MINOR CHILD - MAY NEED TO COMPLETE BOTH BLOCKS FOR PARENT INFORMATION

ADULTS -COMPLETE PRIMARY INSURED

DUAL COVERAGE? ALSO COMPLETE SECONDARY INSURED

PRIMARY INSURED -- IF NO INSURANCE COMPLETE FOR RESPONSIBLE PARTY

Outside of Immediate Family Household

I hereby authorize payment directly to the Dental Office of the group insurance benefits otherwise payable to me. I understand that I am responsible for all costs of dental treatment. I hereby authorize the Dental Office to administer such medications and perform such diagnostic, photographic and therapeutic procedures as may be necessary for proper dental care. The information on this page and the dental/medical histories are correct to the best of my knowledge. I grant the right to the dentist to release my dental/medical histories and other information about my dental treatment to third party payors and/or other health professionals.

Do you have, or have you had, any of the following?

14. What do you feel the overall condition of your mouth is? (1 - good, 10 - I need a lot of work)

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.

I. Dental Practice Covered by this Notice

This Notice describes the privacy practices of El dorado Family Dental (Dental Practice). We and our means the Dental Practice.

You and your means our patient.

II. How to Contact Us/Our Privacy Official

If you have any questions or would like further information about this Notice, you can contact El dorado Family Dental Privacy Official at:

Dr. Mohamad Albik

4944 Windplay Drive Suite 301

El Dorado Hills CA 95762

[PHONE] (530) 444-4944

[FAX] (530) 404-0444

EDHDENTISTRY@GMAIL.COM

III. Our Promise to You and Our Legal Obligations

The privacy of your health information is important to us. We understand that your health information is personal and we are committed to protecting it. This Notice describes how we may use and disclose your protected health information to carry out treatment, payment or health care operations and for other purposes that are permitted or required by law. It also describes your rights to access and control your protected health information. Protected health information is information about you, including demographic information, that may identify you and that relates to your past, present or future physical or mental health or condition and related health care services.

We are required by law to:

* Maintain the privacy of your protected health information;
* Give you this Notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to that information; and
* Abide by the terms of our Notice that is currently in effect.

IV. Last Revision Date

This Notice was last revised on: June 27, 2019.

V. How We May Use or Disclose Your Health Information

The following examples describe different ways we may use or disclose your health information. These examples are not meant to be exhaustive. We are permitted by law to use and disclose your health information for the following purposes:

A. Common Uses and Disclosures

1. Treatment. We may use your health information to provide you with dental treatment or services, such as cleaning or examining your teeth or performing dental procedures. We may disclose health information about you to dental specialists, physicians, or other health care professionals involved in your care.

2. Payment. We may use and disclose your health information to obtain payment from health plans and insurers for the care that we provide to you.

3. Health Care Operations. We may use and disclose health information about you in connection with health care operations necessary to run our practice, including review of our treatment and services, training, evaluating the performance of our staff and health care professionals, quality assurance, financial or billing audits, legal matters, and business planning and development.

4. Appointment Reminders. We may use or disclose your health information when contacting you to remind you of a dental appointment. We may contact you by using a postcard, letter, phone call, voice message, text or email.

5. Treatment Alternatives and Health-Related Benefits and Services. We may use and disclose your health information to tell you about treatment options or alternatives or health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you.

6. Disclosure to Family Members and Friends. We may disclose your health information to a family member or friend who is involved with your care or payment for your care if you do not object or, if you are not present, we believe it is in your best interest to do so.

7. Disclosure to Business Associates. We may disclose your protected health information to our third-party service providers (called, “business associates”) that perform functions on our behalf or provide us with services if the information is necessary for such functions or services. For example, we may use a business associate to assist us in maintaining our practice management software. All of our business associates are obligated, under contract with us, to protect the privacy of your information and are not allowed to use or disclose any information other than as specified in our contract.

B. Less Common Uses and Disclosures

1. Disclosures Required by Law. We may use or disclose patient health information to the extent we are required by law to do so. For example, we are required to disclose patient health information to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services so that it can investigate complaints or determine our compliance with HIPAA.

2. Public Health Activities. We may disclose patient health information for public health activities and purposes, which include: preventing or controlling disease, injury or disability; reporting births or deaths; reporting child abuse or neglect; reporting adverse reactions to medications or foods; reporting product defects; enabling product recalls; and notifying a person who may have been exposed to a disease or may be at risk for contracting or spreading a disease or condition.

