HIPAA Privacy Practices - Small Miracles

NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES

Small Miracles Childbirth Education LLC

Grand Island, NE

Shannen McWhirter

Founder and Certified Childbirth Educator (CCE)

308-833-0646

Effective Date: 1/24/2024

THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW PERSONAL AND MEDICAL INFORMATION

ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION.

PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

THIS NOTICE DOES NOT APPLY TO GENERAL WEBSITE USE SUCH AS COMMENTS ON

SMALLMIRACLESEDUCATION.COM. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT OUR ONLINE PRIVACY POLICY CLICK HERE.

We understand the importance of privacy and are committed to maintaining the confidentiality of your personal and medical information. We make a record of the services we provide and may receive such records from others. We use these records to quality education; connect you with appropriate local resources, to obtain payment for services provided to you, and to enable us to meet our professional and legal obligations to operate this private practice properly. We are required by law to maintain the privacy of protected health information, to provide individuals with notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to protected health information, and to notify affected individuals following a breach of unsecured protected health information. This notice describes how we may use and disclose your medical information. It also describes your rights and our legal obligations with respect to your medical information. If you have any questions about this Notice, please contact our Privacy Officer listed above.

How This Private Practice May Use or Disclose Your Health Information
When This Private Practice May Not Use or Disclose Your Health Information
Your Health Information Rights
1. Right to Request Special Privacy Protections
2. Right to Request Confidential Communications
3. Right to Inspect and Copy
4. Right to an Accounting of Disclosures
5. Right to a Paper or Electronic Copy of this Notice
Changes to this Notice of Privacy Practices
Complaints

how this private practice may use or disclose your health information

This private practice collects
health information about you and stores it in a paper file kept in a locked
file cabinet. The file is the property of this private practice, but the
information in the record belongs to you. The law permits us to use or disclose
your health information for the following purposes:

1. Education.
We may use medical information about you to provide relevant information
during class. If you request a referral to a local resource, such as a IBCLC,
we disclose personal identifying information to other healthcare providers so
they may contact you to provide the care you need or want. We will not provide
information about any medical history or current conditions unless specifically
requested.

2. Payment.
We use and disclose medical information about you to obtain payment for
the services we provide. For example, we
may give your healthcare insurance information for them to process a
reimbursement claim. We may also use personal identifying information to
process credit card payments.

3. Health Care Operations.

We may use and disclose medical information
about you to operate this private practice.
Or we may use and disclose this information to get your health plan to
authorize services. We may also use and
disclose this information as necessary for medical reviews, legal services and
audits, including fraud and abuse detection and compliance programs and
business planning and management. We may
also share your medical information with our “business associates,”
such as our billing service, that perform administrative services for us.

We have a written contract with each of these
business associates that contains terms requiring them and their subcontractors
to protect the confidentiality and security of your protected health information.
We may also share your information with other health care providers or health
plans that have a relationship with you, when they request this information to
help them with their quality assessment and improvement activities, their patient-safety
activities, their population-based efforts to improve health or reduce health
care costs, their protocol development, case management or care-coordination
activities, their review of competence, qualifications and performance of
health care professionals, their training programs, their accreditation,
certification or licensing activities, or their health care fraud and abuse
detection and compliance efforts.

4. Appointment Scheduling and Reminders.

We use personal information that you provide to schedule your classes or other
appointments. We share this information with our scheduling service. We have a
written contract with this service provider requiring them to protect the
confidentiality and security of your protected health information. We may also use
and disclose medical information to contact and remind you about classes or
other appointments.

5. Sale of Health Information.

We will not sell your health information.

6. Required by Law.

As required by law, we will use and disclose
your health information, but we will limit our use or disclosure to the
relevant requirements of the law. When
the law requires us to report abuse, neglect or domestic violence, or respond
to judicial or administrative proceedings, or to law enforcement officials, we
will further comply with the requirement set forth below concerning those
activities.

7. Public Health.
We may, and are sometimes required by law, to disclose your health
information to public health authorities for purposes related to preventing or
reporting child abuse or neglect, and reporting domestic violence. When we
report suspected domestic violence, we will inform you or your personal
representative promptly unless in our best professional judgment, we believe
the notification would place you at risk of serious harm or would require
informing a personal representative we believe is responsible for the abuse or
harm.

8. Health Oversight Activities.

We may, and are sometimes required by law, to
disclose your health information to health oversight agencies during the course
of audits, investigations, inspections, licensure and other proceedings,
subject to the limitations imposed by law.

