Privacy Policy

To Our Patients,
This notice describes how medical information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to this information. Please review it carefully.

Use and Disclosure of Health Information
Authorization to use or Disclose Health Information
Your Rights with Respect to your health information
Duties of Hospice of the Valley
Contact Person

Use and Disclosure of Health Information
Hospice of the Valley (HOV) may use your health information for purposes of providing you treatment, obtaining payment for your care and conducting health care operations. Hospice of the Valley has established policies to guard against unnecessary disclosure of your health information.

Providing Treatment: HOV may use your health information to coordinate your care with others involved in your care, such as your attending physician, members of HOV’s interdisciplinary team and health care professionals who have agreed to assist HOV in coordinating your care. For example, physicians involved in your care need information about your symptoms in order to prescribe appropriate medications. HOV may disclose your health care information to individuals involved in your care including family members and clergy whom you have designated, pharmacists, suppliers of medical equipment or other health care professionals who HOV uses to coordinate your care.

Obtaining Payment: HOV may include your health information in invoices to collect payment from third parties for the care you may receive. For example, HOV may be required by your health insurer to provide information regarding your health care status so that the insurer will reimburse our agency. HOV may need to obtain prior approval from your insurer for hospice care and may need to explain to the insurer your need for hospice care and the services that will be provided to you.

Conducting Health Care Operations: HOV may use and disclose health care information in order to facilitate its functions, and as necessary to provide quality care to all of our patients. Such operations might include: quality assessment and improvement activities; business planning activities; training programs including those in which students, trainees or practitioners in health care and other related fields learn under supervision; accreditation, certification, licensing or credentialing activities. For example, we may use your health information to evaluate staff performance, combine your health information with other hospice patients in evaluating how to more effectively serve all of our patients, or disclose your health information to staff and contracted personnel for training purposes.

Memorials: HOV sponsors two annual events, one in December, and one in the Spring, to honor those who we have served. Your name will appear in the memorial booklet provided to family and friends of yours and other patients who attend these events. Please inform us if you do not want your name to be included in the booklet.

Fundraising Activities: HOV may use information about you including your name, address, telephone number and the dates you received care in order to contact you or your family to raise money for HOV. This may be in the form of fundraising and community information mailings. If you do not want HOV to contact you or your family, please notify Hospice of the Valley's Development Director, 1.408.559.5600, and indicate that you do not wish to be contacted.
Federal and California State privacy rules allow HOV to use or disclose your health information without your consent or authorization for a number of reasons. These reasons might include: to comply with Federal, State, or local laws; to report communicable disease, suspected abuse, neglect, domestic violence, or a suspicious death; in response to a court order, warrant, or subpoena; Workers’ Compensation cases. HOV may also disclose your health information to Coroners/Medical Examiners, funeral directors, organ/tissue donation organizations, and for select research purposes.

Authorization to use or Disclose Health Information
Hospice of the Valley will not disclose your health information except for previously stated reasons without your written authorization. You may revoke this authorization at any time.

Your Rights with Respect to your Health Information
You have the following rights regarding your health information that HOV maintains:

Right to Request Restrictions: You may request restrictions on certain uses and disclosures of your health information.

Right to Receive Confidential Communications: You have the right to request that HOV communicate with you in a certain way. For example, you may ask that we only conduct communications pertaining to your health information with you privately with no other family members present.

Right to Inspect and Copy Your Health Information: You have a right to inspect and to request a copy of your medical record maintained by HOV, including billing records. This request must be in writing.

Right to Amend Health Care Information: If you or your legal representative believes that your health information records are incorrect or incomplete, you may request that HOV amend the records. This request may be made as long as the information is maintained by HOV. A request for an amendment of records must be made in writing. HOV may deny the request if it is not in writing or doesn’t include a reason for the amendment. The request also may be denied if your health information records were not created by HOV, if the records you are requesting are not part of the Hospice’s records, if the health information you wish to amend is not part of the health information you or your representative are permitted to inspect and copy, or if, in the opinion of HOV, the records containing your health information are accurate and complete.

Right to an Accounting: You or your legal representative have the right to request an accounting of disclosures of your health information made by HOV for any reason other than for treatment, payment, or health operations. Accounting request may not be made for periods of time in excess of six years. HOV would provide the first accounting you requested during any 12 month period without charge. Subsequent accounting requests may be subject to a reasonable cost.

Right to a Paper Copy of the Notice: You or your legal representative have a right to a separate paper copy of this Notice.

Duties of Hospice of the Valley
HOV is required by law to maintain the privacy of your health information and to provide to you and/or your legal representative this Notice of our duties and privacy practices. HOV is required to abide by terms of this Notice as may be amended from time to time. HOV reserves the right to change the terms of its Notice and to make the new Notice provisions effective for all health information that it maintains. If HOV changes its Notice, we will provide a copy of the revised Notice to you or your appointed representative.
You or your legal representative has the right to express complaints to HOV and to the Secretary of Health and Human Services if you believe that your privacy rights have been violated. Any complaints to HOV should be made in writing to the Director of Quality Improvement. HOV encourages you to express any concerns you may have without fear of recrimination.

Contact Person
HOV’s contact person for all issues regarding patient privacy and your rights under the Federal privacy standards and questions regarding this Notice is:
Hospice of the Valley
Director of Quality Improvement
4850 Union Ave
San Jose, CA 95124
1.408.559.5600

Web Privacy Policy
This privacy notice discloses the privacy practices for www.hospicevalley.org. This privacy notice applies solely to information collected by this web site. It will notify you of the following:

• What personally identifiable information is collected from you through the web site, how it is used and with whom it may be shared.
• What choices are available to you regarding the use of your data.
• The security procedures in place to protect the misuse of your information.
• How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information.

Information Collection, Use, and Sharing
We are the sole owners of the information collected on this site. We only have access to/collect information that you voluntarily give us via email or other direct contact from you. We will not sell or rent this information to anyone. We will use your information to respond to you, regarding the reason you contacted us. We will not share your information with any third party outside of our organization, other than as necessary to fulfill your request, e.g. to ship an item. Unless you ask us not to, we may contact you via email in the future to tell you about special events, new products or services, or changes to this privacy policy.

Your Access to and Control Over Information
You may opt out of any future contacts from us at any time. You can do the following at any time by contacting us via the email address or phone number given on our website:

• See what data we have about you, if any.
• Change/correct any data we have about you.
• Have us delete any data we have about you.
• Express any concern you have about our use of your data.

Security
We take precautions to protect your information. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, accounting or customer service) are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers/servers in which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment. If you feel that we are not abiding by this privacy policy, you should contact us immediately via telephone at 1.408.559.5600 or request@hospicevalley.org.