Hippa

We keep the health and financial information of our current and former members private as required by law, accreditation standards, and our rules. This notice explains your rights. It also explains our legal duties and privacy practices. We are required by federal law to give you this notice.

Your Protected Health Information: We may collect, use, and share your Protected Health Information (PHI) for the following reasons and others as allowed or required by law, including the HIPAA Privacy rule:

For Payment: We use and share PHI to manage your account or benefits; or to pay claims for health care you get through your plan. For example we keep information about your premium and deductible payments. We may give information to a doctor’s office to confirm your benefits.

For Health Care Operations: We use and share PHI for our health care operations. For example, we may use PHI to review the quality of care and services you get. We may also use PHI to provide you with case management or care coordination services for conditions like asthma, diabetes, or traumatic injury.

For Treatment Activities: We do not provide treatment. This is the role of a health care provider such as your doctor or a hospital. But, we may share PHI with your health care provider so that the provider may treat you.

To You: We must give you access to your own PHI. We may also contact you to let you know about treatment options or other health related benefits and services. When you or your dependents reach a certain age, we may tell you about other products or programs for which you may be eligible. This may include individual coverage. We may also send you reminders about routine medical checkups and tests.

To Others: You may tell us in writing that it is OK for us to give your PHI to someone else for any reason. Also, if you are present, and tell us it is OK, we may give your PHI to a family member, friend or other person. We would do this if it has to do with your current treatment or payment for you treatment. If you are not present, if it is an emergency, or you are not able to tell us it is OK, we may give your PHI to a family member, friend or other person if sharing your PHI is in your best interest.

As Allowed or Required by Law: We may also share your PHI, as allowed by federal law, for many types of activities. PHI can be shared for health oversight activities. It can also be shared for judicial or administrative proceedings, with public health authorities, for law enforcement reasons, and to coroners, funeral directors or medical examiners (about decedents). PHI can also be shared for certain reasons with organ donations groups, for research, and to avoid a serious threat to health or safety. It can be shared for special government functions, for workers’ compensation, to respond to requests from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and to alert proper authorities if we reasonably believe that you may be a victim of abuse, neglect, domestic violence or other crimes. PHI can also be shared as required by law. If you are enrolled with us through an employer sponsored group health plan, we may share PHI with your group health plan. We and/or your group health plan may share PHI with the sponsor of the plan. Plan sponsors that receive PHI are required by law to have controls in place to keep it from being used for reasons that are not proper.

Authorization: We will get an OK from you in writing before we use or share your PHI for any other purpose not stated in this notice. You may take away this OK at any time, in writing. We will then stop using your PHI for that purpose. But, if we have already used or shared your PHI based on your OK, we cannot undo any actions we took before you told us to stop.

Your Rights

Under federal law, you have the right to:

-Send us a written request to see or get a copy of certain PHI or ask that we correct your PHI that you believe is missing or incorrect. If someone else (such as your doctor) gave us the PHI, we will let you know so you can ask them to correct it.

-Send us a written request to ask us to send your PHI for treatment, payment or health care operations activities. We are not required to agree to these requests.

-Give us a verbal or written request to ask us to send your PHI using other means that are reasonable. Also let us know if you want us to send your PHI to an address other than your home if sending it to your home could place you in danger.

-Send us a written request to ask us for a list of certain disclosures of your PHI. Call Customer Service at the phone number printed on your identification (ID) card to use any of these rights. They can give you the address to send the request. They can also give you any forms we have that may help you with this process.

How we protect information:

We are dedicated to protecting your PHI. We set up a number of policies and practices to help make sure your PHI is kept secure. We keep your oral, written, and electronic PHI safe using physical, electronic, and procedural means. These safeguards follow federal and state laws. Some of the ways we keep your PHI safe include offices that are kept secure, computers that need passwords, and locked storage areas and filing cabinets. We require our employees to protect PHI through written policies and procedures. The policies limit access to PHI to only those employees who need the data to do their job. Employees are also required to wear ID badges to help keep people who do no belong, out of areas where sensitive date is kept. Also, where required by law, our affiliates and nonaffiliates must protect the privacy of data we share in the normal course of business. They are not allowed to give PHI to others without your written OK, except as allowed by law.

Potential Impact of Other Applicable Laws

HIPAA (the federal privacy law) generally does not preempt, or override other laws that give people greater privacy protections. As a result, if any state or federal privacy law requires us to provide you with more privacy protections, the n we must also follow that law in addition to HIPAA.

Complaints

If you think we have not protected your privacy, you can file a complaint with us. You may also file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. We will not take action against you for filing a complaint.

Contact Information

Please call Customer Service at the phone number printed on your ID card. They can help you apply your rights, file a complaint, or talk with you about privacy issues.

Copies and Changes

You have the right to get a new copy of this notice at any time. Even if you have agreed to get this notice by electronic means, you still have the right to a paper copy. We reserve the right to change this notice. A revised notice will apply to PHI we already have about you as well as any PHI we may get in the future. We are required by law to follow the privacy notice that is in effect at this time. We may tell you about any changes to our notice in a number of ways. We may tell you about the changes in a member newsletter or post them on our website. We may also mail you a letter that tells you about any changes.

STATE NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES

As we told you in our HIPAA notice, we must follow state laws that are more strict than the federal HIPAA privacy law. This notice explains your rights and our legal duties under state law.

Your Personal Information

We may collect, use and share your nonpublic personal information (PI) as described in this notice. PI identifies a person and is often gathered in an insurance matter. PI could also be used to make judgments about your health, finances, character, habits, hobbies, reputation, career, and credit. We may collect PI about you from other persons or entities such as doctors, hospitals, or other carriers. We may share PI with persons or entities outside of our company without your OK in some cases. If we take part in an activity that would require us to give you a chance to opt-out, we will contact you. We will tell you how you can let us know that you do not want us to use or share your PI for a given activity. You have the right to access and correct your PI. We take reasonable safety measures to protect the PI we have about you. A more detailed state notice is available upon request. Please call the phone number printed on you ID card.