Whole Woman Health Notice Of Privacy Practices

THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THE INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

At Whole Woman Health, we believe that your health information is personal. We keep records of the care and services that you receive at our facilities.  We are committed to keeping your health information private, and we are required by law to respect your confidentiality.

This Notice of Privacy Practices (“Notice”) describes the privacy practices of Whole Woman Health (“WWH”). The Notice applies to all the health records that identify you and the care you receive at WWH.  If you are under eighteen years of age, your parent or guardian must sign for you and handle your privacy rights for you.  We are legally required to make this Notice available to you to view, to provide a copy on request, and to follow the terms of the Notice currently in effect.

HOW WHOLE WOMAN HEALTH MAY USE AND DISCLOSE YOUR HEALTH INFORMATION

When you become a patient of WWH, we will use your health information within our office and disclose your health information outside our practice for the reasons described in this Notice. The following categories describe some of the ways that we will use and disclose your health information.

Treatment: We use health information to provide you with health care services. We may disclose your health information to people outside WWH who may be involved in your health care, including but not limited to treating physicians or other health care professionals, healthcare facilities, home care providers, pharmacies, and pharmaceutical and medical device experts.

Payment: We may use or disclose your health information so the health care you receive may be billed and paid for by you, your insurance company, or another third party, such as your employer’s designee when the services delivered are related to a claim under workers’ compensation.

Healthcare operations: We may use and disclose your health information for our healthcare operations.  These uses and disclosures help us operate WWH to maintain and improve patient care, such as, conducting quality assessment and improvement activities, auditing functions, cost-management analysis, and customer service. An example would be an internal quality assessment review. We may also create, aggregate, and distribute de-identified health information by removing all references to individually identifiable information to identify new services to offer, eliminate redundant services, and determine the effectiveness of certain therapies.  We may disclose your health information to improve the accuracy and increase the availability of your health records and decrease the time needed to access your information.

Health-related services: We may use or disclose your health information to send you information about health-related products and services available at WWH.

Legal matters: We will disclose your health information outside WWH when required to do so by federal, state, or local law, or by a court.  We may disclose your health information for public health reasons, including births, deaths, child abuse and neglect, reactions to medications or problems with medical products.  We may disclose your health information to help control the spread of disease or to notify a person whose health or safety may be threatened.  This specifically includes information concerning psychological conditions, psychiatric conditions, intellectual disability conditions, genetic information, chemical dependency conditions, and infectious diseases, including but not limited to blood-borne diseases, such as HIV and AIDS.  We may disclose your health information to health oversight agencies for activities authorized by law, such as for audits, investigations, inspections, and licensure.

AUTHORIZATIONS FOR OTHER USES AND DISCLOSURES

We will not use or disclose your health information for other reasons without your written authorization.  You may revoke your authorization at any time in writing, but we cannot take back any uses or disclosures or your health information made prior to your revocation.

YOUR RIGHTS REGARDING HEALTH INFORMATION

Right to Accounting. You may request an accounting—names of individuals or entities—of disclosures of your health information that may have occurred without your written authorization. This will not include disclosures for treatment, payment, healthcare operations, health-related services, or legal reasons.  Your request must identify the time period of the disclosures and must be made within five years after the disclosure.

Right to Amend.  If you feel that health information we have about you is incorrect or incomplete, you may request that we amend your health records.  Your request must specify the records you wish to amend and the reason for your request.  We will respond to your request within sixty days.  We may deny your request; if we do, we must provide you with a reason  and explain your options.

Right to Inspect and Obtain a Copy.  You may inspect and obtain a copy of your complete health record unless we believe that disclosure of that information may could harm you.

Right to Request Restrictions. You may request to restrict the uses or disclosures we make of your health information for treatment, payment, healthcare operations, or health-related services, but we are not required to honor your request.  You may also request to limit the uses or disclosures we make of your health information to others involved in your care or payment for your care, but, again, we are not required to honor your request.  Your request must describe the information you want restricted, identify whether you want to limit the use, the disclosure, or both, and identify who should not receive the information.

Right to Request Confidential Communication. You may request we communicate with your about yoru health information in a particular manner.  For example, you may request that we only contact you at your work number or email.  You need not provide a reason for the request and we will not ask.  However, if you reach out to us in a particular manner regarding your health information, for example, by phone, voicemail, text message, email message, we will use that means of communication to respond to you, even if that means is not one to which you have consented.

All requests must be in writing, signed by you, and dated. 

CHANGES TO THIS NOTICE

This Notice is effective as of October 2002, revised February 2025.  We reserve the right to change the terms of this Notice at any time.  Any change in the Notice could apply to health information we already have about you, as well as information we obtain in the future.  We will post, and you may obtain, a written copy of a revised Notice of Privacy Practices from our office.

COMPLAINTS

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a formal written complaint with us at the address below or with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office of Civil Rights.  We will not retaliate against you for filing a complaint.

You may contact us for more information:
Whole Woman Health, LLC
4507 Forest Ave
Des Moines, IA 50311

515-243-6309
wholewomanhealth@gmail.com