UHLING CONSULTING LLC's NUTRITION SERVICES

NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES

Effective Date: January 1, 2014

THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

If you have any questions about this notice, please contact:


Aubrey Uhling, Owner and HIPAA Privacy Officer

Uhling Consulting, LLC

2375 E Camelback Road, Suite 600.

Phoenix, Arizona 85016-3493

Phone: 602.341.5248

Fax: 602.702.5219

OUR PLEDGE REGARDING PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION


We at Uhling Consulting, LLC understand that protected health information about you and your health is personal. We are committed to protecting your health information. This Notice applies to all records of your care generated by Uhling Consulting, LLC, whether created by Uhling Consulting, LLC personnel or your personal doctor.


This Notice will tell you about the ways in which we may use and disclose protected health information about you. We also describe your rights and certain obligations we have regarding the use and disclosure of protected health information. The law requires us to:

  • make sure that protected health information that identifies you is kept private;
  • notify you about how we protect protected health information about you;
  • explain how, when and why we use and disclose protected health information;
  • follow the terms of the Notice that is currently in effect.


We are required to follow the procedures in this Notice. We reserve the right to change the terms of this

Notice and to make new notice provisions effective for all protected health information that we maintain by:

  • posting the revised Notice in our office
  • making copies of the revised Notice available upon request;
  • posting the revised Notice on our website.


HOW WE MAY USE AND DISCLOSE PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU


The following categories describe different ways that we use and disclose protected health information without your written authorization.


For Treatment. We may use protected health information about you to provide you with, coordinate or manage your medical treatment or services. We may disclose protected health information about you to doctors, nurses, technicians, medical students, or other Uhling Consulting, LLC personnel who are involved in taking care of you.


Uhling Consulting, LLC staff may also share protected health information about you in order to coordinate the different things you need, such as prescriptions, lab work and x-rays. We also may disclose protected health information about you to people outside Uhling Consulting, LLC who may be involved in your medical care, such as clergy or others we use to provide services that are part of your care.


We may use and disclose protected health information to contact you as a reminder that you have an appointment for treatment or medical care at the Uhling Consulting, LLC office. We may use and disclose protected health information to tell you about or recommend possible treatment options or alternatives or health-related benefits or services that may be of interest to you.


For Payment for Services. We may use and disclose protected health information about you so that the treatment and services you receive at Uhling Consulting, LLC may be billed to and payment may be collected from you, an insurance company or a third party. For example, we may need to give your health plan information about nutrition services you received at Uhling Consulting, LLC so your health plan will pay us or reimburse you for the service. We may also tell your health plan about the nutrition services you are going to receive to obtain prior approval or to determine whether your plan will cover the treatment.


For Health Care Operations. We may use and disclose protected health information about you for Uhling Consulting, LLC health care operations, such as our quality assessment and improvement activities, case management, coordination of care, business planning, customer services and other activities. These uses and disclosures are necessary to run the facility, reduce health care costs, and make sure that all of our patients receive quality care.


For example, we may use protected health information to review our treatment and services and to evaluate the performance of the dietitian who is providing your services. We may also combine protected health information about many Uhling Consulting, LLC patients to decide what additional services the Uhling Consulting, LLC should offer, what services are not needed, and whether certain new treatments are effective. We may also disclose information to doctors, nurses, technicians, medical students, and other Uhling Consulting, LLC personnel for review and learning purposes. We may also combine the protected health information we have with protected health information from other health care facilities to compare how we are doing and see where we can make improvements in the care and services we offer. We may remove information that identifies you from this set of protected health information so others may use it to study health care and health care delivery without learning who the specific patients are. We may also contact you as part of a fundraising effort.


Subject to applicable state law, in some limited situations, the law allows or requires us to use or disclose your health information for purposes beyond treatment, payment, and operations. However, some of the disclosures set forth below may never occur at our facilities.


As Required By Law. We will disclose protected health information about you when required to do so by federal, state or local law.


Research. We may disclose your PHI to researchers when their research has been approved by an institutional review board or privacy board that has reviewed the research proposal and established protocols to ensure the privacy of your information.


Health Risks. We may disclose protected health information about you to a government authority if we reasonably believe you are a victim of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence. We will only disclose this type of information to the extent required by law, if you agree to the disclosure, or if the disclosure is allowed by law and we believe it is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to you or another person.


Judicial and Administrative Proceedings. If you are involved in a lawsuit or dispute, we may disclose your information in response to a court or administrative order. We may also disclose health information about you in response to a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful process by someone else involved in the dispute, but only if efforts have been made, either by us or the requesting party, to tell you about the request or to obtain an order protecting the information requested.