Privacy Policy

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

PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

• Treatment: We may use your information to provide, coordinate, and manage your care and treatment. For example, a SOC physician may share your medical information with another physician for a consultation or a referral.

• Payment: We may use and disclose medical information about you so that the treatment and services you receive may be billed to you, an insurance company, or another third party. We may use and disclose medical information about you so that payment for treatment and services may be collected from you, an insurance company, or another third party. For example, we may need to give your health plan information about treatment you received at SOC so your health plan will pay us or reimburse you for the treatment. We may also tell your health plan about a treatment you are going to receive in order to obtain prior approval or to determine whether your plan will cover the treatment. We may disclose medical information about you for purposes of an independent review of a denial of a claim based on lack of medical necessity.
   
• Health Care Operations: We may use and disclose medical information about you for SOC’s health care operations. Health care operations are the uses and disclosures of information that are necessary to run SOC and to make sure that all of our patients receive quality care. For example, we may use medical information to review our treatment and services, and to evaluate the performance of our staff and physicians in caring for you.

• Appointment Reminders and Other Health Information: We may use your medical information to send you reminders about future appointments. We may also contact you with information about new or alternative treatments or other health care services.

• To People Assisting in Your Care. SOC will only disclose medical information to those taking care of you, helping you to pay your bills, or other close family members or friends if these people need to know this information to help you, and then only to the extent permitted by law. We may, for example, provide limited medical information to allow a family member to pick up a prescription for you. In addition, if you have a chronic mental illness, we may provide certain information regarding your condition to family members following the disclosure requirements under Iowa law. If you are able to make your own health care decisions, SOC will ask your permission before using your medical information for these purposes. If you are unable to make health care decisions, SOC will disclose relevant medical information to family members or other responsible people if we feel it is in your best interest to do so, including in an emergency situation.

• Research: Federal law permits SOC to use and disclose medical information about you for research purposes, either with your specific, written authorization or when the study has been reviewed for privacy protection by an Institutional Review Board or Privacy Board before the research begins. In some cases, researchers may be permitted to use information in a limited way to determine whether the study or the potential participants are appropriate.

• As Required by Law: We will disclose medical information about you when we are required to do so by federal, state or local law.

• To Avert a Serious Threat to Health or Safety: We may use and disclose medical information about you when necessary to prevent a serious threat to your health and safety or the health and safety of the public or another person. Any disclosure must be only to someone able to help prevent the threat, or the target of the threat.

• With regard to HIV/AIDS related information, we may release to the Department of Public Health any relevant information provided by an HIV-positive person regarding any person with whom the HIV-positive person has had sexual relations or has shared drug injecting equipment. We may also reveal the identity of a person who has tested positive for HIV to the extent necessary to protect a third party from the direct threat of transmission. In the event the person who tests positive for HIV is a convicted or alleged sexual assault offender, we are required under Iowa law to disclose the test results to the convicted or alleged offender and to the victim counselor or other person designated by the victim, who shall disclose the results to the victim.
• We may notify a care provider who may have been exposed to a disease or may be at risk for contracting or spreading a disease or condition (notification will not include the name of the individual tested for the contagious or infectious disease unless the individual consents).
• We may report to the Iowa Department of Transportation information about patients with physical or mental impairments that would interfere with their ability to safely operate a motor vehicle.

• To Business Associates: Some services are provided by or to SOC through contracts with business associates. Examples include SOC’s attorneys, consultants, collection agencies, and accreditation organizations. We may disclose information about you to our business associate so that they can perform the job we have contracted with them to do. To protect the information that is disclosed, each business associate is required to sign an agreement to appropriately safeguard the information and not to redisclose the information unless specifically permitted by law.

Your medical information may be released in the following special situations:

• Organ and Tissue Donation: We may release your medical information to organizations that handle organ procurement or organ, eye or tissue transplantation, or to an organ donation bank, as necessary to facilitate organ or tissue donation and transplantation.

• Military and Veterans: If you are a member of the armed forces, we will release medical information about you as requested by military command authorities if we are required to do so by law, or when we have your written consent. We may also release medical information about foreign military personnel to the appropriate foreign military authority as required by law or with written consent.

• Workers’ Compensation: We may release medical information about you for workers’ compensation or similar programs. These programs provide benefits for work-related injuries or illness. Iowa law allows release of all information concerning an employee’s physical or mental condition relative to the claim to any party making or defending a claim for benefits.

• Public Health: We may disclose medical information to public health authorities about you for public health activities. These disclosures generally include the following:

• Reports related to preventing or controlling disease, injury or disability;
• Reporting births and deaths;
• Reporting or providing information pertaining to child abuse or child death to the Department of Human Services or Department of Health, as required by Iowa law;
• Reporting or providing information pertaining to abuse of a dependent adult to the Department of Human Services, as required by Iowa law;
• Reporting or providing information pertaining to domestic abuse deaths to the Department of Health, as required by Iowa law;
• Reporting reactions to medications or problems with products;
• Notifying people of recalls of products they may be using;
• Reporting information related to sexually transmitted diseases or infection to the Department of Health, as required by Iowa law; or
• Reporting to the FDA as permitted or required by law.

