Privacy practices policy: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

The privacy of your health information is important to us. We are required by federal and state laws to protect the privacy of your health information. We must give you the Policy of our legal duties and privacy practices concerning your health information, including:

• We must protect information that we have created or received about your past, present, or future health condition, health care we provide to you, or payment for your health care.
• We must notify you about how we protect your health information.
• We must explain how, when and why we use or disclose your health information.
• We may only use or disclose your health information as we have described in this Policy.
• We must abide by the terms of this Policy.
• We are required to abide by the terms of this Policy.

We reserve the right to change the terms of this Policy and to make new Policy provisions effective for all health information that we maintain. We will post a revised Policy in our offices, make copies available to you upon request and post the revised Policy on our website.

There are a number of purposes for which it may be necessary for us to use or disclose your health information. For some of these purposes, we are required to obtain your consent. In other specific instances, we may be required to obtain your individual authorization. And in a limited number of circumstances, we will be authorized by Law to disclose your health information without your consent or authorization. Following is a description of these uses and disclosures.

A. Uses and disclosures of your health information for purposes of treatment, payment and health care operations.

• Health care treatment. We may use or disclose health information about you to provide, coordinate and manage your health care and any related services. This may include communicating with other health care providers regarding your treatment and coordinating and managing the delivery of health services with others. For example, we may use or disclose health information about you when you need a prescription, lab work, an x-ray, or other health care services.
• Payment. We may use or disclose your health information to bill and collect payment for the treatment and services provided to you. For example: A bill may be sent to you or a third party payer. The information on, or accompanying the bill may include information that identifies you, as well as your diagnosis, procedures and supplies used.
• Health care operations. We may use or disclose, as-needed, your protected health information in order to support the business activities of The City of Bloomington. These activities include, but are not limited to, quality assessment activities, employee review activities, training of nursing students, licensing, and conducting or arranging for other business activities.
  We will share your protected health information with third party “business associates” that perform various activities (e.g., billing, transcription services) for the City of Bloomington.
• Minnesota Patient Consent for Disclosures.
  For some of the disclosures of health information described above, we are required by Minnesota Laws to obtain a written consent from you, unless the disclosure is authorized by law.

B. Uses and disclosures of your health information that require your opportunity to agree or object.

In the following instances we will provide you with the opportunity to agree or object to our use or disclosure of your health information:

• Persons involved in your care. We may disclose to a family member, other relative, close personal friend or any other person identified by you, health information relevant to that person's involvement in your care or payment related to your care.
• Notification to others. We may, in some instances, disclose health information about you to a family member, a personal representative, or another person responsible for your care, in order to notify such person about your current location or general condition.
• Disaster relief and emergencies. We may use or disclose your protected health information to an authorized public or private entity to assist in disaster relief efforts or in an emergency treatment situation.
• Communication barriers. We may use and disclose your protected health information when the City of Bloomington is unable to obtain a consent due to a communication barrier and if in our best judgment you intend to consent.

C. Uses and disclosures authorized by law.

We may use and/or disclose protected health information about you without your permission in some situations. In these situations, you will not be asked to give your consent and you will not have an opportunity to agree or object. Those situations include:

• Required by Law. We may use or disclose your protected health information if the federal, state or local laws require us to do so. We may also disclose your protected health information if judicial or administrative proceedings require us to do so.
• Legal Proceedings. We may disclose your protected health information if we are court-ordered to do so; for example, in response to a subpoena, discovery request or for another lawful purpose.
• Public Health activities. We may disclose protected health information about you if you have been exposed to a communicable disease. We also may disclose protected health information if you may be at risk of contracting or spreading a disease or condition.
• Health Oversight activities. We may disclose protected health information about you to a state or federal health agency, which is authorized to monitor our operations.
• Abuse or neglect. We may make disclosures to government authorities concerning abuse, neglect or domestic violence. This includes both adult and child protection.
• Law enforcement. By law, we may disclose protected health information about you in certain situations. Examples include: if you have certain types of wounds or other physical injuries; if you are a victim of a crime; to identify you; or in other situations where we are required by law to do so.
• Coroners, funeral directors, and organ donation. We may disclose protected health information about you to a coroner or medical examiner to identify you, determine your cause of death or for other reasons as required by law. We may also disclose to a funeral director.
• Threat to health or safety. We may disclose protected health information about you to prevent a threat to the health or safety of a person or the public.
• Military activity and national security. We may disclose protected health information about you because of military and veterans’ activities or national security and intelligence activities as required by law.
• Workers’ Compensation. We may disclose your protected health information to comply with Workers’ Compensation laws.
• Correctional institutions and in other law enforcement custodial situations. We may disclose protected health information about you to a prison, jail or other institution having lawful custody of you.

