Privacy Notice

This notice describes how medical information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to this information. PLEASE REVIEW THIS INFORMATION CAREFULLY. This notice applies to Hillside Hospital, the doctors and other healthcare providers practicing at this facility.

It is our legal duty to protect the privacy of your information. We are providing this notice to you so that we can explain what our privacy practices are. We will follow the practices described in this notice or the current notice in effect. We reserve the right to change our policies and notice of privacy practices at any time. If we should make a significant change in our policies, we will change this notice and post the new notice. You can also request a copy of our notice at any time. For more information about our privacy practices or to place a complaint or report a concern or conflict regarding our privacy practices, call the number listed below:

You may also send a written complaint to the United States Department of Health and Human Services if you feel we have not properly handled your complaint. You can use the contact listed above to provide you with the appropriate DHHS address. Under no circumstance will you be retaliated against for filing a complaint.

We may use health information about you for your treatment purposes, to obtain payment, or for healthcare operations and other administrative purposes. For example, we may use your information in treatment situations if we need to send your medical record information to a specialist or physician as part of a referral for continuity of care. We may send your health information and other identifying information to Medicare, Medicaid or other health insurance plans for our billing purposes. Your information will be used when processing your medical records for completeness and to compare patient data during our efforts to continually improve our treatment methods.

Under certain circumstances we may be required to disclose your health information without your specific authorization. Examples of these disclosures are: requirements by state and Federal laws to report cases of abuse, neglect, or other certain law enforcement purposes; for public health issues; to health oversight agencies; for judicial and administrative proceedings; for death and funeral arrangements; for organ donation; for special government functions including military and veteran requests, and to prevent serious threat to health or public safety. We may also contact you after your current visit for future appointment reminders or to provide you with information regarding treatment alternatives or other health related services that may be of benefit to you. We will obtain your written authorization for any other disclosures beyond the reasons listed above. Do remember, if you do authorize us to release your information, you always have the right to revoke that authorization later. We will be happy to honor that request except to the extent that we may have already acted.

As a patient you have rights regarding how your information can be used and disclosed. These rights include access to your health information. In most cases, you have the right to look at or receive a copy of your health information. This may take up to 30 days to prepare and there may be a preparation fee associated with making any copies. You can also ask for an accounting of disclosures. This is a list of instances in which we have disclosed your information for reasons other than treatment payment and operations. We can provide you one list per year without charge; all additional requests in the same year will be subject to a nominal charge. If you believe that the information we have about you is incorrect or if important information is missing, you have the right to request that we amend or correct the existing information. There may be some reasons that we cannot honor your request for which you submit a statement of disagreement. You can request that your health information be communicated to you at an alternate location or address. Finally, you can request in writing that we not use or disclose your information for any reasons described in this notice except to persons involved in your care or when required by law, or in emergency circumstances. We are not legally required to abide with such a request but we will try to honor any reasonable requests.