Summary of the JRI Privacy Notice

What is this Summary all about?

HIPAA is a federal law that gives you some rights about the ways that we use and tell others about your confidential information, including your health information. The purpose of this summary is to let you know what those rights are. These rights are more fully explained in the attached Privacy Notice. This letter does not replace the Privacy Notice, but gives information to help you understand some of it. The Privacy Notice is about confidential information in any form whether it is on paper, electronic, or just confidential information that we talk about. We provide every individual we serve with a copy of this Notice. Some people will want help in understanding the Notice. This letter is to help you understand your rights under HIPAA. In this summary we are using the term "confidential information" to refer to health, billing, and other confidential information about you, known in HIPAA as "PHI" (Protected Health Information).

We use your information for Treatment, Payment and Operations

For the most part, we will use your confidential information within JRI without asking for your permission (authorization). In most cases, if we send your confidential information out of JRI even if it is for your treatment, we will obtain your permission.

There are times we may communicate to other people about your confidential information without your permission. This includes health care or other emergencies, if we need to by law, to avoid serious threats to your health and safety or that of other people, and at other times listed in the Notice. In some cases, we must try to let you know; in other situations we are not required to do so.

Federal law protects you if you receive treatment from our drug/alcohol abuse programs. This law generally requires us to obtain permission for any disclosure of this information that we might make outside of the programs that you attend even within our agency.

Your Rights to Confidential Information
You must make these requests in writing.

The Right to Inspect/Copy Records
You have the right to know what confidential information is in your record. Sometimes we will not let you see some of the information. You have the right to appeal a denial in some situations. We will let you know how to do that. If you want a copy of your records we will charge you a reasonable fee for our costs.

The Right to Add Information to Your Record
You may want to add a statement to your record if you think the information we have in it is not correct. A request for amendment may be denied and we have an appeals process for this situation. If we approve this, we will work with you to let other people know about your statement.

The Right to Know with Whom We have Shared Information
You have a right to ask us to tell you about some of the times we give other people information about you.

The Right to Request Restrictions
You have the right to ask that we sometimes not tell others information we have about you. Generally, we will not agree to this unless there is a very good reason.

The Right to Request Confidential Communications
You have a right to ask that we communicate with you in confidential ways. This may mean that we do not call you at home or that we mail bills to another address where you can pick them up confidentially. We will typically agree to these requests unless it would be too difficult to do so.

Complaints
You have a right to report any action we take that you believe is a breach of your Privacy Rights. The report can be made to the Program Director, Privacy Officer or with the Department of Health and Human Services and we must help you with this complaint. We will not retaliate against you if you file a complaint.

For more information, or if you have questions, contact your Program Director or the Privacy Officer at JRI.