Privacy Policy
The following are the Health Classification definitions:
Healthy: In good health with no medical issues and taking no Prescription Medications.
Slight: Any medical condition not requiring regular physician evaluations and taking some low cost Prescription Medications.
Moderate: Any medical condition requiring regular physician evaluations and the regular taking of moderate cost Prescription Medications or the use of tobacco / vaping.
Severe: Any Pre-Existing condition or serious medical condition such as: Cancer, Stroke, Heart Disease, Kidney, Liver or Lung Disease, Diabetes, Disc Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Immune Disorders. Also, the need for long term, continuing medical treatments and the regular taking of high cost Prescription Medications.
Community Healthcare Cooperative, LLC (CHC) Privacy Statement
THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW YOUR PERSONAL, HEALTH, MEDICAL AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.
The privacy of your personal, health, medical and financial information (PI) is important. CHC is committed to protecting information about its clients and associates, especially the confidential nature of their PI. Please read this Privacy Statement to see how we safeguard your PI. You don’t need to respond unless you have a request or complaint.
We and our affiliates understand that the privacy of your PI is important to you. We take your privacy seriously and your trust in our ability to protect your PI is very important to us.
PI is information that is capable of being associated with an individual through one or more identifiers including, but not limited to, a Social Security number, a driver’s license number, a state identification card number, an account number, a credit or debit card number, a passport number, an alien registration number or a health insurance identification number, and does not include publicly available information that is lawfully made available to the general public from federal, state or local government records or widely distributed media.
CHC’s Privacy Policy imposes standards to guard the confidentiality of your PI, limit access and prohibit the unlawful disclosure of your PI, obtained in the course of its regular business functions.
CHC safeguards your PI by having physical, technical, and administrative safeguards in place. CHC will not use or share your PI with anyone outside CHC except when permitted or required by federal and state law and as disclosed herein. CHC employees and associates must only access your PI as required by their job duties and to complete a specific task and as allowed by law.
If you have questions regarding CHC’s Privacy Policy, please contact Member Services at 303-679-1928.
We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy and the terms of this notice at any time, as allowed by law. This includes the right to make changes in our privacy practices and the revised terms of our notice effective for all PI we maintain. This includes information we created or received before we made the changes. When we make a significant change in our privacy practices, we will change this notice and make available to you the new notice.
HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) has a Privacy Rule that describes the rights to receive a notice that describes how individual health information may be used and/or disclosed and how to acquire access to this information.
CHC is fully committed to the spirit and letter of HIPAA, including but not limited to the Privacy Rule that was issued pursuant to HIPAA. A major provision of the Privacy Rule is to safeguard sensitive, personal information.
HIPAA allows CHC to use and disclose certain information for clearly defined, payment and other operational functions. However, CHC clients have the right to restrict the release of information of their PI beyond these uses.
We follow all federal and state laws, rules, and regulations addressing the protection of personal and health information. In situations when federal and state laws, rules, and regulations conflict, we follow the law, rule, or regulation which provides greater protection.
What is personal and health information (PI)
PI is information that is capable of being associated with an individual through one or more identifiers including, but not limited to; your name, address, telephone number, a Social Security number, a driver’s license number, a state identification card number, an account number, a credit or debit card number, a passport number, an alien registration number or a health insurance identification number, and does not include publicly available information that is lawfully made available to the general public from federal, state or local government records or widely distributed media.
PI also includes any personal and health information created or received that relates to your physical or mental health or condition, providing healthcare to you, or the payment for such healthcare. We protect this information in all formats.
What are your rights concerning your PI
The following are your rights with respect to your information. We are committed to responding to your rights request in a timely manner.
Access: You have the right to review and obtain a copy of your information that may be used to make decisions about you, such as claims and case or medical management records. You also may receive a summary of this health information. If you request copies, we may charge you a fee for each page, a per hour charge for staff time to locate and copy your information, and postage.
Alternate Communications: You have the right to receive confidential communications of information in a different manner or at a different place to avoid a life threatening situation. We will accommodate your request if it is reasonable.
Amendment: You have the right to request an amendment of information we maintain about you if you believe the information is wrong or incomplete. We may deny your request if we did not create the information, we do not maintain the information, or the information is correct and complete. If we deny your request, we will give you a written explanation of the denial.
