Privacy Practices
The Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh is committed to protecting your personal health information as provided by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA).
HIPPA requires to give you this notice about our privacy practices, our legal duties, and your rights concerning your protected health information. This notice describes how medical information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to this information.
Health Insurance Plan
Your personal health information may be shared, if requested, by your health insurance plan for purposes of treatment, payment, and health care operations. Disclosures of information will be limited to the minimum necessary for the purpose of the disclosure. This provision does not apply to the disclosure of medical records for treatment purposes, because physicians, specialists, and other providers need access to the full record to provide quality care.
Public Health Activities
We may disclose your protected health information for public health activities that are permitted by law. For example, we may use or disclose information for the purpose of preventing or controlling disease, injury, or disability.
Government Authority
We may disclose your protected health information to a government authority that is authorized by law to receive reports of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence.
Court Order
We may disclose your protected health information in response to an order of a court or in response to a subpoena or other lawful process once we have met all administrative requirements of the HIPPA Privacy Rule.
Law Enforcement
Under certain conditions we may disclose your protected health information to law enforcement officials as required by law, or if necessary to locate or identify a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person.
Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh Operations
We may use your health information for internal operations within the Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh.
Research
We may use your health information to conduct research, only if approved as necessary and appropriate by a review board which is obligated to protect human rights in research.
Non-Personalized Notices
We may use postcards to send you non-personalized notices such as address changes, periodic health related notices, and generalized health-related services available to your children.
Your Rights
Following is a description of your rights with respect to your protected health information:
- You have the right to requested copies of your protected health information. You must make this request in writing to obtain access to your protected health information.
- You have a right to an accounting of certain disclosures of your protected health information that are for other reasons other than treatment, payment, or health care operations. Most disclosures are for these reasons.
- You have a right to request a restriction on the protected health information we use or disclose about you for treatment, payment, or health care operations. We are not required to agree to these additional restrictions. You may request a restriction in writing by providing to us the specific information you want to limit and how you want to limit this disclosure.
- You have the right to request confidential communications with us. You must make this request in writing, stating the means of communication you prefer.
- You have the right to request an amendment to your protected health information. This request must be in writing. This form is titled “REQUEST FOR MEDICAL RECORD AMENDMENT.” You may obtain this form from The Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh.
All Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh employees agree to abide by the Breastfeeding Center of Pittsburgh Confidentiality Policy.
For a downloadable, printable copy of the HIPAA Privacy Notice, click here.