9. Judicial and Administrative Proceedings.

We may, and are sometimes required by law, to
disclose your health information in the course of any administrative or
judicial proceeding to the extent expressly authorized by a court or
administrative order. We may also
disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, discovery request or
other lawful process if reasonable efforts have been made to notify you of the
request and you have not objected, or if your objections have been resolved by
a court or administrative order.

10. Law Enforcement.
We may, and are sometimes required by law, to disclose your health
information to a law enforcement official for purposes such as identifying or
locating a suspect, fugitive, material witness or missing person, complying
with a court order, warrant, grand jury subpoena and other law enforcement
purposes.

11. Breach Notification.

In the case of a
breach of unsecured protected health information, we will notify you as
required by law. If you have provided us with a current e-mail address, we may
use e-mail to communicate information related to the breach. In some
circumstances our business associate may provide the notification. We may also
provide notification by other methods as appropriate.

when this practice may not use or disclose your health information

Except as described in this Notice of Privacy Practices, this medical practice will, consistent with its legal obligations, not use or disclose health information which identifies you without your written authorization. If you do authorize this medical practice to use or disclose your health information for another purpose, you may revoke your authorization in writing at any time.

your health information rights

1. Right to Request Special Privacy Protections.

You have the right to request restrictions on certain uses and disclosures of your health information by a written request specifying what information you want to limit, and what limitations on our use or disclosure of that information you wish to have imposed. If you tell us not to disclose information to your commercial health plan concerning health care items or services for which you paid for in full out-of-pocket, we will abide by your request, unless we must disclose the information for legal reasons. We reserve the right to accept or reject any other request, and will notify you of our decision.

2. Right to Request Confidential Communications.

You have the right to request that you receive your health information in a specific way or at a specific location. For example, you may ask that we send information to a particular e-mail account or to your work address. We will comply with all reasonable requests submitted in writing which specify how or where you wish to receive these communications.

3. Right to Inspect and Copy.

You have the right to inspect and copy your health information. To access your medical information, you must submit a written request detailing what information you want access to, whether you want to inspect it or get a copy of it, and if you want a copy, your preferred form and format. We will provide copies in your requested form and format if it is readily producible, or we will provide you with an alternative format you find acceptable, or if we can’t agree and we maintain the record in an electronic format, your choice of a readable electronic or hardcopy format. We will also send a copy to any other person you designate in writing. We will charge a reasonable fee which covers our costs for labor, supplies, postage, and if requested and agreed to in advance, the cost of preparing an explanation or summary.

4. Right to an Accounting of Disclosures.

You have a right to receive an accounting of disclosures of your health information made by this medical practice, except that this medical practice does not have to account for the disclosures provided to you or pursuant to your written authorization, or as described in paragraphs 1 (education), 2 (payment), 3 (health care operations), and 18 (specialized government functions) of Section A of this Notice of Privacy Practices or which are incident to a use or disclosure otherwise permitted or authorized by law, or the disclosures to a health oversight agency or law enforcement official to the extent this medical practice has received notice from that agency or official that providing this accounting would be reasonably likely to impede their activities.

5. Right to a Paper or Electronic Copy of this Notice.

You have a right to notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to your health information, including a right to a paper copy of this Notice of Privacy Practices, even if you have previously requested its receipt by e-mail.

If you would like to have a more detailed explanation of these rights or if you would like to exercise one or more of these rights, contact our Privacy Officer listed at the top of this Notice of Privacy Practices.

changes to this notice of privacy practices

We reserve the right to amend this Notice of Privacy Practices at any time in the future. Until such amendment is made, we are required by law to comply with the terms of this Notice currently in effect. After an amendment is made, the revised Notice of Privacy Protections will apply to all protected health information that we maintain, regardless of when it was created or received. We will have a copy available at each class session or other appointment. We will also post the current notice on our website.

complaints

Complaints about this Notice of Privacy Practices or how this practice handles your health information should be directed to our Privacy Officer listed at the top of this Notice of Privacy Practices.

If you are not satisfied with the manner in which this company handles a complaint, you may submit a formal complaint to:

Nebraska DHHS HIPAA Privacy and Security Office

P.O. Box 95026

301 Centennial Mall South, 3^rd Floor

Lincoln, NE 68509-5025

DHHS.HIPAAOffice@nebraska.gov

402-471-4068

The complaint form may be found at:

www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/complaints/hipcomplaint.pdf. You will not be penalized in any way for filing a complaint.