3. Victims of Abuse, Neglect or Domestic Violence. We may disclose health information to the appropriate government authority about a patient whom we believe is a victim of abuse, neglect or domestic violence.

4. Health Oversight Activities. We may disclose patient health information to a health oversight agency for activities necessary for the government to provide appropriate oversight of the health care system, certain government benefit programs, and compliance with certain civil rights laws.

5. Lawsuits and Legal Actions. We may disclose patient health information in response to (i) a court or administrative order or (ii) a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful process that is not ordered by a court if efforts have been made to notify the patient or to obtain an order protecting the information requested.

6. Law Enforcement Purposes. We may disclose your health information to a law enforcement official for a law enforcement purposes, such as to identify or locate a suspect, material witness or missing person or to alert law enforcement of a crime.

7. Coroners, Medical Examiners and Funeral Directors. We may disclose your health information to a coroner, medical examiner or funeral director to allow them to carry out their duties.

8. Organ, Eye and Tissue Donation. We may use or disclose your health information to organ procurement organizations or others that obtain, bank or transplant cadaveric organs, eyes or tissue for donation and transplant.

9. Research Purposes. We may use or disclose your information for research purposes pursuant to patient authorization waiver approval by an Institutional Review Board or Privacy Board.

10. Serious Threat to Health or Safety. We may use or disclose your health information if we believe it is necessary to do so to prevent or lessen a serious threat to anyone’s health or safety.

11. Specialized Government Functions. We may disclose your health information to the military (domestic or foreign) about its members or veterans, for national security and protective services for the President or other heads of state, to the government for security clearance reviews, and to a jail or prison about its inmates.

12. Workers' Compensation. We may disclose your health information to comply with workers' compensation laws or similar programs that provide benefits for work-related injuries or illness.

VI. Your Written Authorization for Any Other Use or Disclosure of Your Health Information

Uses and disclosures of your protected health information that involve the release of psychotherapy notes (if any), marketing, sale of your protected health information, or other uses or disclosures not described in this notice will be made only with your written authorization, unless otherwise permitted or required by law. You may revoke this authorization at any time, in writing, except to the extent that this office has taken an action in reliance on the use of disclosure indicated in the authorization. If a use or disclosure of protected health information described above in this notice is prohibited or materially limited by other laws that apply to use, we intend to meet the requirements of the more stringent law.

VII. Your Rights with Respect to Your Health Information

You have the following rights with respect to certain health information that we have about you (information in a Designated Record Set as defined by HIPAA). To exercise any of these rights, you must submit a written request to our Privacy Official listed on the first page of this Notice.

A. Right to Access and Review

You may request to access and review a copy of your health information. We may deny your request under certain circumstances. You will receive written notice of a denial and can appeal it. We will provide a copy of your health information in a format you request if it is readily producible. If not readily producible, we will provide it in a hard copy format or other format that is mutually agreeable. If your health information is included in an Electronic Health Record, you have the right to obtain a copy of it in an electronic format and to direct us to send it to the person or entity you designate in an electronic format. We may charge a reasonable fee to cover our cost to provide you with copies of your health information.

B. Right to Amend

If you believe that your health information is incorrect or incomplete, you may request that we amend it. We may deny your request under certain circumstances. You will receive written notice of a denial and can file a statement of disagreement that will be included with your health information that you believe is incorrect or incomplete.

C. Right to Restrict Use and Disclosure

You may request that we restrict uses of your health information to carry out treatment, payment, or health care operations or to your family member or friend involved in your care or the payment for your care. We may not (and are not required to) agree to your requested restrictions, with one exception: If you pay out of your pocket in full for a service you receive from us and you request that we not submit the claim for this service to your health insurer or health plan for reimbursement, we must honor that request.

D. Right to Confidential Communications, Alternative Means and Locations

You may request to receive communications of health information by alternative means or at an alternative location. We will accommodate a request if it is reasonable and you indicate that communication by regular means could endanger you. When you submit a written request to the Privacy Official listed on the first page of this Notice, you need to provide an alternative method of contact or alternative address and indicate how payment for services will be handled.

