Our Duties
Our practice is mandated by law to maintain the privacy of your health information and to provide you (or your representative) this notice informing you of our duties and privacy practices. We are required to abide by terms of this notice which is subject to occasional amendment. We reserve the right to change the terms of our notice and to make any changes effective for all health information in our possession. If our practice changes this notice, a copy of the revised notice will be provide to you or your designated representative with comments regarding the nature of the change. You or your representative have the right to express complaints to this practice and to this practice and to the Secretary of Health and Human Services if you or your representative believe that your privacy rights have been violated. Any complaints regarding privacy violations should be made in writing to the Privacy Official. We encourage you to express any concerns you may have regarding the privacy of your information. You will not be retaliated against in any way for filing a complaint.

Contact Person
Our contact person for all issues regarding patient privacy and your rights under the Federal privacy standards is the Privacy Official. The Privacy Official may be contacted at the address on the cover of this brochure.

If you have any questions regarding this notice, please contact the Privacy Official or owner/operator.

Right to Request Restrictions
You have the right to request restrictions on certain uses and disclosures of your health information. You may request a limit on the disclosure of your health information to someone who is involved in your care. However, our practice is not required to agree to your request if it will negatively affect your care. If you wish to make a request for restrictions, please contact the Privacy Official.

Right to Receive Confidential Communications
You have the right to request that our practice communicates with you in a certain way. For example, you may ask that we only conduct communications pertaining to your health information with you privately with no other family members present. If you wish to receive confidential communications, please contact the Privacy Official. We will require that you provide any reason for your request and will attempt to honor your reasonable requests for confidential communications.

Right to a Paper Copy of This Notice
You (or your representative) have a right to a separate paper copy of this notice at any time even if you have received this notice previously. To obtain a separate paper copy, please contact the Privacy Official or any staff member at our practice.

Right to Amend Health Care Information
If you or your representative believes that your health information records are incorrect or incomplete, you may request that these records be amended. That request may be made as long as the information is maintained by this practice. We require the request for an amendment of records be made in writing to the Privacy Official. We may deny the request if it is not in writing or does not include a reason for the change. The request also may be denied if your health information records were not created by heath care professionals within our practice, if the records you are requesting are not part of our records, if the health information you wish to amend is not part of the health information you or your representative are permitted to inspect and copy, or if, in the opinion of health care professionals within our practice, the records containing your health information are accurate and complete.

Right to Inspect and Copy Your Health Information
You have the right to inspect and copy your health information, including billing records. A request to inspect and copy records containing your health information may be made to the Privacy Official.

Washington Medical Equipment
1100 West Chestnut Street
Washington, PA 15301
Phone: 724-222-2545
Fax: 724-222-2579
Toll-Free: (877) IN HOME 5
                   (877) 464-6635

Notice of Privacy Practices

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.

Use and Disclosure of Health Information
Our practice may use your health information for purposes of providing you treatment, obtaining a payment and conducting health care operations. Your health information may be used or disclosed for these purposed while you are our patient. We have established policies to guard against unnecessary disclosure of your health information.

Conducting Heath Care Operations Our practice may use and disclose heath care information for our own operations in order to assist you in everyday functions, and as necessary to provide quality care to all of our patients. We have defined our health care operations to include activities such as:

• Health assessments and quality improvement activities.
• Activities designed to improve wellness and improve quality of life.
• Care coordination between patient and other health care professionals.
• Contact of health care professionals and patients about treatments, alternatives, and other related areas.
• Professional review and performance evaluation.
• Training programs including those in which student interns or practitioners in health care learn under our supervision and guidance.
• Training of non-health care professionals.
• Accreditation, certification, licensing, or credentialing activities.
• Review and auditing, including compliance reviews, medical reviews, legal services, and compliance programs.
• Business planning and development including cost management and planning related analyses and formulary development.
• Business management and general administrative activates of the practice.

For example, our practice may use your heath information in combination with our other patients in evaluating how to more effectively serve our entire network of patients. We may disclose your health information to our professional staff and contracted personnel for training purposes, or to evaluate staff performance. We may contact you as a reminder regarding an upcoming appointment, or contact you or your family as a reminder of our services available to you (unless you tell us you do not want to contacted.

