Elevating the Standard of In-Home Care

The AAging Better In-Home Care Story

AAGING BETTER IN-HOME CARE, L.L.C.

PRIVACY PRACTICES NOTICE EFFECTIVE JANUARY 15, 2005.

THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW PERSONAL AND MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION.

PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

AAging Better In-Home Care is committed to maintaining the confidentiality of any and all information it receives about you. We are required by law to maintain the privacy of your personal and/or health information and to provide you with notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to your information. If you have questions about any part of this notice or if you want more information about our privacy practices, please contact us at 208.777.0308 or Toll Free at 866.464.2344.

I. How We Use or Disclose Your Personal or Medical Information—Without Separate Authorization

AAging Better collects personal and health information about you and stores it in a client file, which is your record. We need this information to provide you with quality in-home care and to create a record of the care and services you receive. The law permits us to use or disclose your personal and/or health information for the following purposes:

1. Treatment. We may use medical information about you to provide you with medical treatment or services. We may disclose medical information about you to doctors, psychologists, pharmacists, nurses, social workers, therapists, technicians, or other personnel involved in providing services to you. Different departments within our company may also share medical information about you in order to coordinate the different services you may need.

2. Payment. We may use and disclose personal or medical information about you so we or other providers that provide treatment and services to you can submit claims, and receive payment, for the treatment and services from you, your insurance company, a third party, Medicaid or other payor sources. To the extent possible, our staff will make reasonable efforts to assure that the use and disclosure of your personal and/or health information is conducted in a secure and confidential manner.

3.  Health Care Operations. We may use and disclose medical information about you for business purposes. These uses and disclosures are necessary to manage the operation and to monitor your quality of care. For example, we may use personal health information to evaluate the quality of services being provided, including the performance of our staff. We may also use personal health information for training purposes or to develop new policies, procedures, or programs that may benefit you or other clients we serve. Your personal or medical information may be shared with Medicaid survey reviewers, as appropriate, or other accreditation bodies in accordance with current and on-going operating procedures.

4.  Information provided to you. We may share information with you or your power-of-attorney (POA) in order to assist with making informed decisions regarding your in-home services or needs.

5.  Individuals Involved in Your Care. We may disclose medical information about you to a family member, POA or another person identified by you if they are involved in your care or payments related to your care. We may disclose personal or health information about you if they need to be notified of your location, your general condition or in the event of your death. Please advise us if there is someone living in your home, a close friend or a caregiver that you do not want us to share information with, or if you do not want us to leave any messages on your telephone answering machine. If you are unable or unavailable to agree with or object to these conditions, our staff will use their best judgment in communication with your family and/or others.

6.  Uses or Disclosures That Are Required or Permitted by Law. As required or permitted by law, we may use and disclose your personal or health information as described below:

a. Public health. We may disclose your health information to public health authorities for purposes related to:  preventing or controlling disease, injury or disability; reporting child abuse or neglect; reporting domestic violence; reporting to the Food and Drug Administration problems with products and reactions to medications; and reporting disease or infection exposure.

b. Health oversight activities. We may disclose your health information to health agencies during the course of audits, investigations, inspections, licensure and other proceedings.

c. Judicial and administrative proceedings. We may disclose your health information in the course of any administrative or judicial proceeding as required by a court order or subpoena.

d. Law enforcement. We may disclose your health information to a law enforcement official for purposes such as identifying or locating a suspect, fugitive, material witness or missing person, complying with a court order or subpoena and other law enforcement purposes.

e. Deceased person information. We may disclose your health information to coroners, medical examiners and funeral directors.

f. Public safety. We may disclose your health information to appropriate persons in order to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of a particular person or the general public.

g. Specialized government functions. We may disclose your health information for military, national security, and prisoner purposes.

h. Worker’s compensation. We may disclose your health information as necessary to comply with worker’s compensation laws.

In all cases we will make reasonable efforts to assure that only the minimum necessary personal or health information will be disclosed to accomplish the above purposes.

II. Uses or Disclosures That Require Your Authorization

Other uses and disclosures will be made only with your written authorization, which you may cancel at any time by notifying your local office in writing of your desire to cancel it. Examples of this type of disclosure would include:  Drug companies request your information for marketing purposes, or an attorney requesting your medical information for use in a civil law suit.