E. Right to an Accounting of Disclosures

You have a right to receive an accounting of disclosures of your health information for the six (6) years prior to the date that the accounting is requested except for disclosures to carry out treatment, payment, health care operations (and certain other exceptions as provided by HIPAA). The first accounting we provide in any 12 month period will be without charge to you. We may charge a reasonable fee to cover the cost for each subsequent request for an accounting within the same 12-month period. We will notify you in advance of this fee and you may choose to modify or withdraw your request at that time.

F. Right to a Paper Copy of this Notice

You have the right to a paper copy of this Notice. You may ask us to give you a paper copy of the Notice at any time (even if you have agreed to receive the Notice electronically). To obtain a paper copy, ask the Privacy Official.

G. Right to Receive Notification of a Security Breach

We are required by law to notify you if the privacy or security of your health information has been breached. The notification will occur by first class mail within sixty (60) days of the event. A breach occurs when there has been an unauthorized use or disclosure under HIPAA that compromises the privacy or security of your health information.

The breach notification will contain the following information: (1) a brief description of what happened, including the date of the breach and the date of the discovery of the breach; (2) the steps you should take to protect yourself from potential harm resulting from the breach; and (3) a brief description of what we are doing to investigate the breach, mitigate losses, and to protect against further breaches.

VIII. Special Protections for HIV, Alcohol and Substance Abuse, Mental Health and Genetic Information

Certain federal and state laws may require special privacy protections that restrict the use and disclosure of certain health information, including HIV-related information, alcohol and substance abuse information, mental health information, and genetic information. For example, a health plan is not permitted to use or disclose genetic information for underwriting purposes. Some parts of this HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices may not apply to these types of information. If your treatment involves this information, you may contact our office for more information about these protections.

IX. Our Right to Change Our Privacy Practices and This Notice

We reserve the right to change the terms of this Notice at any time. Any change will apply to the health information we have about you or create or receive in the future. We will promptly revise the Notice when there is a material change to the uses or disclosures, individual’s rights, our legal duties, or other privacy practices discussed in this Notice. We will post the revised Notice on our website (if applicable) and in our office and will provide a copy of it to you on request. The effective date of this Notice is 06/27/2019.

X. How to Make Privacy Complaints

If you have any complaints about your privacy rights or how your health information has been used or disclosed, you may file a complaint with us by contacting our Privacy Official listed on the first page of this Notice.

You may also file a written complaint with the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. We will not retaliate against you in any way if you choose to file a complaint.

We strive to render excellent dental care to you and the rest of our patients. In an attempt to be consistent with this, we have an Appointment Cancellation Policy that allows us to schedule appointments for all patients. When an appointment is scheduled, that time has been set aside for you and when it is missed, that time cannot be used to treat another patient.

On time arrival is also an important factor in our office. Change in our schedule can affect many people. Please understand that if you are 15 minutes late for your appointment, we may have to limit your treatment for that day or reschedule you for another day.

Our office has confirmation protocols in place to help you:

1. We will send out a text or email reminder 1-2 weeks ahead of time.

2. We will send out a 72-hour text or email reminder.

3. If we have not heard back from you via email or text, we will call you 2 days before your scheduled appointment.

4.Reminder for your appointment with us: confirm via phone or text to 530-444-4944 so that we may hold this reservation for you. If we do not hear back from you WITHIN 24 HOURS, we will have to assume that you are not coming and the reservation will go to the next person.

PLEASE MAKE NOTE: Our policy is as follows:

We require that you give our office 24 hours’ notice in the event that you need to reschedule your appointment. This allows for other patients to be scheduled into that appointment. If you miss an appointment without contacting our office within the required time, this is considered a missed appointment. A fee of $35.00 will be charged to you per hour of scheduled appointment. This fee cannot be billed to your insurance company and will be your direct responsibility. No future appointments can be scheduled nor can records be transferred without the payment of this fee. If you have any questions regarding this policy, please let our staff know and we will be glad to clarify any questions you have.

We thank you for your understanding

I have read and understand the Appointment Cancellation Policy of the practice and I agree to be bound by its terms. I also understand and agree that such terms may be amended from time-to-time by the practice.

I, 

have received a copy of El Dorado Family Appointment Cancellation Policy.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) provides safeguards to protect your privacy. Implementation of HIPAA requirements officially began on April 14, 2003. Many of the policies have been our practice for years. This form is a "friendly" version. A more complete text is posted in the office.

