Notice of Privacy Practices

How we may use and disclose your health information

We are permitted to use and disclose your protected health information (PHI) without your written authorization for the following purposes:

• Treatment: To provide, coordinate, and manage your care — for example, sharing your history with the provider seeing you, or sending a prescription to a partner pharmacy.
• Payment: To bill and collect payment for the services you receive, including verifying coverage and processing your payment method.
• Healthcare operations: To run the practice — quality review, staff training, licensing, business planning, and internal audits.
• Appointment reminders: To contact you about appointments, refills, follow-ups, and treatment alternatives or health-related benefits that may interest you.
• Business associates: To vendors who perform services for us, such as our patient-communication platform, scheduling tools, and partner pharmacies, each bound by a written agreement to safeguard your PHI.

Disclosures permitted or required by law

We may also use or disclose your PHI without your authorization when the law permits or requires it, including:

• When required by federal, state, or local law.
• For public health activities, such as reporting disease, injury, or adverse events involving medication.
• To report suspected abuse, neglect, or domestic violence.
• For health oversight activities, including audits, investigations, and licensure actions.
• In response to a court or administrative order, subpoena, warrant, or other lawful process.
• For law enforcement purposes, as permitted by law.
• To coroners, medical examiners, and funeral directors, as permitted by law.
• For organ, eye, or tissue donation.
• For approved research, subject to privacy safeguards.
• To avert a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of you or others.
• For specialised government functions, including military, national security, and correctional purposes.
• For workers' compensation claims, as authorised by law.

Uses that always require your written authorization

Some uses and disclosures are never made without your signed authorization, which you may revoke in writing at any time (except to the extent we have already acted on it):

• Most uses and disclosures of psychotherapy notes.
• Uses and disclosures for marketing purposes.
• Any sale of your protected health information.
• Use of your photographs, testimonials, or before-and-after images in our advertising or on this website.
• Any other use or disclosure not described in this notice.

Your rights regarding your health information

• Inspect and copy: You may request access to your medical and billing records, including an electronic copy where we keep them electronically. We will respond within 30 days and may charge a reasonable, cost-based fee for copies.
• Amend: You may ask us to correct information you believe is incomplete or inaccurate. We may deny the request in certain circumstances, and will tell you why in writing.
• Accounting of disclosures: You may request a list of certain disclosures we have made of your PHI in the six years before your request.
• Request restrictions: You may ask us to limit how we use or disclose your PHI. We are not required to agree, except that we must honour a request to withhold information from a health plan when you pay for that service in full out of pocket.
• Confidential communications: You may ask us to contact you a specific way or at a specific address — for example, only by mobile, or only at your home address.
• Paper copy: You may request a paper copy of this notice at any time, even if you agreed to receive it electronically.
• Breach notification: You have the right to be notified if a breach occurs that may have compromised the privacy or security of your information.
• Choose someone to act for you: If you have given someone medical power of attorney, or if someone is your legal guardian, that person can exercise these rights on your behalf.

Our responsibilities

We are required by law to maintain the privacy and security of your protected health information, to give you this notice of our legal duties and privacy practices, to follow the terms of the notice currently in effect, and to notify you promptly if a breach occurs that may have compromised your information.

We will not use or share your information other than as described here unless you tell us in writing that we may. If you tell us we may, you can change your mind at any time by notifying us in writing.

Changes to this notice

We may change the terms of this notice at any time, and the new notice will apply to all information we hold about you. The current notice will always be posted on this page with its effective date, and a copy will be available at our office on request.

Complaints

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with our Privacy Officer using the details below, or directly with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights.

Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, D.C. 20201 · 1-877-696-6775 · hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/complaints/

We will not retaliate against you, and your care will not be affected, for filing a complaint.

Contacting our Privacy Officer

To exercise any of the rights above, request a paper copy of this notice, or raise a concern, contact our Privacy Officer, Ashley Padgett:

Padgett Medical Center, 6904 W. Linebaugh Ave, Tampa, FL 33625 · info@padgettmedicalcenter.com · (813) 888-7710