| Health Insurance Portability & Accountability
Act (HIPAA)
As of April 14, 2003, federal legislation (known as the Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act (HIPAA)) goes into effect which requires
self-insured health plans the size of Newport News Public School's
plan to have a written "Privacy Policy and Procedures"
statement to ensure that personal health information (PHI) of its
participants is safeguarded. The following information has been
provided to all employees and plan participants and is a statement
of the policies and procedures that Newport News Public Schools
intends to follow on behalf of all employees in compliance with
the HIPAA regulations regarding PHI.
NEWPORT NEWS PUBLIC SCHOOLS - IMPORTANT NOTICE
Comprehensive Notice Of Privacy Policy And Procedures
| 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. |
This Notice is provided to you on behalf of:
- Newport News Public Schools Health Insurance Plan
- Newport News Public Schools Flexible Spending Plan
- Newport News Public Schools Employee Assistance Plan
- Newport News Public Schools Dental Plan
- Newport News Public Schools Vision Plan
These plans comprise what is called an "Affiliated Covered
Entity," and are treated as a single plan for purposes of this
Notice and the privacy rules that require it. For purposes of this
Notice, we'll refer to these plans as a single "Plan."
The Plan's Duty to Safeguard Your Protected Health Information.
Individually identifiable information about your past, present,
or future health or condition, the provision of health care to you,
or payment for the health care is considered "Protected Health Information"
("PHI"). The Plan is required to extend certain protections to your
PHI, and to give you this Notice about its privacy practices that
explains how, when and why the Plan may use or disclose your PHI.
Except in specified circumstances, the Plan may use or disclose
only the minimum necessary PHI to accomplish the purpose of the
use or disclosure.
The Plan is required to follow the privacy practices described
in this Notice, though it reserves the right to change those practices
and the terms of this Notice at any time. If it does so, and the
change is material, you will receive a revised version of this Notice
either by hand delivery, mail delivery to your last known address,
or some other fashion. This Notice, and any material revisions of
it, will also be provided to you in writing upon your request (ask
your Human Resources representative, or contact the Plan's Privacy
Official, described below), and will be posted on any website maintained
by Newport News Public Schools that describes benefits available
to employees and dependents.
You may also receive one or more other privacy notices, from insurance
companies that provide benefits under the Plan. Those notices will
describe how the insurance companies use and disclose PHI, and your
rights with respect to the PHI they maintain.
How the Plan May Use and Disclose Your Protected Health Information.
The Plan uses and discloses PHI for a variety of reasons. For its
routine uses and disclosures it does not require your authorization,
but for other uses and disclosures, your authorization (or the authorization
of your personal representative (e.g., a person who is your custodian,
guardian, or has your power-of-attorney) may be required. The following
offers more description and examples of the Plan's uses and disclosures
of your PHI.
- Uses and Disclosures Relating to Treatment, Payment, or Health
Care Operations.
- Treatment: Generally, and as you would expect, the
Plan is permitted to disclose your PHI for purposes of your
medical treatment. Thus, it may disclose your PHI to doctors,
nurses, hospitals, emergency medical technicians, pharmacists
and other health care professionals where the disclosure is
for your medical treatment. For example, if you are injured
in an accident, and it's important for your treatment team to
know your blood type, the Plan could disclose that PHI to the
team in order to allow it to more effectively provide treatment
to you.
- Payment: Of course, the Plan's most important function,
as far as you are concerned, is that it pays for all
or some of the medical care you receive (provided the care is
covered by the Plan). In the course of its payment operations,
the Plan receives a substantial amount of PHI about you. For
example, doctors, hospitals and pharmacies that provide you
care send the Plan detailed information about the care they
provided, so that they can be paid for their services. The Plan
may also share your PHI with other plans, in certain cases.
For example, if you are covered by more than one health care
plan (e.g., covered by this Plan, and your spouse's plan, or
covered by the plans covering your father and mother), we may
share your PHI with the other plans to coordinate payment of
your claims.
- Health care operations: The Plan may use and disclose
your PHI in the course of its "health care operations." For
example, it may use your PHI in evaluating the quality of services
you received, or disclose your PHI to an accountant or attorney
for audit purposes. In some cases, the Plan may disclose your
PHI to insurance companies for purposes of obtaining various
insurance coverage.
