In 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed into law. The primary goal of this federal legislation was to make it easier for people to maintain basic health insurance benefits and help the health care industry control administrative costs. One portion of this act contains rules for protecting the privacy of your health information. Health care facilities were to be in compliance with this portion of the law by April 14, 2003. Protection of your health information is not new to health care organizations in Washington State and Evergreen Healthcare has always been committed to protecting your privacy. However, this federal law does strengthen protection of your privacy and gives you more control over the use and disclosure of your health information.
The HIPAA regulation gives Evergreen Healthcare the right to use and disclose your health information for treatment, payment, and certain health care operations purposes without specific authorization from you. In addition, it grants you six specific rights regarding your health information:
- Right to request access to or a copy of your health information. We will ask that you make your request specific and in writing. We may charge a reasonable fee for the cost of producing and mailing the copies. In certain situations, we may deny your request and will tell you why we are denying it. In some cases, you may have the right to ask for a review of our denial.
Download a copy of our Authorization form (PDF).
- Right to request an amendment to your health information if you believe our records are incomplete or inaccurate. Your request for amendment must be in writing and provide the reason for your request. In certain cases, we may deny your request. If so, we will notify you in writing. You may respond by filing a written statement of disagreement with us and ask that the statement be included with your health information.
- Right to request restrictions by asking that we limit the way we use or disclose your medical information for treatment, payment, or health care operations. You may also ask that we limit the information that we give to someone who is involved in your care, such as a family member or friend. We are not required to agree to your request. If we do agree, we will honor your restriction unless it is an emergency. We may ask you to make your request in writing.
Download a copy of the request form (PDF).
- Right to request that we communicate with you by another means to preserve confidentiality. For example, if you want us to communicate with you at a different address or telephone number we can usually accommodate your request if it is reasonable.
Download a copy of the request form (PDF).
- Right to seek an accounting of certain disclosures by asking us in writing for a list of the disclosures we have made of your health information, except for disclosures for treatment, payment, health care operations, information provided to you, facility directory listings, certain government functions, and disclosures made prior to April 14, 2003.
Download a copy of the request form (PDF).
- Right to receive a paper copy of our Notice of Privacy Practices (PDF). We will offer you a copy of our notice the first time you register or present for treatment or health care services at Evergreen Healthcare. You may also request a copy of this notice at any time or obtain a copy on our website. This notice lists all the different ways that we might use or disclose your health information and provides you with information about exercising your various rights.
- Evergreen Healthcare respects your rights and we will continue to do our best to protect your privacy and the privacy of your health information. If you have questions relating to the protection of your health information or Evergreen Healthcare’s privacy practices, please contact Kathy Gilles, Evergreen Healthcare’s Privacy Officer at 425.899.5599 or kgilles@evergreenhealthcare.org.
Note: Many of the documents above are available as printable (PDF) file using Adobe Acrobat. If you do not already have an Adobe Acrobat Reader, download a free copy now from Adobe Acrobat.