I. HOW WE WILL USE AND DISCLOSE YOUR PHI
A. To Provide Treatment. We may use and disclose your PHI to provide, coordinate, or manage your health care and any related services. This includes the management or coordination of your health status and care with another health care facility, whether part of Adena or outside of Adena. For example, we may disclose your PHI to a pharmacy to fill a prescription or to a laboratory to order a blood test. We may also disclose your PHI to another physician who may be treating you or consulting with us regarding your care.
B. To Obtain Payment. We may also use and disclose your PHI, as needed, to obtain payment for services that we provide to you. This may include certain communications to your health insurer or health plan to confirm (1) your eligibility for health benefits, (2) the medical necessity of a particular service or procedure, or (3) any prior authorization or utilization review requirements. We may also disclose your PHI to another facility involved in your care for the other facility’s payment activities. For example, this may include disclosure of demographic information to another physician practice that is involved in your care, or to a hospital where you were recently hospitalized, for payment purposes.
C. To Perform Health Care Operations. We may also use or disclose your PHI, as necessary, to carry on our day-to-day health care operations, and to provide quality care to all of our Patients, but only on a “need to know” basis. These health care operations may include such activities as: quality improvement; physician and employee reviews; health professional training programs, including those in which students, trainees, or practitioners in health care learn under supervision; accreditation; certification; licensing or credentialing activities; compliance reviews and audits; defending a legal or administrative claim; business management development; and other administrative activities. In certain situations, we may also disclose you PHI to another health care facility or health plan to conduct their own particular health care operation requirements.
D. To Contact You. To support our treatment, payment and health care operations, we may also contact you at home, either by telephone, mail, or electronic delivery from time to time (1) to remind you of an upcoming appointment date or (2) to ask you to return a call to Adena unless you ask us, in writing, to use alternative means to communicate with you regarding these matters. We may also contact you by telephone to inform you of specific test results or treatment plans, but only with your prior written authorization.
E. To Be In Contact With Your Family or Friends. Additionally, we may also disclose certain PHI to your family member or other relative, a close personal friend, or any other person specified by you from time to time, but only if the PHI is directly related (1) to the person’s involvement in your treatment or related payments, or (2) to notify the person of your physical location or a sudden change in your condition, while receiving treatment at our office. Although you have a right to request reasonable restrictions on these disclosures, we will only be able to grant those restrictions that are reasonable and not too difficult to administer, none of which would apply in the case of an emergency.
F. Clergy Directory. The same information that is in the facility directory plus your religious affiliation will be provide to members of the clergy unless you choose to be excluded during the registration process.