Examples of Uses and Disclosures That Do Not Require Your Authorization

• For treatment
  For example: Information obtained by a nurse, doctor, or other health professional will be recorded in your record and used to determine the course of treatment that would work best for you.  Your doctor will document his or her expectations of the other members of the health care team.  Health care professionals will then record actions they take and their observations.  That way, your doctor will know how you are responding to treatment.

  We will also provide your doctor or a subsequent health care provider with copies of reports that will assist in continuing to treat you once you are discharged.

• For payment
  For example: A bill may be sent to you, to your health plan, or to a company that processes claims on behalf of your health plan.  The information on the bill and/or information accompanying the bill may include information that identifies you, as well as your diagnosis, procedures, and supplies used.
  
• For health care operations
  We may disclose your health information in order to operate this hospital.  For example, we may use your information in order to evaluate the quality of health care services that you receive or to evaluate the performance of the health care professionals who provide health care services to you.  We may also provide your health information to our accountants, attorneys, consultants, and others in order to make sure we’re complying with the laws that affect us.

There are other circumstances in which we may use and disclose your health information without your authorization.

Business Associates:  Some services that we provide for our patients are through contacts that we call “business associates”.  Examples include, but are not limited to, emergency room physicians, radiologists, pathologists, pharmacists, occupational therapists and physical therapists.  When we contract for these services, we may disclose your health information to our business associates so that they can perform the job that we’ve asked them to do.  They then bill you or your health plan for the services they provide.  To protect your health information, we require that they appropriately safeguard your health information.

Directory:  Unless you tell us that you object, we may disclose your name, room number, general condition, and religious affiliation for directory purposes.  Directory information may be provided to members of the clergy and, with the exception of religious affiliation, to other people who ask for you by name.

Notification:  We may use or disclose information to notify or assist in notifying a family member, personal representative, or another person responsible for your care, your location and general condition.

Communication with family:  Using their best judgment, health professionals may disclose your health information to a family member, other relative, close personal friend or any other person you identify who is involved in your care or payment related to your care.

Research:  Information may be disclosed to researchers when their research has been approved by an institutional review board.  The board is responsible to review the research proposal and make sure established protocols are in place to ensure the privacy of your health information.

Funeral directors:  We may disclose health information to funeral directors so that they can carry out their duties as consistent with applicable law.

Organ procurement organizations:  Consistent with applicable law, we may disclose health information to organ procurement organizations or others engaged in the procurement, banking, or transplantation of organs for the purpose of tissue donation and transplant.

Marketing:  We may contact you to provide appointment reminders or information about treatment alternatives or other health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you.

Development:  We may contact you as part of community wide efforts to raise funds for various projects at the medical center.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA):  We may disclose to the FDA health information related to adverse events with respect to food, supplements, products and product defects, or post marketing surveillance information to enable product recalls, repairs, or replacement.

Workers’ compensation:  We may disclose health information to the extent authorized and necessary by workers’ compensation laws.

Public health:  As required by law, we may disclose your health information to public health or legal authorities charged with preventing or controlling disease, injury, or disability.  In Minnesota, this includes the Minnesota Department of Health cancer surveillance registry and the Injury and Violence Prevention Unit.

Correctional institution:  Should you be an inmate of a correctional institution, we may disclose to the institution or its agents health information necessary for your health and the health and safety of others.

Law enforcement:  We may disclose health information for law enforcement purposes as required by law or in response to a valid subpoena.

Federal law makes provision for your health information to be released to an appropriate health oversight agency, public health authority or attorney if a work force member or business associate believes in good faith that we have engaged in unlawful conduct or have otherwise violated professional or clinical standards and are potentially endangering one or more patients, workers or the public.

Effective Date of This Notice

The effective date of this notice is April 14, 2003.