Privacy Policy

This notice describes how your medical information may be disclosed and how you can get access to this information.

Alpine Home Medical Equipment maintains protocols to ensure the security and confidentiality of your personal information. We have physical security in our building, passwords to protect databases, compliance audits, and virus detection software. Within our facility, only those who require your private health information to perform their job have access to it.

We at Alpine Home Medical Equipment are committed to treating and using your private health information in a responsible manner. This Notice of Privacy Policies describes the information we collect, and how and when we use or disclose that information. Additionally, it describes your rights as they relate to your protected health information. This Notice is effective April 14, 2003, and applies to all protected health information as defined by federal regulations.<//ul>

Understanding Your Health Information:

As required by law, Alpine Home Medical Equipment maintains a record of your private health information, most often to prove medical necessity to Medicare or other insurances. Typically, this record contains physician orders, progress notes, diagnoses related to your equipment, and other various information relating to your condition which determines the appropriate type of equipment to provide for you. This information serves the following purposes:

Means of communication among the many health professionals who contribute to your care.
Legal documents describing the equipment you received.
Means by which you or a third-party payer can verify that services billed were actually provided.
Means by which the medical equipment you received was medically required.
Tool by which we can assess and continually work to improve the service we provide.

Your Health Information Rights:

Although your health record is the physical property of Alpine Home Medical Equipment, the information belongs to you. You have the right to:

Obtain a paper copy of this notice of privacy practices
Inspect and obtain a copy of your health record. (Reasonable copy fees apply.)
Request confidential communications of your health information.
Request a restriction on certain uses and disclosures of your health information.

Our Responsibilities:

We, as a provider, are required to:<//h4>

Maintain the privacy notice of your health information.
Provide you with this notice as to our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to information we collect and maintain.
Abide by the terms of this notice.
Notify if you if we were unable to agree to a requested restriction.
Accommodate reasonable requests you may have to communicate your health information.

We reserve the right to change our practices and to make the provisions effective for all protected health information we maintain. We will have available at our facility a copy of the most current notice containing the effective date on the front.<//p>

We will not use or disclose your health information in a manner other than described in the section regarding “Examples of Disclosures”, without your written authorization, which you may revoke, except to the extent that action has already been taken.<///p>

Examples of Disclosures:

We will use your health information to assist us in providing you with the correct equipment.
We may provide your medical information to health care providers, our company personnel, or third parties who are involved with the coordination of your care.

For example: Information provided to us by your physician will determine the proper equipment to provide you with.

We may, under certain circumstances, coordinate a plan of care with you and your physician.
We will use your health information for payment.
We may disclose your information so that we can collect or make payment for the medical equipment we provide you.

For example: Most insurances require us to have on file proof of medical necessity for your equipment. They periodically request this from us before payment can be made.

We may disclose your health information for our routine operations. The uses are necessary for certain administrative, financial, legal, and quality improvement functions.

For Equipment Coverage:

Sometimes your physician will only prescribe your equipment for short periods of time. After this time has passed, if you still have the equipment, we may use your information to contact you. When we make this contact, we may inform you of the length of need prescribed by your physician, and discuss further accommodations.

As Required By Law:

This may include reporting a crime, responding to a court order, or other legal proceedings necessary to be in compliance with government regulations and civil laws.<//p>

Personal Representative:

We may use or disclose information to your personal representative. (Person legally involved with making your health care decisions.)<///p>

To Avert a Serious Threat:

We may disclose your information if we believe in good faith it will prevent a serious threat to your safety or another. This can include abuse, neglect, domestic violence, or highly infectious diseases.