Notice Of Privacy Practices

As required by the privacy regulations created as a result of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

This notice describes how health information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to your individually identifiable health information.

Please review this notice carefully.

A.  Our commitment to your privacy:

Signature Health Partners and NutriScan® are dedicated to maintaining the privacy of your individually identifiable health information (also called protected health information, or PHI). In conducting our business, we will create records regarding you and the recommendations and services we provide to you. We are required by law to maintain the confidentiality of health information that identifies you. We also are required by law to provide you with this notice of our legal duties and the privacy practices that we maintain in our practice concerning your PHI. By federal and state law, we must follow the terms of the Notice of Privacy Practices that we have in effect at the time.

This notice describes how health information about you maybe used and disclosed and how you can get access to this information.  It is effective April 14, 2003, and applies to all protected health information contained in your health records maintained by us.  We have the following duties regarding the maintenance, use and disclosure of your health records:

(1) We are required by law to maintain the privacy of the protected health information in your records and to provide you with this Notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to that information.

(2) We are required to abide by the terms of this Notice currently in effect.

(3) We reserve the right to change the terms of this Notice at any time, making the new provisions effective for all health information and records that we have and continue to maintain.  All changes in this Notice will be prominently displayed and available at our office.

We realize that these laws are complicated, but we must provide you with the following important information:

     • How we may use and disclose your PHI,

     • Your privacy rights in your PHI,

     • Our obligations concerning the use and disclosure of your PHI.

The terms of this notice apply to all records containing your PHI that are created or retained by our business. We reserve the right to revise or amend this Notice of Privacy Practices. Any revision or amendment to this notice will be effective for all of your records that our business has created or maintained in the past, and for any of your records that we may create or maintain in the future. Signature Health Partners will post a copy of our current Notice in our offices in a visible location at all times, and you may request a copy of our most current Notice at any time.

B. If you have questions about this Notice or have questions about your privacy, please contact:
Privacy Officer: Paul Sullivan, President; Signature Health Partners; 2186 Eastman Ave, Ventura, CA 93003; 805-477-1111. Email at customersupport@nutriscan.com

C.  We may use and disclose your PHI in the following ways:

The following categories describe the different ways in which we may use and disclose your PHI.

There are a number of situations in which we may use or disclose to other persons or entities your confidential health information.  Certain uses and disclosures will require you to sign an acknowledgement that you received this Notice of Privacy Practices.  These include nutritional recommendations, payment, and health care operations.  Any use or disclosure of your PHI required for anything other than nutritional recommendations, payment or health care operations requires you to sign an Authorization.  Certain disclosures that are required by law, or under emergency circumstances, may be made without your Acknowledgement or Authorization.  Under any circumstance, we will use or disclose only the minimum amount of information necessary from your records to accomplish the intended purpose of the disclosure.

Nutritional Recommendations:  We will use your health information to provide the data needed to perform your NutriScan® personalized nutrition assessment.  It may also be necessary to share your health information with your health care provider whom we may need to consult with respect to your care. Specific people who are employed by our business – including but not limited to, our doctors, pharmacists and nutritionists may use your PHI to help you or assist others in your care. These are only examples of uses and disclosures of medical information for nutritional recommendation purposes that may or may not be necessary in your case.

Payment:  Certain data is used to complete the payment transaction for credit card use. We ask the standard information such as name, address, credit card number, expiration date, and shipping instructions. This data is entered by you voluntarily and used only to process and complete the payment transaction for shipment. This information is encrypted and protected by the industry standard, Secure Socket Layer (SSL).  We will not use, sell or transfer any information collected to any outside party for any reason.

Operations:  Your PHI will be used in the processing of your health assessment and subsequent fulfillment of the NutriScan® personalized nutritional system. In order to personalize your nutritional recommendations we do ask for information such as name and e-mail as well as demographics, lifestyle, family history, prescription use, health conditions and allergies. There is no charge for the assessment and the customer is under no obligation to purchase.

Cookies: Cookies are a technology used by our Web sites to identify a user as the user moves through the Web site. This technology does not utilize any of your PHI and only remembers the computer you are using. Your browser allows us to place some information on your computer’s hard drive that identifies your computer and recognizes you when you return to our Web site.  We use cookies to personalize our Web sites and associating a cookie with your registration data allows us to offer you increased personalization and functionality.

