Strongsville Fire & Emergency Services is required by law to maintain the privacy of certain Protected Health Care Information (PHI) and to provide you with a notice of our legal duties and privacy practice with respect to your protected health information and to abide by terms of this notice currently in effect.

Strongsville Fire & Emergency Services may use PHI for the purposes of treatment, payment and health care operations. The following are examples of our uses of PHI:

Treatment: This includes oral communication through 911 dispatch regarding your medical condition and certain individually identifiable information such as your name and address. This also includes other oral communication and written records of our treatment provided to the hospital as we transfer your care and treatment.

Payment: This includes any necessary activities to receive reimbursement for services provided to you, such as determining medical necessities and submitting claims to insurance carriers.

Health Care Operations: This includes continuous quality improvement activities, training programs to ensure the quality of our services, and creating statistical reports that do not identify you individually.

Other Use and Disclosure of PHI Permitted or Required by Law: Under emergency circumstances, to identify a deceased person or the cause of death. Limited law enforcement activities, such as to identify and to locate a suspect, or to stop a crime. Activities related to national defense or security.  Oversight of the health care system.  Legal processing as required by a court or an administrative order, or in response to a subpoena. Communication with individuals directly involved in your care. Other use and disclosure as permitted or required by law.

All other uses and disclosures of PHI will be made only with your authorization, and you have the right to revoke such authorization at any time, in writing, except to the extent that we have already used or disclosed PHI in reliance on that authorization.

As a patient, you have certain rights under the privacy rule with respect to your PHI.  You have the right to access, inspect and copy your PHI.  We may charge you a reasonable fee to copy any information that you have the right to access. We have available forms to request access to your medical information. If you wish to inspect and copy your PHI, you must contact our privacy officer.

You have the right to amend your PHI.  We do not have to comply with your request if we believe the PHI is accurate and correct.  If you wish to request that we amend your PHI, you must contact our privacy officer.

You have the right to an accounting of most non-routine use and disclosures of your PHI. We do not have to give you an accounting of PHI that we use or disclose to carry out treatment, payment and health care operations, or the use and disclosure of PHI for which you have given us written authorization. If you wish to request an accounting, you must contact our privacy officer.

You have the right to request restrictions on certain uses and disclosure of your PHI.  We are not required to agree to a requested restriction, but any restrictions agreed to by Strongsville Fire & Emergency Services in writing are binding on Strongsville Fire & Emergency Services.

You have the right to obtain a paper copy of this notice upon request.