Administration

This Notice describes how medical information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to this information.  Please review carefully.

Purpose of this Notice

The Rochester Hills Fire Department 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.  This Notice describes your legal rights, advises you of our privacy practices, and lets you know how the Rochester Hills Fire Department is permitted to use and disclose PHI about you. 

Uses and Disclosures of PHI

The Rochester Hills Fire Department 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:  We may use Health Information to treat you or provide you with health care services.  We may disclose Health Information to doctors, nurses, technicians, or other personnel involved in your medical care.
• For Payment:  We may use and disclose Health Information so that we or others may bill or receive payment from you, an insurance company or a third party for the treatment and services you received.
• 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 Required By Law:  We will disclose Health Information when required to do so by international, federal, state, or local law.

Patient Rights

As a patient, you have number of rights with respect to the protection of your PHI, including:

The Right to Access, Copy, or Inspect Your PHI.  This means you may come to our offices and 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 your access to your medical information, and you may appeal certain types of denials. 

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 you 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 the privacy officer listed at the end of this notice.

The Right To Request An Accounting of Our Use and Disclosure of Your PHI:  You may request an accounting from us of certain disclosures of your medical information that we have made in the last 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 of the medical information about you that we have used or disclosed that is not exempted from the accounting requirement, you should contact the privacy officer listed at the end of this Notice.

The Right to Request The 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 for treatment, payment or health care operations, or to restrict the information that is provided to family, friends and other individuals involved in your health care.  But if you request a restriction and the information you asked us to restrict is needed to provide you with emergency treatment, then we may use the PHI or disclose the PHI to a health care provider to provide you with emergency treatment.  The Rochester Hills Fire Department is not required to agree to any restrictions you request, but any restrictions agreed to by the Rochester Hills Fire Department are binding on the Rochester Hills Fire Department.

Revisions to the Notice:  The Rochester Hills Fire Department 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 the Privacy Officer identified below.

Your Legal Rights and Complaints:  You also have the right to complain to us, or 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 inquires to the privacy officer listed at the end of this Notice.  Individuals will not be retaliated against for filing a complaint.

If you have any questions or if you wish to file a complaint or exercise any rights listed in this Notice, please contact the Rochester Hills Fire Department at (248) 656-4720.