Obtaining Payment
Upon receiving care, our practice may include health information about you in invoices sent for the purpose of collecting payment from your health plan. For example, we may be required by your insurance company to provide information regarding your health care status so that reimbursement will be made. We also may need to obtain prior approval from your insurance company or may need to explain to them your need for the services we will be providing.

Providing Treatment
We may use your health information to coordinate care within our own practice, and with others involved in your care, such as specialists and other health care professionals. For example, doctors involved in your care will need information about your symptoms in order to prescribe appropriate medications and treatments. We also may disclose your health care information to individuals outside of our practice involved in your care, including family members and others whom you have designated, pharmacists, suppliers of medical equipment, health care professionals and others involved in your coordination of care.

When Legally Required
We will disclose your health information when it is required to do so by any Federal, State or local law.

When There Are Risks to Public Health
We may disclose your health information for public activates for the purpose of:

• Preventing or controlling disease, injury, reporting disease, injury, vital events suck as birth or death and conducting public health surveillance, investigations and interventions.
• Reporting adverse events, product defects, tracking products or enabling product recalls, repairs and replacements and conducting post-marketing surveillance and compliance with requirements of the Food and Drug Administration.
• Notifying a person who has been exposed to a communicable disease or who may be at risk of contracting or spreading a disease.
• Supplying information to employer about an individual who is a member of the workforce as legally required.

Reporting Abuse, Neglect, or Domestic Violence
We are allowed to notify government authorities if we believe a patient is the victim of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence. Our practice will make this disclosure only when specifically required or authorized by law or when the patient agrees to the disclosure.

Conducting Health Oversight Activities
We may disclose your health information to a health oversight agency for activities including audits, civil administrative or criminal investigations, inspections, licensure or disciplinary action. However, we may not disclose your health information if you are the subject of an investigation and your health information is not directly related to your receipt of health care or public benefits.

Research Purposes
We may, under some circumstances use your health information for research. Before we disclose any of your health information for such research purposes, the project will be subject to an extensive approval process. We will ask your permission if any researcher will be granted access to your individually identifiable health information.

Specified Government Functions
In certain circumstances, the Federal regulations authorize us to use or disclose your health information to facilitate specified government functions relating to military and veterans, national security and intelligence activities, protective services for the President and others, medical suitability determinations and inmates and law enforcement custody.

In Connection With Judicial And Administrative Proceedings
Our practice may disclose your health information in the course of any judicial or administrative proceeding in response to an order of a court or administrative tribunal as expressly authorized by such order or in response to a subpoena, discovery request or other lawful process, but only when we

Law Enforcement Purposes
Our practice may disclose your health information to a law enforcement official for law enforcement purposes as follows:

• As required by law for reporting of certain types of wounds or other physical injuries.
• For the purpose of identifying or locating a suspect, fugitive, material witness or missing person.
• Under certain limited circumstances, when you are the victim of a crime.
• To a law enforcement official if we have a suspicion that your death was the result of criminal conduct at our place of business.
• In an emergency in order to report a crime.

Coroners and Medical Examiners
Our practice may disclose your health information to coroners and medical examiners for purpose of determining your cause of death or for other duties, as authorized by law.

Funeral Directors
Our practice may disclose your health information to funeral directors consistent with applicable law and if necessary, to carry out there duties with respect to your funeral arrangements. If necessary to carry out their duties, we may disclose your health information prior to and in reasonable anticipation.

Organ, Eye, or Tissue Donation
Our practice may use or disclose your health information to organ procurement organizations or other entities engaged in the procurement, banking or transplantation of organs, eyes or tissue for the purpose of facilitating the donation and transplantation.

In the Event of a Serious Threat to Health or Safety
Our practice may, consistent with applicable law and ethical standards of conduct, disclose your health information if we, in good faith, believe that such disclosure is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to your health or safety or to the health and safety of the public.

Worker's Compensation
Our practice may release your health information for worker's compensation or similar programs.