have already used or disclosed medical information in reliance on that authorization.

Patients Rights:  As a patient, you have a number of rights with respect to your PHI, including:

The right to access, copy or inspect your PHI.

This means you may inspect and copy most of the medical information about you that we maintain.  We will normally provide you with access to this information within 30 days of your request.  We may also charge you a reasonable fee for you to copy any medical information that you have the right to access.  In limited circumstances, we may deny you access to your medical information, and you may appeal certain types of denials.  We have available forms to request access to your PHI and we will provide a written response if we deny you access and let you know your appeal rights.  You also have the right to receive confidential communications of your PHI.   If you wish to inspect and copy your medical information, you should contact our privacy officer.

The right to amend your PHI.  You have the right to ask us to amend written medical information that we may have about you.  We will generally amend your information within 60 days of your request and will notify you when we have amended the information.  We are permitted by law to deny your request to amend your medical information only in certain circumstances, like when we believe the information you have asked us to amend is correct.  If you wish to request that we amend the medical information that we have about you, you should contact the privacy officer listed at the end of this Notice.

The right to request an accounting of our use and disclosure of your PHI.  You may request an accounting from us of certain disclosures of your medical information that we have made in the last six years prior to the date of your request.  We are not required to give you an accounting of information we have used or disclosed for purposes of treatment, payment or health care operations, or when we share your health information with our business associates, like our billing company or a medical facility from/to which we have transported you.

We are also not required to give you an accounting of our uses of protected health information for which you have already given us written authorization.  If you wish to request an accounting of the medical information about you that we have used or disclosed that is not exempted from the accounting requirement, you should contact the privacy officer listed at the end of this Notice.

The right to request that we restrict the uses and disclosures of your PHI. You have the right to request that we restrict how we use and disclose your medical information that we have about you for treatment, payment or health care operations, or to restrict the information that is provided to family, friends and other individuals involved in your health care.  But if you request a restriction and the information you asked us to restrict is needed to provide you with emergency treatment, then we may use the PHI or disclose the PHI to a health care provider to provide you with emergency treatment.  Gorham EMS is not required to agree to any restrictions you request, but any restrictions agreed to by Gorham EMS are binding on Gorham EMS. 

Internet, Electronic Mail, and the Right to Obtain Copy of Paper Notice on Request.  If we maintain a web site, we will prominently post a copy of this Notice on our web site and make the Notice available electronically through the web site.  If you allow us, we will forward you this Notice by electronic mail instead of on paper and you may always request a paper copy of the Notice.

Revisions to the Notice:  Gorham EMS reserves the right to change the terms of this Notice at any time, and the changes will be effective immediately and will apply to all protected health information that we maintain.   Any material changes to the Notice will be promptly posted in our facilities and posted to our web site, if we maintain one.  You can get a copy of the latest version of this Notice by contacting the Privacy Officer identified below.

Your Legal Rights and Complaints:  You also have the right to complain to us, or to the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, if you believe your privacy rights have been violated. You will not be retaliated against in any way for filing a complaint with us or to the government. 

Should you have any questions, comments or complaints you may direct all inquiries to the privacy officer listed at the end of this Notice. 

Privacy Officer:

                                Karen Eichler, Privacy Officer