Benefits of Massage Relaxation Exercises Hot Stone Massage
Privacy
of personal information is an important principle to our office.
We are committed to collecting, using and disclosing personal information
responsibly and only to the extent necessary for the services we provide.
We also try to be open and transparent as to how we handle personal
information. This document
describes our privacy policies.
WHAT
IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?
Personal
information is information about an identifiable individual.
Personal information includes information that relates to their personal
characteristics (e.g., gender, age, address, phone number, family status), their
health (e.g., health history, health conditions, treatment received) or their
activities and views (e.g., religion, politics, etc.)
Personal information differs from business information (e.g., an
individual’s business address and telephone number), which is not protected by
privacy legislation.
Our
office includes at the time of writing one chiropractor, one massage therapist
and two support staff. We use a
number of agencies that may in the course of their duties, have limited access
to personal information we hold. These
include computer consultants, accountants and cleaners.
We restrict their access to any personal information we hold as much as
is reasonably possible. We also
have their assurance that they follow appropriate privacy principles.
WE
COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION:
Like
all Health Care Providers, we collect, use and disclose personal information in
order to serve our patients. For
our patients, the primary purpose for collecting personal information is to
provide chiropractic and/or massage therapy treatment.
For example, we collect information about a patient’s health history,
including their family history, physical condition and function and social
situation in order to help us assess what their health needs are, to advise them
of their options and then to provide the health care they choose to have.
A second primary purpose is to obtain a baseline of health and social
information so that in providing ongoing health services we can identify changes
that are occurring over time.
We
only collect and use personal information (e.g. e-mail addresses) that you give
us to respond to your email message or to remind you of your appointment as per
your wishes.
Web
site servers do log anonymous usage statistics (like visits per hour, web
browser used) but this information cannot be associated with any individual
person or computer.
Like
most organizations we also use personal information for other secondary purposes
related to our primary purpose. Some
common examples are as follows:
-
Invoicing
and collecting unpaid accounts and processing credit card payments.
-
External
audits by practise consultants, licensing peer reviews, etc., may on our behalf
review patient files, x-rays and/or interview our staff as part of a quality
improvement review of our office.
-
Various
government agencies (e.g., Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, Information and
Privacy Commission, Human Rights Commission, etc.) have the authority to review
our files and interview our staff as part of their mandates.
In these circumstances, we may consult with professionals (e.g., lawyers,
accountants) who will investigate the matter and report back to us.
-
The cost
of some of the services provided by our office is paid for by third parties
(e.g., OHIP, WSIB, private insurance, etc.). These third-party payers often have your consent or
legislative authority to direct us to collect and disclose to them certain
information in order to demonstrate patient entitlement to this funding.
-
Patients
or other individuals we deal with may have questions about our services after
they have been received. We also
provide ongoing treatment for many of our patients over a period of months or
years for which our previous records are helpful. We retain our patient information for a minimum of ten years
after the last contact to enable us to respond to those questions and provide
these services (Our regulatory College also requires us to retain our records).
-
If the
Frickey Chiropractic practise or the Hoeft Massage Therapy practise or their
assets were to be sold, the purchaser would want to conduct a “due
diligence” review of the office records to ensure that it is a viable business
that has been honestly portrayed to the purchaser. This due diligence may involve some review of our accounting
and service files. The purchaser
would not be able to remove or record personal information and must provide a
written promise to keep all personal information confidential before being
provided access to the files.
We
understand the importance of protecting personal information.
For that reason we follow these procedures:
-
Paper
information is stored in filing cabinets in supervised areas.
-
Electronic
hardware is under supervision.
-
Paper
information is transmitted through sealed, addressed envelopes.
-
Electronic
information (e.g., OHIP, WSIB) is transmitted through a direct line.
-
Staff are
trained to collect, use and disclose personal information only as necessary to
fulfill their duties and in accordance with our privacy policy.
-
External
consultants and agencies with access to personal information must enter into
privacy agreements with us.
We
need to retain personal information for some time to ensure that we can answer
any questions you might have about your care and for our own accountability to
external regulatory bodies. However,
we do not want to keep personal information too long in order to protect your
privacy.
We
keep our files for approximately ten years after your last visit with us.
We destroy paper files by shredding.
We destroy electronic information by deleting it and, when the hardware
is discarded, we ensure that the hard drive is physically destroyed.
Records may be forwarded to another practitioner with your written or
verbal consent.
You
have the right to see what personal information we hold about you.
Often all you have to do is ask. We
can help you identify what records we might have about you. We will also try to help you understand any information you
do not understand (e.g., short forms, technical language, etc.).
We will need to confirm your identity, if we do not know you, before
providing you with this access.
If
you believe there is a mistake in the information, you have the right to ask for
it to be corrected.
Our
Information Officer, Dr. Elsie Frickey DC, can be reached at:
278 Lawrence Ave. Kitchener, N2M 1Y4
519-571-0544
She
will attempt to answer any questions or concerns you might have.
Formal
complaints about our privacy practices may be made in writing to our Information
Officer. She will acknowledge
receipt of your complaint, ensure that it is investigated promptly and that you
are provided with a formal decision and reasons in writing.
This
policy is made under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic
Documents Act. It is a complex
Act and provides some additional exceptions to the privacy principles that are
too detailed to set out here. There
are some rare exceptions to the commitments set out above.
For
more general inquires the Information and Privacy Commissioner can be reached
at:
112 KENT ST, OTTAWA, ONT. K1A 1H3
Phone
(613) 995-8210, TOLL-FREE 1-800-282-1376, FAX (613) 947-6850