PRIVACY POLICY OF
MOUNTAIN VIEW OPTOMETRY
Effective November 15, 2009
INTRODUCTION
Privacy
of our patient’s personal information is very important principle to us. 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) as well as medical information (specifics pertaining
to your medical assessment, diagnoses and treatment).
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:
a) evaluate your eye health and
vision status
b) determine and recommend
appropriate treatment or referral
c) communicate with you about
the services we provide
d) to advise you about your
vision care needs
e) provide you with the best eye-care,
health or other product or treatment information
f)
process payment and pursue collection of accounts receivable for
services and products received from our office
g) communicate with others
(e.g. other health care providers, lawyers, third party insurers, etc.) about
your eye health and vision status
h) advise you to make a routine
appointment, or remind you of a scheduled appointment. Unless you tell us otherwise, we will mail
you an appointment reminder on a post card, email you a reminder message,
and/or leave a message on your home answering machine or with someone who
answers your phone if you are not home
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:
a) other health care providers
b) insurers or other third
party payers you have identified
c) regulatory authorities,
where such information may assist in the investigation of a complaint or a
review of standards of care
d) governmental authorities
(e.g. CCRA, Privacy Commissioner, Human Rights Commission, etc.) who have it in
their mandate to access your file
e) our practice’s lawyers,
accountants, information managers or other consultants contracted to provide
advice or counsel regarding the administration of management of the practice
f)
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. Thomas Wilk
Should
you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy, please contact out
privacy officer at:
Phone:
(403) 851-2020 Fax: (403)
932-9976 E-Mail: info@mvopt.ca
More
general inquiries should be directed to:
The
Alberta Government Privacy Help Desk- privacyhelpdesk@gov.ab.ca