Disclosure: You have the right to receive a listing of instances in which we or our business associates have disclosed your information for purposes other than treatment, payment, health plan operations, and certain other activities. We maintain this information and make it available to you for a period of six years at your request. If you request this list more than once in a 12-month period, we may charge you a reasonable, cost-based fee for responding to these additional requests.
Notice: You have the right to receive a written copy of this notice any time you request.
Restriction: You have the right to ask to restrict uses or disclosures of your information. We are not required to agree to these restrictions, but if we do, we will abide by our agreement. You also have the right to agree to or terminate a previously submitted restriction.
How do we protect your PI
In keeping with federal and state laws and our own policy, we have a responsibility to protect the privacy of your PI. We have safeguards in place to protect your PI in various ways including:
- Limiting who may see your information
- Limiting how we use or disclose your information
- Informing you of our legal duties about your information
- Training our associates about company privacy policies and procedures
What information do we receive about you
How we collect information about you
Information may be collected in the following ways on this website
If we provide user account access, you may elect to establish an account so that you can gain additional access to on-line service applications, health tools, health information, subscriptions or other services where it is important for us to know who you are in order to best meet your needs. Providing personal information is always voluntary.
We may use “cookies” to help us improve this website by tracking your navigation habits and to store some of your preferences. A cookie is a small file created by a website to store information on your computer. Cookies do not allow websites to gain access to other information on your computer. Once a cookie is saved on your computer, generally only the website that created the cookie can read it.
An Internet Protocol address is a number that automatically identifies the computer or mobile device that you are using to access the Internet. The IP address enables our server to send you the site pages that you want to visit or the data you want to view. The IP address may disclose the server owned by your Internet service provider. We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to support our site administration.
How we use and disclose your PI and non-PI information
We may share your information with affiliated companies and non-affiliated third parties, as permitted by law. We may also provide your information to financial institutions with which we have joint marketing agreements to provide you with offers for products and services you may find of value or which are healthcare related.
Any PI that you provide is used for the purpose for which you provide it. For example, if you provide us with information to help you locate affordable healthcare services, the information you provide is used only to facilitate that function. We may also gather quantitative user information to perform administrative, technical, hosting or other functions that help us manage our website and deliver new functionality to you. We do not sell, license, transmit or disclose PI that you provide to us to third parties except with the following exceptions:
- To you or someone who has the legal right to act on your behalf.
- When such disclosure is necessary to allow us and our affiliates or agents to carry out our business functions and our contractual obligations to you.
- We may share summary PI in certain situations such as to allow us to obtain bids for your healthcare services.
- For payment activities, including claims payment for various services provided to you by us and affiliated healthcare providers and for health plan premium payments.
- To contact you with information about health-related benefits and services, appointment reminders, or about treatment alternatives that may be of interest to you if you have not opted out as described below.
- To your family and friends if you are unavailable to communicate, such as in an emergency.
- To your family and friends or any other person you identify, provided the information is directly relevant to their involvement with your healthcare or payment for that care. For example, if a family member or a caregiver calls us with prior knowledge of a claim, we may confirm whether or not the claim has been received and paid.
- For procurement of banking and financial services.
- For compliance programs and health oversight activities.
- To fulfill our obligations under any workers’ compensation law or contract.
- To avert a serious and imminent threat to your health or safety or the health or safety of others.
- For research purposes in limited circumstances.
- In response to a court or administrative order, subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful process.
- When required or permitted by law.
We may work with third party service providers who may place third party persistent cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies to collect anonymous information about the use of our websites. They are not permitted to collect any PI, and this information will be solely used for web usage analysis for a better understanding of how you use our website, and/or to customize our content and advertising.
Will we use your PI for purposes not described in this notice
In all situations, other than described in this notice, we will request your written permission before using or disclosing your information. You may revoke your permission at any time by notifying us in writing. We will not use or disclose your information for any reason not described in this notice without your permission.
What if you don’t want this information to be collected
Providing personal information through this website is an option. Additionally, your PI will not be collected from you without your knowledge and approval.
If you do not wish to have your activity on our website tracked, you can opt-out at any time here to discontinue first party cookie tracking of your web activity.
You also have the choice to opt-out of third party cookies, web beacons or similar technologies, if you do not want third party service providers to collect your anonymous information for marketing purposes, visit the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) website to perform the opt-out.
