Notice of Privacy Practices

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.

Creative Care Management, Ltd. is required by law to maintain the privacy of your health information and to provide you with notice of its legal duties and privacy practices with respect to your health information.  If you have questions about any part of this notice or if you want more information about the privacy practices at Creative Care Management, Ltd. please contact Marge Harmon at (800) 233-4960.

Effective Date of This Notice:  April 14, 2003

1.  How Creative Care Management, Ltd. may Use or Disclose Your Health Information.

Creative Care Management, Ltd. collects health information from you and stores it in a chart and on a computer.  This is your medical record.  The medical record is the property of Creative Care, but the information in the medical record belongs to you.  Creative Care protects the privacy of your health information.  The law permits Creative Care to use or disclose your health information for the following purposes:
Treatment.  Your Protected Health Information PHI may be used and disclosed by those who are involved in your care for the purpose of providing, coordinating or managing your health care treatment and related services. This includes consultation with clinical supervisors or other treatment team members. We may disclose PHI to any other consultant only with your authorization.

Payment.  We may use and disclose PHI so that we can receive payment for the treatment services provided to you.  This will only be done with your authorization.  Examples of payment-related activities are: making a determination of eligibility or coverage for insurance benefits, processing claims with your insurance company, reviewing services provided to you to determine medical necessity or undertaking utilization review activities.

Regular Health Care Operations.  We may use or disclose, as needed, your PHI in order to support our business activities including, but not limited to, quality assessment activities, employee review activities, licensing, and conducting or arranging for other business activities. For example, we may share your PHI with third parties that perform various business activities (e.g. billing) provided we have a written contract with the business that requires it to safeguard the privacy of your PHI.  For training or teaching purposes PHI will be disclosed only with your authorization. 

Information provided to you.  

Required by law.  Under the law, we must make disclosures of your PHI to you upon your request. In addition, we must make disclosures to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services for the purpose of investigating or determining our compliance with the department of the Privacy Rule.

Public Health.  As required by law, we may disclose your health information to public health authorities for purposes related to:  reporting child abuse or neglect; reporting domestic violence.

Health oversight activities.  We may disclose your health information to health agencies during the course of audits, investigations, inspections, licensure and other proceedings.

Judicial and administrative proceedings.  We may disclose your health information in the course of any administrative or judicial proceeding.

Law enforcement.  We may 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 or subpoena and other law enforcement purposes.

Public safety.  We may disclose your health information to appropriate persons in order to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of a particular person or the general public 

Marketing.  We may contact you to provide appointment reminders or to obtain feedback regarding services and resources provided.

Change of Ownership.  In the event that Creative Care is sold or merged with another organization, your health information/record will become the property of the new owner.

II.   When Creative Care May Not Use or Disclose Your Health Information

Except as described in this Notice of Privacy Practices, Creative Care will not use or disclose your health information without your written authorization.  If you do authorize Creative Care to use or disclose your health information for another purpose, you may revoke your authorization in writing at any time.

III.   Your Health Information Rights

You have the right to request restrictions on certain uses or disclosures of your health information.  Creative Care is not required to agree to the restriction that you requested.

You have the right to receive your health information through a reasonable alternative means or at an alternative location. 

You have the right to inspect and copy your health information.

You have a right to request that Creative Care amend your health information that is incorrect or incomplete.  Creative Care is not required to change your health information and will provide you with information about Creative Care's denial and how you can disagree with the denial.

You have a right to receive an accounting of disclosures of your health information made by Creative Care, except that Creative Care does not have to account for the disclosures described in parts 1 (treatment), 2 (payment), 3 (health care operations), and 4 (information provided to you) of section 1 of this Notice of Privacy Practices.

You have a right to a paper copy of this Notice of Privacy Practices.

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 Marge Harmon.

II.  Changes to this Notice of Privacy Practices

Creative Care reserves the right to amend this Notice of Privacy Practices at any time in the future.  Until such amendment is made, Creative Care is required by law to comply with this Notice.

III.  Complaints

Complaints about this Notice of Privacy Practices or how Creative Care handles your health information should be directed to:

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