D. Uses and disclosures of your health information that require your authorization.

We will ask for your written consent before we use or disclose protected health information about you in other situations not listed above. If you sign a written consent allowing us to disclose protected health information about you, you can later cancel that consent if you do so in writing. If you cancel your consent in writing, we will not disclose protected health information about you after we receive that cancellation. Any disclosures that were being processed before we received your cancellation may still be disclosed.

A. Right to access and copy your health information.

You have the right to access and receive a copy or a summary of your health information contained in clinical, billing and other records that we maintain and use to make decisions about you. We ask that your request be made in writing. We may charge a reasonable fee. There might be limited situations in which we may deny your request. Under these situations, we will respond to you in writing, stating why we cannot grant your request and describing your rights to request a review of our denial.

B. Right to request an amendment of your health information.

If you believe that there is a mistake or missing information in our records of your protected health information, you may request, in writing, that we amend the record. We will respond within 60 days of receiving your request. We may deny the request if we determine that the protected health information is:

1. correct and complete;
2. not created by us and/or not part of our records; or
3. not permitted to be disclosed. We will make that denial in writing. The denial letter will state the reasons for denial and explain your rights to have your request and the denial added to your protected health information. If we approve your request for amendment, we will change the information, inform you about the change, and tell others who need to know about the change.

C. Right to request restrictions on uses and disclosures of your health information.

You have the right to request that we limit how we use and disclose your protected health information. You must make the request in writing and tell the City of Bloomington what information you want to limit and to whom you want the limits to apply. You can later request that the restrictions be terminated. You can do this in writing or verbally.
We will consider your request, but are not legally bound to agree to the restriction. If we do agree to these restrictions, we agree to abide by them except in emergency situations. We cannot agree to limit uses or disclosures that are required by law.
If you refuse to allow us to use and disclose certain information you may not be able to receive assistance or services.

D. Right to request confidential communications.

You have the right to request how and where we contact you about protected health information. You do not have to explain the basis for your request. For example, you may request that we contact you at work or use a special phone number or email address. Your request must be in writing. We will accommodate your request as long as it is reasonably easy to do so.

E. Right to request an accounting of disclosures of health information.

You have the right to request a listing of certain disclosures we have made of your health information. We ask that your request be made in writing. You may ask for disclosures made up to six (6) years before the date of your request (not including disclosures made prior to April 14, 2003). We will provide you one accounting in any 12-month period free of charge.

F. Right to receive a copy of this policy.

You have the right to request and receive a paper copy of this Policy at any time. We will make this Policy available in electronic form and post it on our website.

If you have any questions about these rights or to exercise any of them please contact our Privacy Office listed below.

If you want more information about our privacy practices or have questions or concerns, please contact our Privacy Office. If you are concerned that your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with our Privacy Office. You may also submit a written complaint to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We will provide you with the address to file your complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services upon request. We support your right to the privacy of your health information.

We will not retaliate in any way if you choose to file a complaint with us or with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Privacy office contact information
Office of Bloomington City Manager
City of Bloomington Privacy Official
Bloomington Civic Plaza
1800 West Old Shakopee Road
Bloomington, Minnesota 55431
952-563-8700