III. Your Rights

1. You have the right to ask us not to use or disclose your personal or medical information. You may ask that family members or other individuals not be informed of specific medical information. Requests must be made in writing to your local office. However, we are not required to agree to the restriction/s that you request. If we do agree to the request, we must keep the agreement, except in the case of a medical emergency. Either you or AAging Better In-Home Care may stop a restriction at any time. If needed, contact your local office to request assistance with such written notice.

2. You have the right to ask that we communicate with you in a certain manner or at a certain place. A request for confidential communication must be made in writing to your local office. We must agree with the request if it is reasonable.

3. You have the right to inspect and copy any personal or health information we have on you. You must submit a request in writing to your local office. We may charge a fee for the costs of copying, summarizing and/or mailing information to you. If we agree to your request, we will tell you. We may deny your request under certain circumstances, and we will let you know in writing, if your request is denied. You may be able to request a review of our denial.

4. You have a right to request that we correct your personal or medical information that you feel is incorrect or incomplete. We are not required to change your personal or health information but will work with you on a review of your records, including timesheet or Progress Notes if you feel they are in error. We ask that such a request be made in writing and if we deny the request, we will inform you why. You have the right to submit a statement disagreeing with our decision.  We may deny a request if we determine that the information: 1.) Was not created by us, 2.) Is not part of the medical or personal information we maintain, 3.) Is in records that you are not allowed to inspect and copy, and 4.) Current medical information is already accurate and complete.

5. You have the right to find out what disclosures of your personal or health information have been made. The list of disclosures—an accounting—may be made for up to six (6) years prior to the date on which you request the accounting, but cannot include disclosures before January 15, 2005.  We are not required to include disclosures described in parts 1 (treatment), 2 (payment), 3 (health care operations), 4 (information provided to you), 5 (information provided to family members and close personal friends) and 6g (certain government functions) of section I of this Privacy Practices Notice. However, we do not have to maintain an accounting of uses and disclosures made pursuant to a written authorization signed by you or your personal representative. You are entitled to one free accounting in any twelve (12) month period but must submit a written request to your local office for the accounting. You will be charged for the cost of providing additional accountings. We will notify you in advance if there is an additional charge.

6. You have the right to request and get a paper copy of this Notice.

If you would like to have a more detailed explanation of these rights or if you would like to exercise one or more of these rights, contact your local office.

IV. Changes to this Privacy Practices Notice

AAging Better In-Home Care reserves the right to amend this Notice at any time in the future, and to make the new provisions effective for all information that it maintains, including information that was created or received prior to the date of such amendment.  Until such amendment is made, the operation is required by law to comply with this Notice.

If AAging Better In-Home Care materially changes its privacy practices, this Notice will be amended and disseminated to all clients.

V.  Complaints

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may contact AAging Better In-Home Care, LLC., directly or the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. You will not be retaliated against in any way for reporting a violation of your privacy rights. If you have any questions or want more information, please contact us by phone or mail at:

AAging Better In-Home Care, LLC
ATTN: Regional Director

1125 East Polston Ave., Suite A
Post Falls, Idaho 83854

Telephone: 208-777-0308

Toll Free: 1-866-464-2344

Website Privacy Practices

AAging Better In-Home Care respects your privacy and wants you to feel comfortable using our site as a method of communication with us. The purpose of this privacy policy notice is to explain how we use the information collected on our site and to assure you that any information you submit to us will be used only for its intended purpose.

Information Automatically Collected

When you visit our site, our servers automatically store the following information about your computer in log files:

• Your IP address
• Your browser and version
• Your operating system
• The date and time of your visit
• The site from which you came (If you came from a search engine, the search words you used to find our site are also stored.)

This information cannot be used to identify specific individuals, and is only used for:

• Anonymous user analysis
• Research and development

Cookies

Our site does NOT use cookies. When you visit our site, we do not send any information to be stored on your computer’s hard drive.

Information You Submit

When you send us electronic mail, thereby disclosing your e-mail address, we do not sell or disclose any of this information to third parties.

When you request information through our site, we use your personal and business information only for the purpose it was submitted for. We do not sell or disclose any of this information to third parties.

Policy Updates

As we add new content and functionality to our site, our privacy policy will be revised to include details about the use of any new information being collected. Any revisions to our policy will not reduce the amount of protection accorded to any visitor information collected in the past. Please review our policy frequently to ensure that you have the most current information.