Each time you visit a hospital, physician, or another healthcare provider, a record of your visit is made. Typically, this record contains your symptoms, examination and test results, diagnoses, treatment, and plan for future care or treatment, and billing-related information. This notice applies to all the records of your care generated by the Madison Valley Medical Center whether made by hospital personnel, agents of the hospital, or your personal doctor.

Our Responsibilities

We are required by law to maintain the privacy of your health information and provide you a description of our privacy practices. 

Uses & Disclosures 

How we may use and disclose medical information about you?

The following categories describe examples of the way we use and disclose medical information:

For Treatment: We may use medical information about you to provide you treatment or services. We may disclose medical information about you to doctors, nurses, technicians, medical students, or other hospital or long term care personnel who are involved in taking care of you at Madison Valley Medical Center 

For Payment: We may use and disclose medical information about your treatment and services to bill and collect payment from you, your insurance company or a third party payer. 

For Health Care Operations: Members of the medical staff and quality improvement team may use information in your health record to assess the care and outcomes in your case and others like it. We may also use and disclose medical information: 

• To remind you of an appointment you have for medical care; 
• To assess your satisfaction with our services; 
• To tell you about possible treatment alternatives; 
• To tell you about health-related benefits or services; 
• For population-based activities relating to improving care or reducing health care costs; 
• For conducting training programs and reviewing competence of health care professionals.

Business Associates: There are some services provided in our organization through contracts with business associates. We may disclose your health information to our business associate so they can perform the job we've asked them to do. To protect your health information, however, we require the business associate to appropriately safeguard your information.

Individuals Involved in Your Care or Payment for Your Care: We may release medical information about you to a friend or family member who is involved in your medical care or who helps pay for your care. In addition, we may disclose medical information about you to an entity assisting in a disaster relief effort so your family can be notified about your condition, status, and location.

Fundraising Activities: We may use limited information about you so the foundation can contact you in an effort to raise money for the hospital/clinic and its operation.

Directory of Information: Unless you notify us that you object, we will use your name, location in the facility, general condition and religious affiliation for directory purposes. This information may be provided to people who ask for you by name. Religious affiliation will only be disclosed to members of the clergy.

We must release information as Required by Law to: 

• Funeral Directors 
• Organ Procurement Organizations 
• Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 
• Workers Compensation 
• Public Health 
• Correctional Institutions
• Law Enforcement

Your Health Information Rights: Although your health record is the physical property of the healthcare practitioner or facility that compiled it, you have the right to: 

• To inspect and copy medical information that may be used to make decisions about your care
• Request an amendment for as long as the information is kept by our facility
• Request an accounting of disclosures 
• Request a restriction or limitations on the medical information we use or disclose about you for treatment, payment, or health care operations 
• Have a paper copy of this notice

Other Uses of Medical Information
Other uses and disclosures of medical information not covered by this notice or the laws that apply to us will be made only with your written permission. If you provide us permission to use or disclose medical information about you, you may revoke that permission, in writing, at any time. If you revoke your permission, we will no longer use or disclose medical information about you for the reasons covered by your written authorization. You understand we are unable to take back any disclosures we have already made with your permission. We are required to retain our records of the care that we provided you according to the Laws of the State of Montana.

Privacy Officer: Charles Able