OSI New Braunfels

Notice of Privacy Practices

Effective July 1, 2019

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.

This practice uses and shares health information about you for treatment, to obtain payment for treatment, for administrative purposes, and to evaluate the quality of the care you receive. We may change our policies and this notice at any time, and a revised notice applies to all the protected health information we keep. If we change it, we will post the new notice in the office. You can request a paper copy of this notice, or any revised notice, at any time, even if you have agreed to receive it electronically.

Download the full notice as a PDF, which also includes the acknowledgment-of-review form.

A. Treatment, payment, and health care operations

Treatment. We may use and share your information with those involved in your care. Because this is a specialty practice, we may ask your primary care physician to share records with us, and we may send them information about your condition so they can care for you appropriately.

Payment. We may use and share your information to bill and collect for the services we provide. For example, we may complete a claim form, which contains medical information, so your insurer or health plan can approve and pay it.

Health care operations. We may use or share your information to run the practice and make sure quality care is delivered. For example, a professional may review billing and medical files to confirm we follow the law, or another physician may review charts to evaluate our performance.

B. Disclosures we can make without your authorization

In some situations the law lets or requires us to use or share your information without your written authorization. In others, we will ask for your written authorization first, and you can revoke that authorization in writing at any time (a revocation does not undo disclosures already made). These situations include:

• Public health, abuse or neglect, and health oversight. To report disease, births and deaths, injuries, reactions to medications, or product recalls; to report suspected child abuse or neglect, or the abuse, neglect, or exploitation of an elderly or disabled person, as Texas law requires; and for audits, investigations, licensing, and inspections.
• Legal proceedings and law enforcement. In response to a court or administrative order, subpoena, or other lawful process, and to law enforcement under the limited circumstances the law allows.
• To prevent a serious threat to the health or safety of you or others.
• Workers' compensation, as required by workers' compensation law.
• Inmates, to a correctional institution or law enforcement officer if you are in custody.
• Specialized government functions, such as military service, national security, and protective services.
• Research, organ donation, coroners, medical examiners, and funeral directors, under the conditions the law sets.
• When otherwise required by law.

C. Your rights

HIPAA gives you several rights over your health information, and we will not retaliate against you for using them.

• Request restrictions on how we use or share your information for treatment, payment, or operations, or limit what we share with family or friends. We do not have to agree, but if we do, we will follow it except in an emergency. Requests must be in writing.
• Receive confidential communications by another means or at another location. Make this request in writing, and we will accommodate reasonable requests.
• Inspect and copy the records used to make decisions about your care. Requests must be in writing. Texas law gives us 15 days to provide copies or a narrative, and HIPAA permits a reasonable cost-based fee. Some information may be withheld, with a right to review of certain denials.
• Ask us to amend your records. Make the request in writing; we respond within 60 days. If we decline, you may add a statement to your record.
• Get an accounting of certain disclosures (those other than for treatment, payment, operations, or ones you authorized). Your first request in a 12-month period is free.
• Get a paper copy of this notice on request.

D. Appointment reminders and treatment alternatives

We may contact you by phone or mail with appointment reminders, information about treatment alternatives, or other health-related benefits and services that may interest you.

E. Complaints

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may contact the person listed below, and you may also send a written complaint to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We will not retaliate against you for filing a complaint with us or with the government.

F. Our promise to you

We are required by law to protect the privacy of your medical information, to give you this notice of our privacy practices, and to follow the terms of the notice that is currently in effect.

G. Questions and contact

For any question about this notice, or to make a request under the rights above, please contact our Privacy Officer:

Magan Woodruff, Privacy Officer
Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Institute of New Braunfels
960 Gruene Rd., Suite 101, New Braunfels, TX 78130
Phone (830) 625-0009 · Fax (830) 624-7505

You may also file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, 200 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, D.C. 20201, by calling 1-877-696-6775, or online at hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/complaints.