PRIVACY POLICY

INTRODUCTION

Privacy of our patient’s personal information is an important principle of Mountain View Optometry. We are committed to collecting, using, and disclosing your personal information in a responsible manner. This document describes our privacy policy.

WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Personal information is information about an individual. It includes information that relates to your personal characteristics (e.g. gender, age, income, home address, phone number, ethnic background, religion, family status).

Your business information, when used for business contact purposes (e.g. address, phone number, etc.), is not considered personal information and therefore is not affected by privacy legislation.

COLLECTION AND USE

Personal information collected from patients of this practice shall be limited to that required to:

1. evaluate your eye health and vision status
2. determine and recommend appropriate treatment or referral
3. communicate with you about the services we provide
4. to advise you about your vision care needs
5. provide you with eye-care, health or other product or treatment information
6. process payment and pursue collection of accounts receivable for services and products received from our office
7. communicate with others (e.g. other health care providers, lawyers, third party insurers, etc.) about your eye health and vision status

DISCLOSURE

In the course of providing services to you, your personal information may be disclosed where required or allowed by law and may also be disclosed to:

1. other health care providers
2. insurers or other third party payers you have identified
3. regulatory authorities, where such information may assist in the investigation of a complaint or a review of standards of care
4. governmental authorities (e.g. CCRA, Privacy Commissioner, Human Rights Commission, etc.) who have it in their mandate to access your file
5. our practice’s lawyers, accountants, information managers or other consultants contracted to provide advice or counsel regarding the administration of management of the practice
6. on termination of sale of the practice to a purchasing optometrist or file storage facility that agrees to serve as trustee of your personal information and to only access this information for the purpose of confirming their custody of your file, unless you initiate contact as a patient

The disclosure of personal information shall be limited to that which is necessary for the purpose for which it is disclosed. All the above noted external parties have the same legal responsibility as this practice to protect all personal information collected in the course of their activities.

ACCESS AND DESTRUCTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

You have the right to access your personal information at any reasonable time (e.g. during regular office hours) and have the right to request corrections to your personal information. This applies to factual information and not professional opinions we may have recorded. Corrections are recorded on your patient file. If our office does not agree with the correction, we will include a brief statement on your file recording both opinions

Reasonable safeguards will be taken whenever paper and electronic records are destroyed or deleted. Every reasonable effort will be made to ensure that no record remains after destruction.

DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION?

Our Privacy Officer is Dr. Michele Naruszewicz

Should you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy, please contact out privacy officer at:

Mountain View Optometry
Phone: (403) 286-0888 Fax: (403) 286-7657
Email: wilkoptometry@shaw.ca

More general inquiries should be directed to:
The Alberta Government Privacy Help Desk:
Email: privacyhelpdesk@gov.ab.ca