Additionally, you can direct your Internet browser to notify you and seek approval whenever a cookie is being sent to your hard drive. You may also delete a cookie manually from your computer, tablet or smartphone through your Internet browser settings or other programs. You can also set your browser to refuse all cookies. Please note that some parts of this website may not function properly or be available to you, if you refuse to accept a cookie or choose to disable the acceptance of cookies.
“Do Not Track” Signals
We do not respond to web browser “do not track” signals. As such, your navigation of our site may be tracked as part of the gathering of quantitative user information described above. If you arrive at our website by way of a link from a third party site that does respond to “do not track” requests, the recognition of any “do not track” request you have initiated will end as soon as you reach our site.
Linking to Other Sites
From time to time we will provide links to websites not owned or controlled by us. We do this because we think this information might be of interest or use to you. While we do our best to ensure your privacy, we cannot be responsible for the privacy practices of other sites. A link to a third party website does not constitute or imply endorsement by us. Additionally, we cannot guarantee the quality or accuracy of information presented on those websites. We encourage you to review the privacy practices of any website you visit.
Use of email and fax
We may provide email and fax links to further facilitate your communications with us. Information collected through email may be shared with our employees, affiliates or third parties that perform services on our behalf. Unless otherwise noted, email through our website is not a completely secure and confidential means of communication. Non-encrypted email may be accessed and viewed by other Internet users without your knowledge and permission while in transit to us. Further, if you request that we email information about you to someone through our digital channels, that email may not be completely secure. Please verify email addresses carefully before submitting such a request.
Health Information Exchanges
We may share your information with health information exchanges. Electronic health information exchanges allow healthcare providers to view and share your health information quickly and easily for health care operations. Doctors, health insurers and others using an exchange like this are required to follow the privacy and security standards set by U. S. and state laws.
What do we do with your information when you are no longer a client
Your information may continue to be used for purposes described in this notice when your relationship with CHC is terminated. After the required legal retention period, we destroy the information following strict procedures to maintain the confidentiality.
How do you request an opt-out
You can prevent the disclosures to non-affiliated third parties that provide products and services not offered by us or where the non-affiliated company provides services related to your plan by requesting to opt-out of such disclosures. Your opt-out request will apply to all members or individuals covered under your identification number or client account. Your opt-out request will continue to apply until you revoke your request or terminate your contractual relationship with CHC.
At any time you can tell us not to share any of your PI with affiliated companies that provide offers other than our products or services. If you wish to exercise your opt-out option, or to revoke a previous opt out request, you need to provide the following information to process your request: your name, date of birth, and your client identification number. You can use any of the methods below to request or revoke your opt-out:
Call us at 303-679-1928. E-mail us at [email protected]. Send your opt-out request to us in writing: Community Healthcare Services, LLC Attn: MemberServices 16591 Red Cliff Circle Morrison, CO 80465.
What should you do if you believe your privacy has been violated
If you believe your privacy has been violated in any way, you may file a complaint with us by calling us at 303-679-1928 any time. You may also submit a written complaint to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Civil Rights (OCR). You also have the option to E-mail your complaint to [email protected]. We support your right to protect the privacy of your personal and health information. We will not retaliate in any way if you elect to file a complaint with us or with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
What will happen if your private information is used or disclosed inappropriately
You have a right to receive a notice that a breach has resulted in your unsecured private information being inappropriately used or disclosed. We will notify you in a timely manner if such a breach occurs.
How you exercise your rights or obtain a copy of this notice
All of your privacy rights can be exercised by obtaining the applicable privacy rights request forms. You may obtain any of the forms by:
- Contacting us at 303-679-1928 at any time
- E-mailing us at [email protected]
- Send completed request form to: Community Healthcare Services, LLC Attn: MemberServices 16591 Red Cliff Circle Morrison, CO 80465.
CHC Privacy Protection Procedures: CHC protects information about you by restricting access to information about you to those individuals and companies that need such information to provide the Services. Examples of activities and Services requiring access to personal information include claims processing; Explanation of Benefits (EOB), Supplemental Insurance and reinsurance and CHC member services. Finally, CHC employs secure technologies to safeguard transmission of information about you, and we have established and maintain procedures to comply with state and federal laws and regulations regarding the security of personal information.