There are certain circumstances under which we may use or disclose your health information without first obtaining your Acknowledgement or Authorization.  Those circumstances generally involve public health and oversight activities, law-enforcement activities, judicial and administrative proceedings, and in the event of death.  Specifically, we may be required to report to certain agencies information concerning certain communicable diseases, sexually transmitted diseases or HIV/AIDS status.  We are required to report to appropriate agencies and law-enforcement officials information that you or another person is in immediate threat of danger to health or safety as a result of violent activity.  We must also provide health information when ordered by a court of law to do so.  We may contact you from time to time to provide service reminders or information about other health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you

Others Involved in Your Healthcare:  Unless you object, we may disclose to a member of your family, a relative, a close friend or any other person you identify, your PHI (protected health information) that directly relates to that person’s involvement in your health care.  If you are unable to agree or object to such a disclosure, we may disclose such information as necessary if we determine that it is in your best interest based on our professional judgment.  We may use or disclose protected health information to notify or assist in notifying a family member, personal representative or any other person that is responsible for your care of your location, general condition or death.  Certain employees of Signature Health Partners have access to your PHI but each has been thoroughly trained and educated on the handling of such information and the Privacy Laws that govern their activities. Finally, we may use or disclose your protected health information to an authorized public or private entity to assist in disaster relief efforts and to coordinate uses and disclosures to family or other individuals involved in your healthcare.

Except as indicated above, your health information will not be used or disclosed to any other person or entity without your specific Authorization, which may be revoked at any time.  In particular, except to the extent disclosure has been made to governmental entities required by law to maintain the confidentiality of the information, information will not be further disclosed to any other person or entity with respect to information concerning mental-health treatment, drug and alcohol abuse, HIV/AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases that may be contained in your health records.  We likewise will not disclose your health-record information to an employer for purposes of making employment decisions, to a liability insurer or attorney as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident, or to educational authorities, without you written authorization.

D.  You have certain rights regarding your health record information, as follows:

1. You may request that we restrict the uses and disclosures of your health record information for nutritional recommendations, payment and operations, or restrictions involving your care or payment related to that care.  We are not required to agree to the restriction; however, if we agree, we will comply with it, except with regard to emergencies, disclosure of the information to you, or if we are otherwise required by law to make a full disclosure without restriction.

2. You have a right to request receipt of confidential communications of your PHI by an alternative means or at an alternative location. 

3. You have the right to inspect, copy and request amendments to you health records.  Access to your health records will not include psychotherapy notes contained in them, or information compiled in anticipation of or for use in a civil, criminal or administrative action or proceeding to which your access is restricted by law.  We may charge a reasonable fee for providing a copy of your health records, or a summary of those records, at your request, which includes the cost of copying, postage, and preparation or an explanation or summary of the information.

4. All requests for inspection, copying and/or amending information in your health records, and all requests related to your rights under this Notice, must be made in writing and addressed to the Privacy Officer at our address.  We will respond to your request in a timely fashion.

5. You have a right to receive an accounting of all disclosures we make to other persons or entities of your health information except for disclosures required for treatment, payment and healthcare operations, disclosures that require an Authorization, disclosure incidental to another permissible use or disclosure, and otherwise as allowed by law. 

6. If this notice was initially provided to you electronically, you have the right to obtain a paper copy of this notice and to take one home with you if you wish.

You may file a written complaint to us or to the Secretary of Health and Human Services if you believe that your privacy rights with respect to confidential information in your health records have been violated.  All complaints must be in writing and must be addressed to the Privacy Officer at: customersupport@nutriscan.com  (in the case of complaints to us) or to the person designated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services if we cannot resolve your concerns.  You will not be retaliated against for filing such a complaint.  More information is available about complaints at the government’s web site, http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa.

E.  Right to provide an authorization for other uses and disclosures. Signature Health Partners will obtain your written authorization for uses and disclosures that are not identified by this notice or permitted by applicable law. Any authorization you provide to us regarding the use and disclosure of your PHI may be revoked at any time in writing. After you revoke your authorization, we will no longer use or disclose your PHI for the reasons described in the authorization. Please note: we are required to retain records of your care.

Confidentiality of data relating to clients and patients on our Web site is not only respected but a critical component of our relationship. Signature Health Partners makes every effort to not only meet our responsibilities and legal requirements for your privacy on our Web site but to exceed them.