- Other Uses and Disclosures of Your PHI Not Requiring Authorization.
The law provides that the Plan may use and disclose your PHI
without authorization in the following circumstances:
- To the Plan Sponsor: The Plan may disclose PHI to the
employers (such as Newport News Public Schools ) who sponsor
or maintain the Plan for the benefit of employees and dependents.
However, the PHI may only be used for limited purposes, and
may not be used for purposes of employment-related actions or
decisions or in connection with any other benefit or employee
benefit plan of the employers. PHI may be disclosed to: the
human resources or employee benefits department for purposes
of enrollments and disenrollments, census, claim resolutions,
and other matters related to Plan administration; payroll department
for purposes of ensuring appropriate payroll deductions and
other payments by covered persons for their coverage; information
technology department, as needed for preparation of data compilations
and reports related to Plan administration; finance department
for purposes of reconciling appropriate payments of premium
to and benefits from the Plan, and other matters related to
Plan administration; internal legal counsel to assist with resolution
of claim, coverage and other disputes related to the Plan's
provision of benefits.tion of claim, coverage and other disputes
related to the Plan's provision of benefits.
- Required by law: The Plan may disclose PHI when a
law requires that it report information about suspected abuse,
neglect or domestic violence, or relating to suspected criminal
activity, or in response to a court order. It must also disclose
PHI to authorities that monitor compliance with these privacy
requirements.
- For public health activities: The Plan may disclose
PHI when required to collect information about disease or injury,
or to report vital statistics to the public health authority.
- For health oversight activities: The Plan may disclose
PHI to agencies or departments responsible for monitoring the
health care system for such purposes as reporting or investigation
of unusual incidents.
- Relating to decedents: The Plan may disclose PHI relating
to an individual's death to coroners, medical examiners or funeral
directors, and to organ procurement organizations relating to
organ, eye, or tissue donations or transplants.
- For research purposes: In certain circumstances, and
under strict supervision of a privacy board, the Plan may disclose
PHI to assist medical and psychiatric research.
- To avert threat to health or safety: In order to avoid
a serious threat to health or safety, the Plan may disclose
PHI as necessary to law enforcement or other persons who can
reasonably prevent or lessen the threat of harm.
- For specific government functions: The Plan may disclose
PHI of military personnel and veterans in certain situations,
to correctional facilities in certain situations, to government
programs relating to eligibility and enrollment, and for national
security reasons.
- Uses and Disclosures Requiring Authorization: For uses
and disclosures beyond treatment, payment and operations purposes,
and for reasons not included in one of the exceptions described
above, the Plan is required to have your written authorization.
Your authorizations can be revoked at any time to stop future
uses and disclosures, except to the extent that the Plan has already
undertaken an action in reliance upon your authorization.
- Uses and Disclosures Requiring You to have an Opportunity
to Object: The Plan may share PHI with your family,
friend or other person involved in your care, or payment for your
care. We may also share PHI with these people to notify them about
your location, general condition, or death. However, the Plan
may disclose your PHI only if it informs you about the disclosure
in advance and you do not object (but if there is an emergency
situation and you cannot be given your opportunity to object,
disclosure may be made if it is consistent with any prior expressed
wishes and disclosure is determined to be in your best interests;
you must be informed and given an opportunity to object to further
disclosure as soon as you are able to do so).
Your Rights Regarding Your Protected Health Information.
You have the following rights relating to your protected health
information:
- To request restrictions on uses and disclosures: You
have the right to ask that the Plan limit how it uses or discloses
your PHI. The Plan will consider your request, but is not legally
bound to agree to the restriction. To the extent that it agrees
to any restrictions on its use or disclosure of your PHI, it will
put the agreement in writing and abide by it except in emergency
situations. The Plan cannot agree to limit uses or disclosures
that are required by law.
- To choose how the Plan contacts you: You have the right
to ask that the Plan send you information at an alternative address
or by an alternative means. The Plan must agree to your request
as long as it is reasonably easy for it to accommodate the request.
- To inspect and copy your PHI: Unless your access is restricted
for clear and documented treatment reasons, you have a right to
see your PHI in the possession of the Plan or its vendors if you
put your request in writing. The Plan, or someone on behalf of
the Plan, will respond to your request, normally within 30 days.
