Fredericktown Community
Joint Emergency Ambulance District
(Aka, Fredericktown EMS)

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,

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

Use and Disclosures of PHI: Fredericktown 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 healthcare providers involved in your treatment, and may transfer your PHI via radio or telephone to the hospital or dispatch center.

For payment: This includes any activities we must undertake in order to get reim­bursed for the services we provide to you, including such things as submitting bills to insurance companies, making medical ne­cessity determinations and collecting 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.

Reminders for Scheduled Transports and Information on Other Services: We may also contact you to provide you with a re­minder of any scheduled appointments for non-emergency ambulance and medi­cal transportation, or to provider information about other services we provide.

Use and Disclosure of PHI without Your Authorization: Fredericktown EMS is permitted to use PHI without your written authoriza­tion, or opportunity to object, in certain situations, and unless prohibited by a more stringent state law, 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, and in certain other circumstances where we are unable to obtain your agreement and believe the disclosure is in your best interests;

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;

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 of 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 project, but this will be subject to strict oversight and approvals;

We may also 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.

Patient 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 our privacy officer.

The right to request an accounting: You may request an accounting from us of certain disclosures of your medical information that we have made in the 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, contact our privacy officer.

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. Fredericktown EMS is not required to agree to any restrictions you re­quest, but any restrictions agreed to by Fredericktown EMS in writing are binding on Fredericktown 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. 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: Fredericktown 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 our privacy officer.

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 our privacy offi­cer.

Privacy Officer Contact Information:
Privacy Officer
Fredericktown EMS
139 Columbus Rd.
Fredericktown, Ohio 43019