THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW HEALTH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU OR YOUR CHILD MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY. THE PRIVACY OF YOUR HEALTH INFORMATION IS IMPORTANT TO US.

 

OUR LEGAL DUTY:

We are required by applicable federal and state law to maintain the privacy of your health information. We are also required to give you this Notice about our privacy practices, our legal duties, and your rights concerning your health information. We must follow the privacy practices that are described in this notice while it is in effect. This notice takes effect January 20, 2015, and will remain in effect until we replace it.

We reserve the right to change our privacy practices and the terms of this Notice at any time, provided such changes are permitted by applicable law. We reserve the right to make changes in our Notice effective for all health information that we maintain, including health information we created or received before we made the changes. Before we make a significant change in our privacy practices, we will change this Notice and make the new Notice Available upon request.  Changes will be posted on our website with the revision date accordingly. 

You may request a copy of our Notice at any time. For more information about our privacy practices, or additional copies of this Notice, please contact us using the information listed at the end of this notice.

 

USES AND DISCLOSURES OF HEALTH INFORMATION:

We use and disclose health information about you for your treatment, payment, and health care operations. For example:

Portal Account: Information is collected to set up your private account for documentation and information in the secure portal.  This portal is only accessible to administration in the team. 

Scheduling:  Information collected is used to schedule appointments for assessment or treatment sessions.

 

  Website Visitors:  We are committed to the right to privacy for our patients and visitors.  When a person visits   

  our website, we may collect and track data from our site’s server.  This information helps us improve the  

  content of our site. Data collected may include how long you spend on our site, the pages you visit, your 

  browser and operating system types, and the name of your internet provider. Data may also be gathered from 

  Google to enhance user experience and gather insights into website usage.  Our site has a google maps feature 

  but does not collect personal information. 

 

 Children’s Privacy: While our services cater to healthcare needs of children, our website is not specifically 

 designed for children or minors.  The primary audience for our website is intended to be parents, guardians, or 

individuals over 18.  We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. Parents or guardians should contact us if they believe we have inadvertently collected information from a child.  We are committed to ensuring the privacy and protection of children online and encourage parents to engage in their children’s online activities.    

Treatment: We may use and disclose your health information to a physician or other health care provider providing treatment to you.

Payment: We may use and disclose your health information to obtain payment services we provide to you.

Health Care Operations: We may use and disclose your health information in connection with our health care operations and your insurance carrier(s). Health care operations include quality assessment and improvement activities, reviewing the competence of qualification of health care professionals, evaluating practitioner performance, conducting training programs, accreditation, certification, licensing, and credential activities.

Your Authorization: In addition to our use of your health information for treatment, payment or health care operations you may give us written authorization to use your health information or to disclose it to anyone for any purpose. If you give us an authorization, you may revoke it in writing at any time. Your revocation will not affect any use of disclosures permitted by your authorization while it was in effect.

Unless you give us written authorization, we cannot use or disclose your health information for any reason except those described in this Notice

To Family Members: We may disclose your health information to you as described in the Patient Rights section of this Notice. We may disclose your health information to a family, member, friend or other person to the extent necessary to help with your health care or with payment for your health care, but only if you agree that we may do so.

Persons Involved in Care: We may use or disclose health information to notify or assist in the notification of (including identifying or locating) a family member, your personal representative or another person responsible for your care, or your location, your general condition, or death. If you are present, then prior to use or disclosure of your health information, we will provide you with an opportunity to object to such uses and disclosures. In the event of your incapability or emergency circumstances, we will disclose health information based on a determination using our professional judgment disclosing only health information that is directly relevant to the person’s involvement in your health care. We will also use our professional judgment and our experience with common practice to make reasonable inferences of your best interest in allowing a person to pick up filled prescriptions, medical supplies, x- rays or other similar forms of health information.

Marketing Health-Related Services: We will not use your health information for marketing communications without your written authorization.

Required by Law: We may use or disclose your health information what we are required to do so by law.

Abuse or Neglect: We may disclose your health information to appropriate authorities if we reasonably believe that you are a possible victim of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence or the possible victim of other crimes. We may not disclose your health information to the extent necessary to avert a serious threat to your health or safety or the health or safety of others.

National Security: We may disclose to military authorities the health information of Armed Forces personnel under certain circumstances. We may disclose to authorized federal officials health

required for lawful intelligence, counterintelligence, and other national security activities. We may disclose to a correctional institution or law enforcement official having lawful custody of protected health information of an inmate or patient under certain circumstances.

Appointment Reminders: We may use or disclose your health information to provide you with appointment reminders (such as voice mail message messages, postcards, or letters).

 

PATIENT RIGHTS:

Access: you have the right to inspect and obtain a copy of your protected health information, with limited exceptions. If you request a copy of your information, we may charge you a fee for the costs of copying, mailing, or other costs incurred by us because of complying with your request. Requests for access to your protected health information must be made in writing.

Disclosure Accounting: You have the right to receive a list of instances in which we or our business associates disclosed your health information for purposes, other than treatment, payment, health care operations and certain other activities, for the last 6 years, but not before January 20, 2015. You must make your request in writing. If you request this accounting more than once in a 12-month period, we may charge you a reasonable, cost-based fee responding to these additional requests. You have the right to obtain a paper copy of this Privacy Summary Notice as well as the Full Privacy Notice.

Restriction: You have the right to request that we place additional restrictions on our use or disclosure of your health information. We are not required to agree to these additional restrictions, but if we do, we will abide by our agreement (except in an emergency). You must make your request in writing.

Alternative Communication: You have the right to request that we communicate with you about your health information by alternative means or to alternate locations. (You must make your request in writing.) Your requests must specify the alternative means or location and provide satisfactory explanation will be handled under the alternative means location you request.

Amendment: You have the right to request that we amend your health information. Your request must be in writing, and it must explain why the information should be amended. We may deny your request under certain circumstances.

Right to Express Complaints: You have the right to express complaints to us and to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services if you believe that your privacy right has been violated. If you wish to complain to us, you must do so in writing and direct your complaint to the Privacy Leader.

 

QUESTIONS AND COMPLAINTS:

If you want more information about our privacy practices, or have questions or concerns, please contact us.

If you are concerned that we may have violated your privacy rights, or disagree with a decision we made access to your health information or in response to a request you made to amend or restrict the use or disclosure of your health information or to us communicate with you by alternative means or at alternative locations, you may complain to us using the contact information listed at the end of this Notice. You also may submit a written complaint to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services upon request.

We support your right to privacy of your health information. You will not be penalized in any way if you choose to file a complaint with us and/or with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

For more information about HIPAA or to file a complaint: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights 200 Independence Avenue, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20201 877-696-6775.

Pathways Behavioral Consulting, LLC 

2472 Jett Ferry Road, Suite 400-197

Atlanta, Georgia 30338

Phone 678-691-2206