If your request is denied, you will receive written reasons for
the denial and an explanation of any right to have the denial
reviewed. If you want copies of your PHI, a charge for copying
may be imposed but may be waived, depending on your circumstances.
You have a right to choose what portions of your information you
want copied and to receive, upon request, prior information on
the cost of copying.
- To request amendment of your PHI: If you believe that
there is a mistake or missing information in a record of your
PHI held by the Plan or one of its vendors, you may request, in
writing, that the record be corrected or supplemented. The Plan
or someone on its behalf will respond, normally within 60 days
of receiving your request. The Plan may deny the request if it
is determined that the PHI is: (i) correct and complete; (ii)
not created by the Plan or its vendor and/or not part of the Plan's
or vendor's records; or (iii) not permitted to be disclosed. Any
denial will state the reasons for denial and explain your rights
to have the request and denial, along with any statement in response
that you provide, appended to your PHI. If the request for amendment
is approved, the Plan or vendor, as the case may be, will change
the PHI and so inform you, and tell others that need to know about
the change in the PHI.
- To find out what disclosures have been made: You have
a right to get a list of when, to whom, for what purpose, and
what portion of your PHI has been released by the Plan and its
vendors, other than instances of disclosure for which you gave
authorization, or instances where the disclosure was made to you
or your family. In addition, the disclosure list will not include
disclosures for treatment, payment, or health care operations.
The list also will not include any disclosures made for national
security purposes, to law enforcement officials or correctional
facilities, or before the date the federal privacy rules applied
to the Plan. You will normally receive a response to your written
request for such a list within 60 days after you make the request
in writing. Your request can relate to disclosures going as far
back as six years. There will be no charge for up to one such
list each year. There may be a charge for more frequent requests.
How to Complain about the Plan's Privacy Practices.
If you think the Plan or one of its vendors may have violated your
privacy rights, or if you disagree with a decision made by the Plan
or a vendor about access to your PHI, you may file a complaint with
the person listed in the section immediately below. You also may
file a written complaint with the Secretary of the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services. The law does not permit anyone to
take retaliatory action against you if you make such complaints.
Contact Person for Information, or to Submit a Complaint
.
If you have questions about this Notice please contact the Plan's
Privacy Official or Deputy Privacy Official(s) (see below). If you
have any complaints about the Plan's privacy practices or handling
of your PHI, please contact the Plan's Privacy Official (see below).
Privacy Official.
The Plan's Privacy Official, the person responsible for ensuring
compliance with this Notice, is:
Dr. Marcus Newsome, Superintendent
Telephone Number: (757) 591-4502
The Plan's Deputy Privacy Official(s) is/are:
Eddie P. Antoine II, Assistant Superintendent Human Resources (757)
881-5061
Bruce Blair , Benefits Analyst (757) 881-5061
Organized Health Care Arrangement Designation.
The Plan participates in what the federal privacy rules call an
"Organized Health Care Arrangement." The purpose of that participation
is that it allows PHI to be shared between the members of the Arrangement,
without authorization by the persons whose PHI is shared, for health
care operations. Primarily, the designation is useful to the Plan
because it allows the insurers who participate in the Arrangement
to share PHI with the Plan for purposes such as shopping for other
insurance bids.
The members of the Organized Health Care Arrangement are:
- Newport News Public Schools Health Insurance Plan
- Newport News Public Schools Flexible Spending Plan
- Newport News Public Schools Employee Assistance Plan
- Newport News Public Schools Dental Plan
- Newport News Public Schools Vision Plan
- Delta Dental Plan of Virginia
- Vision Service Plan
Effective Date: The effective date of this
Notice is: April 14, 2003 .
The Newport News School Division
does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national
origin, sex, creed, marital status, age or disability in its
programs, activities, or employment practices as required by
the Title VI, Title VII, Title IX, Section 504, and ADA regulations.
Regina Harris, HR Compliance Supervisor, Human Resources, Newport
News Public Schools, at 12507 Warwick Blvd., Newport News, VA
23606, (757-881-5061), is responsible for coordinating the division's
efforts to meet its obligations under Section 504, Title IX,
the ADA, and their implementing regulations.
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