• Health Oversight Activities: SOC may disclose medical information to a health oversight agency for health oversight activities that are authorized by law. These oversight activities include, for example, government audits, investigations, inspections, and licensure activities. These activities are necessary for the government to monitor the health care system, government programs, and compliance with civil rights laws.

• Lawsuits and Disputes: If you are involved in a lawsuit, dispute, or other judicial proceeding, we will disclose medical information about you only in response to a valid court order, administrative order, subpoena of a substitute medical decision-making board, or a grand jury subpoena, or with your written consent. We may disclose information in the context of civil litigation where you have put your condition at issue in the litigation.

• Law Enforcement: We may release medical information if asked to do so by a law enforcement official in response to a valid court order, grand jury subpoena, or warrant, or with your written consent. In addition, we are required to report certain types of wounds, such as gunshot or stab wounds. We will not disclose information regarding substance abuse to any law enforcement officer or law enforcement agency unless you have authorized the disclosure. We may disclose information relevant to a determination of whether a person is or continues to be a sexually violent predator to law enforcement agencies or the attorney general.
   
  We may also release information to law enforcement for the following reasons:
• To identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person;
• About a death we believe may be the result of criminal conduct;
• About criminal conduct at our facility; and
• In emergency circumstances to report a crime; the location of the crime or victims; or the identity, description or location of the person who committed the crime.

• Coroners, Medical Examiners, and Funeral Directors: We will release medical information to a coroner or medical examiner in the case of certain types of death. This may be necessary, for example, to identify you or determine the cause of death. We may also release the fact of death and certain demographic information about you to funeral directors as necessary to carry out their duties.

• National Security and Intelligence Activities: We will release medical information about you to authorized federal officials for intelligence, counter-intelligence, and other national security activities only as required by law or with your written consent.

• Protective Services for the President and Others: We will disclose medical information about you to authorized federal officials so they may provide protection to the President, other authorized persons, or foreign heads of state, or conduct special investigations only as required by law or with your written consent.

• Inmates: If you are an inmate of a correctional institution or under the custody of a law enforcement official, we will release medical information about you to the correctional institution or law enforcement official only as required by law or with your written consent.

You have the following rights regarding medical information we maintain about you:

• Right to Inspect and Copy: You have the right to inspect and receive a copy of your medical information that is used to make decisions about your care. Usually, this includes medical and billing records maintained by SOC.

• Right to Request Amendment: If you believe that medical information we have about you is incorrect or incomplete, you have the right to ask us to change the information. You have the right to request an amendment for as long as the information is kept by or for SOC.

• Was not created by SOC, unless the person or entity that created the information is no longer available to make the amendment;
• Is not part of the medical information kept by or for SOC;
• Is not part of the information which you would be permitted to inspect and copy; or
• Is accurate and complete.

• Right to an Accounting of Disclosures: You have the right to request an “accounting of disclosures.” This is a list of the disclosures we made of medical information about you. This list will not include disclosures for treatment, payment, and health care operations; disclosures that you have authorized or that have been made to you; disclosures for national security or intelligence purposes; disclosures to correctional institutions or law enforcement with custody of you; and certain other disclosures.

• Right to Request Restrictions: You have the right to request a restriction or limitation on the medical information we use or disclose about you. For example, you could ask that we not use or disclose information about treatment that you received to other physicians or to your insurance company. If you pay out-of-pocket in full for an item or service, then you may request that we not disclose information pertaining solely to such item or service to your health plan for purposes of payment or health care operations. We are required to agree with such a request. However, we are not required to agree to any other requested restriction. If we do agree, we will comply with your request unless the information is needed to provide you emergency treatment.

• Right to Request Confidential Communications: You have the right to request that we communicate with you about medical matters in a certain way or at a certain location. For example, you can ask that we only contact you only at work or only by mail.

• Right to a Paper Copy of This Notice: You have the right to receive a paper copy of this notice. You may ask us to give you a copy of this notice at any time. This notice is on our website: steindler.com.

Web Privacy Policy

• Information Gathering: Steindler Orthopedics may utilize cookies (small text files that collect information about website activity) to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, or for internal marketing efforts in accordance with the law. This information includes IP address (location data), method of arriving on the Steindler website, date and time of your visit, the pages you visit on the website, and data made available by the web browser. This data is not classified as protected health information, and Steindler will not sell this information or willfully distribute it to a third party unless required to by law. In an effort to protect patients’ privacy, sensitive information that could identify patients is not stored on Steindler websites. You have the option to disable cookies by changing preference settings in your web browser. You can access steindler.com with cookies disabled, but you may encounter issues with some functions. By using Steindler sites, you consent to the terms of this policy.
   
  To learn more about opting-out of targeted online advertising, visit the Digital Advertising Alliance (https://youradchoices.com/), the Network Advertising Initiative (https://thenai.org/how-to-opt-out/#/), or Google’s Policy on Advertising (https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads). Please note that Steindler does not not control third parties’ collection or use of your information to serve targeted advertising and we do not sell or willfully distribute information to be used by any third parties.

Changes to This Notice