HIPAA Privacy Notice / Billing: Emergency Medical Services (EMS)

HIPAA Privacy Notice

Charleston County EMS 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. Charleston County EMS is also required to abide by the terms of the version of this Notice currently in effect.

NOTE: This notice describes how medical information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to this information, as per the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Please review it carefully.

Billing

For billing inquires, please contact:

Digitech

Phone: (843) 292-0575

Debt Set Off Program: A program enabled through state legislation allowing public agencies to collect funds from delinquent clients from their state income tax refunds.

Uses and Disclosures of PHI

Charleston County EMS 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

This includes such things as obtaining verbal and written information about your medical condition and treatment from you as well as from others, such as doctors and nurses who give orders to allow us to provide treatment to you. We may give your PHI to other health care providers involved in your treatment, and may transfer your PHI via radio or telephone to the hospital or dispatch center.

For Payment

This includes any activities we must undertake in order to get reimbursed for the services we provide to you, including such things as submitting bills to insurance companies, making medical necessity determinations, and collecting outstanding accounts.

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 well as certain other management functions.

Use and Disclosure of PHI Without Authorization

Charleston County EMS is permitted to use PHI without your written authorization, or opportunity to object, in certain situations, and unless prohibited by a more stringent state law, including:

For the treatment, payment, or health care operations activities of another health care provider who treats you;
For health care and legal compliance activities;
To a family member, other relative, or close personal friend or other individual involved in your care if we obtain your verbal agreement to do so or if we give you an opportunity to object to such a disclosure and you do not raise an objection, and in certain other circumstances where we are unable to obtain your agreement and believe the disclosure is in your best interests; situations as required by law (such as to report abuse, neglect, or domestic violence);
For health oversight activities including audits or government investigations, inspections, disciplinary proceedings, and other administrative or judicial actions undertaken by the government (or their contractors) by law to oversee the health care system;
For judicial and administrative proceedings as required by a court or administrative order, or in some cases, in response to a subpoena or other legal process;
For law enforcement activities in limited situations, such as when responding to a warrant;

For military, national defense, and security and other special government functions;
To avert a serious threat to the health and safety of a person or the public at large;
For workers' compensation purposes, and in compliance with workers' compensation laws;
To coroners, medical examiners, and funeral directors for identifying a deceased person, determining cause of death, or carrying on their duties as authorized by law;
If you are an organ donor, we may release health information to organizations that handle organ procurement or organ, eye, or tissue transplantation, or to an organ donation bank, as necessary to facilitate organ donation and transplantation;
For research projects, but this will be subject to strict oversight and approvals;
We may also use or disclose health information about you in a way that does not personally identify you or reveal who you are.

Any other use or disclosure of PHI, other than those listed above will only be made with your written authorization. You may revoke your authorization at any time, in writing, except to the extent that we have already used or disclosed medical information in reliance on that authorization.

Patient Rights

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

The Right to Access, Copy or Inspect your PHI

This means you may 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 you access to your medical information, and you may appeal certain types of denials. We have available forms to request access to your PHI and we will provide a written response if we deny you access and let you know your appeal rights. You also have the right to receive confidential communications of your PHI. If you wish to inspect and copy your medical information, you should contact our privacy officer.

The Right to Request an Accounting

You may request an accounting from us of certain disclosures of your medical information that we have made in the 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, contact our privacy officer.

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 your 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 our privacy officer.

The Right to Request that 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. Charleston County EMS is not required to agree to any restrictions you request, but any restrictions agreed to by Charleston County EMS in writing are binding on Charleston County EMS.

Internet, Electronic Mail, and the Right to Obtain Copy of Paper Notice on Request. We maintain a Web site, and we will prominently post a copy of this Notice on our Web site.

If you allow us, we will forward you this Notice by electronic mail instead of on paper and you may always request a paper copy of the Notice.

Revisions to the Notice

Charleston County EMS 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 our privacy officer.

Notice Effective Date: April 10, 2003

Legal Rights & Complaints

You also have the right to complain to us, or to 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 inquiries to our privacy officer.

Contact Privacy Officer

Nathaniel Bialek

Office Address

4045 Bridgeview Dr., Charleston, SC 29405

Phone: (843) 202-6700

Fax: (843) 202-6712

Email: NBialek@CharlestonCounty.org