What this is all about: Specifically, there are rules and restrictions on who may see or be notified of your Protected Health Information (PHI). These restrictions do not include the normal interchange of information necessary to provide you with office services. HIPAA provides certain rights and protections to you as the patient. We balance these needs with our goal of providing you with quality professional service and care. Additional information is available from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. www.hhs.gov

We have adopted the following policies:

1. Patient information will be kept confidential except as is necessary to provide services or to ensure that all administrative matters related to your care are handled appropriately. This specifically includes the sharing of information with other healthcare providers, laboratories, health insurance payers as is necessary and appropriate for your care. Patient files may be stored in open file racks and will not contain any coding which identifies a patient's condition or information which is not already a matter of public record. The normal course of providing care means that such records may be left, at least temporarily, in administrative areas such as the front office, examination room, etc. Those records will not be available to persons other than office staff. You agree to the normal procedures utilized within the office for the handling of charts, patient records, PHI, and other documents or information.

2. It is the policy of this office to remind patients of their appointments. We may do this by telephone, e-mail, U.S mail, or by any means convenient for the practice and/or as requested by you. We may send you other communications informing you of changes to office policy and new technology that you might find valuable or informative.

3. The practice utilizes a number of vendors in the conduct of business. These vendors may have access to PHI but must agree to abide by the confidentiality rules of HIPAA.

4. You understand and agree to inspections of the office and review of documents which may include PHI by government agencies or insurance payers in the normal performance of their duties.

5. You agree to bring any concerns or complaints regarding privacy to the attention of the office manager or the doctor.

6. Your confidential information will not be used for the purposes of marketing or advertising of products, goods or services.

7. We agree to provide patients with access to their records in accordance with state and federal laws.

8. We may change, add, delete or modify any of these provisions to better serve the needs of both the practice and the patient.

9. You have the right to request restrictions in the use of your protected health information and to request the change in certain policies used within the office concerning your PHI. However, we are not obligated to alter internal policies to conform to your request. 

I, 

on this date

do hereby consent and acknowledge my agreement to the terms set forth in the HIPAA INFORMATION FORM and any subsequent changes in office policy. I understand that this consent shall remain in force from this time forward. 

(Please sign this document to confirm you have read and understand the following information, you may request a copy for your records.)

Every insurance company is different and every policy is different. Many times, insurance companies do not pay what we estimate they will, even when we call to verify benefit levels. We cannot take responsibility for what insurance companies pay or what patient balances may be after their payments. In an effort to help you, as the patient and policy holder, better understand why this sometimes happens, we have compiled the following information:

1. Your insurance is your responsibility and you need to be aware of your coverage, provisions and restrictions associated with your particular plan.

2. We will file your primary insurance as a courtesy to you but if payment is not made within a 3-month period it is your responsibility to pay the account balance in full.

3. We make every effort to inform you of what we estimate your portion will be for your treatment and how much will be due at each appointment. However, it is only an estimate as insurance companies pay on their own fee schedule and it is totally separate from the charges in our office. Any remaining balance is your responsibility and due within 90 days of treatment, regardless of insurance company.

4. There are many different insurance companies and each plan is designed in accordance with your particular employer in mind. While we make every effort to be as informed as possible it is your responsibility to know your particular plan. Your human resource office should be able to help you with any questions.

5. Many plans state that you have two free cleanings a year but that is based on their fee schedule and not in accordance with our charges. Please be aware that this is a misleading statement on their part. If we are a PPO provider for your insurance, we will honor your insurance fee schedule. It is important to know that your insurance also has a frequency limitation for most or all services. It is also important to know if your insurance covers on a 6-month basis or 2 times a year. If it is once every 6-months it is extremely important that the time between appointments to be a full 6-month and 1 day. Although we make every effort to follow this guideline, it is ultimately your responsibility to know your insurance guidelines. Our doctors recommend frequency limitations for cleanings and examinations based on periodontal needs not insurance coverage.

6. Most insurance companies are based on a calendar year maximum but some are on their own fiscal year. Please check with your policy for this information.

7. Please remember to inform us of any changes in employment and or insurance changes so that we can keep your account up to date to better serve you.

8. If you have any questions about your insurance company or benefits let us know or check with your employer so that we can all be as informed as possible concerning your dental insurance.

Thank you