IMPORTANT: 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.

South West Emergency Action Team is required by law to protect certain aspects of your health care information known as Protected Health Information or PHI and to provide you with this Notice of Privacy Practices.

This Notice describes our privacy practices, your legal rights, and lets you know, how South West Emergency Action Team is permitted to:
Use and disclose PHI about you
How you can access and copy that information
How you may request amendment of that information
How you may request restrictions on our use and disclosure of your PHI.

In most situations we may use this information described in this Notice without your permission, but there are some situations where we may use it only after we obtain your written authorization, if we are required by law to do so.

We respect your privacy, and treat all health care information about our patients with care under strict policies of confidentiality that all of our staff are committed to following at all times.

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING DETAILED
NOTICE. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT IT, PLEASE CONTACT THE SOUTH WEST EMERGENCY ACTION TEAM’s HIPAA PRIVACY OFFICER LIAISON AT 512-457-8888 ext.108 AND SOMEONE WILL CONTACT YOU.

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.

Purpose of this Notice: This Notice describes your legal rights, advises you of our privacy practices, and lets you know how The South West Emergency Action Team is permitted to use and disclose Protected Health Information (PHI) about you.

Uses and Disclosures of PHI:
South West Emergency Action Team may use PHI for the purposes of treatment, payment, and health care operations, in most cases without your written permission.

Examples of our use of your PHI:

For treatment. This includes such things as verbal and written information that we obtain about you and use pertaining to your medical condition and treatment provided to you by us and other medical personnel (including doctors and nurses who give orders to allow us to provide treatment to you). It also includes information we give to other health care personnel to whom we transfer your care and treatment, and includes transfer of PHI via radio or telephone to the hospital or dispatch center as well as providing the hospital with a copy of the written record we create in the course of providing you with treatment and transport.

For payment. This includes any activities we must undertake in order to get reimbursed for the services we provide to you, including such things as organizing your PHI and submitting bills to insurance companies (either directly or through a third party billing company), management of billed claims for services rendered, medical necessity determinations and reviews, utilization review, and collection of outstanding accounts.
For health care operations. This includes quality assurance activities, licensing, and training programs to ensure that our personnel meet our standards of care and follow established policies
and procedures, obtaining legal and financial services, conducting business planning, processing grievances and complaints, creating reports that do not individually identify you for data collection purposes. Use and Disclosure of PHI Without Your Authorization. The South West Emergency Action Team is permitted to use PHI without your written authorization, or opportunity to object in certain situations, including:

For The South West Emergency Action Team’s use in treating you or in obtaining payment for services provided to you or in other health care operations;
For the treatment activities of another health care provider;
To another health care provider or entity for the payment activities of the provider or entity that receives the information (such as your hospital or insurance company);
To another health care provider (such as the hospital to which you are transported or First Responder Agencies) for the health care operations activities of the covered entity that receives the information as long as the covered entity receiving the information has or has had a relationship with you and the PHI pertains to that relationship;
For health care fraud and abuse detection or for activities related to compliance with the law;
To a family member, other relative, or close personal friend or other individual involved in your care if we obtain your verbal agreement to do so or if we give you an opportunity to object to such a disclosure and you do not raise an objection. We may also disclose health information to your family, relatives, or friends if we infer from the circumstances that you would not object. For example, we may assume you agree to our disclosure of your personal health information to your spouse when your spouse has called the ambulance for you. In situations where you are not capable of objecting (because you are not present or due to your incapacity or medical emergency), we may, in our professional judgment, determine that a disclosure to your family member, relative, or friend is in your best interest. In that situation, we will disclose only health information relevant to that person’s involvement in your care. For example, we may inform the person who accompanied you in the ambulance that you have certain symptoms and we may give that person an update on your vital signs and treatment that is being administered by our medical crew;

If you have any questions or if you wish to file a complaint or exercise any rights listed in this Notice, please contact:

HIPAA Privacy Officer Liaison
SOUTH WEST EMERGENCY ACTION TEAM
3267 Bee Caves RD
Suite 107-317
Austin TX 78746
Phone: 512-457-8888 Ext. 108
medical@sweatinc.com

Effective Date of the Notice:
09/01/2008