Privacy Policy

NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES

THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. REVIEW IT CAREFULLY. THE PRIVACY OF YOUR MEDICAL AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION IS OF GREAT CONCERN TO COLUMBIA EMS.

At Columbia EMS, we are committed to maintaining the confidentiality of your medical and financial information, which we refer to as your “personal information,” regardless of format: oral, written, or electronic. This Notice of Privacy Practices informs you about how we may collect, use, and disclose your personal information and your rights regarding that information.

The start date of this Notice is October 15, 2011. It will remain in effect until we replace it. This Notice pertains to you and your covered dependents. Share it with your covered dependents.

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Under both the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Columbia EMS must take measures to protect the privacy of your personal information. In addition, other state and federal privacy laws may provide additional privacy protection. Examples of your personal information include your name, Social Security number, address, telephone number, account number, employment, medical history, health records, and claims information.

We protect your personal information in a variety of ways. For example, we authorize access to your personal information by our employees and business associates only to the extent necessary to conduct our business of serving you, such as billing for services. We take steps to secure our stations and electronic systems from unauthorized access. We train our employees on our written confidentiality policy and procedures and employees are subject to discipline if they violate them. Our privacy policy and practices apply equally to personal information about current and former members; we will protect the privacy of your information for as long as we are required to retain it.

WE ARE REQUIRED BY LAW TO:

• protect      the privacy of your personal information;
• provide      this Notice explaining our duties and privacy practices regarding your      personal information;
• notify      you following a breach of your unsecured personal information; and
• abide      by the terms of this Notice.

COLLECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect most of your personal information directly from you while responding to your emergency. We may also obtain your personal information from third parties without your specific authorization. These third parties may include healthcare providers, health plans or insurers, and state and federal agencies.

Personally identifiable information may include your name, postal address, email address, telephone number, mobile number, gender, date of birth, social security number or credit card information. 

Additionally, we may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our Site. Your IP address may also be used to help identify visitors and to gather broad demographic information and to respond to legal requests. 

How we may use and disclose your personal information

We may use or disclose your personal information without your specific authorization for billing or legal purposes. For any other purposes, we will request your specific authorization in writing, which you may grant or reject. If granted, you can revoke the authorization at any time by letting us know in writing.

We will only share your personal information with third parties as permitted by this Privacy Policy (in its current or future form) and as otherwise permitted by law. We do not sell your personal information to third parties. 

We share and give access to personal information to our employees and agents in the course of operating our business. For example, if you sent us an e-mail asking a question, we would provide your e-mail address to one of our employees or agents, along with your question, in order for that person to reply to your e-mail. We may share personal information with affiliates but only for the purpose of conducting business. 

We may share personal information if all or part of Columbia EMS is sold, merged, dissolved, acquired, or in a similar transaction. 

We may share personal information in response to a court order, subpoena, search warrant, law or regulation. We may cooperate with law enforcement authorities in investigating and prosecuting website visitors who violate our rules or engage in behavior that is harmful to other visitors or is illegal.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the right to access, amend, delete or restrict the use of your personal information collected by us. You may submit a request to ems@columbiaems.com or write us at: 

Columbia EMS

PO Box 1718

Quincy, WA 98848

HIPAA POLICIES

Protected health information (“PHI”) is protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (“HITECH”). Our Notice of Privacy Practices provides information regarding the uses and disclosures of patient PHI and the patient’s rights.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

Columbia EMS reserves the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time based on its discretion. If we are going to materially change our Privacy Policy regarding the use of your personally identifiable information, we will post a notice that the Privacy Policy has changed on our Site for a period of 30 days following the change. Your continued use of our website will indicate your acceptance of any material changes to the Privacy Policy.

EMAIL COMMUNICATIONS

If you register your e-mail address with us, we use such information provided by you for internal purposes only. We do not sell or share your email address and we do not send spam or other promotional emails.