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Privacy Policy

Your privacy is very important to us

Introduction

In Dentouch Dental, we believe that privacy of Personal Information is a vital component of providing quality care and treatment to our patients. We understand the importance of protecting Personal Information and are committed to collecting, using, and disclosing it responsibly. As such, we attempt to be as upfront, open, and transparent as possible about the ways we collect and handle your Personal Information. This policy describes how we may use and disclose such 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 Personal Information.

Personal Information for our purposes is; that information necessary for the provision of professional oral health care services provided to you, and information necessary to administer this dental practice. Personal Information includes all that information provided by you to us on our patient information/ health/medical history forms during the first visit and any subsequent visits. Personal Information may also include any information provided by you to us during the normal course of communication between patient and dental office staff. We will use and disclose only information provided to us by you or another person acting on your behalf.

Since January 1, 2004, the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) regulates the collection, use, and disclosure of Personal Information. For simplicity and clarity, this policy has been designed around the principles of PIPEDA.

Privacy & Anti-Spam Policies Definitions

  1. The act of gathering, acquiring, or obtaining personal information from any source, including third-party sources by any means.
  2. A voluntary agreement with what is being done or is being proposed to be done. Consent can be either express or implied.
  3. Making personal information available to others besides the dentist or the dentist’s staff.
  4. The dental office and when referencing access to information, to the Privacy Information Officer, and the dental office.
  5. An individual about whom the office collects Personal Information in order to carry out prognosis, diagnosis, and treatment, including controlled acts.
  6. Personal Information about a patient that is recorded in any form, and this includes the patient’s name, address, telephone number, social insurance number, fax number, email address, gender, marital status, children, date of birth, medical records, health records, insurance information, history, occupation, place of work, employer, etc.
  7. Federal legislation that regulates the collection, use, and disclosure of Personal Information.
  8. Privacy Information Officer. Individual accountable for overseeing and ensuring the office is complying with PIPEDA and its.

Accountablility

Our office is responsible for information under our control, including Personal Information that has been transferred to a third party for processing. We will use contractual or other means to provide a comparable level of protection while this information is being accessed and/or processed by that third party. Our office has designated the office manager, as the Privacy Information Officer accountable for overseeing and complying with PIPEDA and its principles. Our office is paperless and we keep patient’s information infinity of time in our system.

The personal information we have is always password protected and only the authorized staff personnel have the access to the information. As well, all staff members who come in contact with your Personal Information are aware of the sensitive nature of this information and have all been trained in the appropriate uses and protection of it. Patient personal information password-protected, and only the responsible staff members have password access. Any personal patient information written on papers, fax, or printed emails gets shredded the same day as we have a paper shredding machine here in the office.

Identifying Purposes

The purpose for which Personal Information is collected will be identified before or at the time the information is collected. We will only collect information necessary for the identified purpose. When Personal Information has been collected and is to be used or disclosed for a purpose not previously identified, the new purpose will be outlined prior to its use or the disclosure and your consent will be required before the information can be used or disclosed for that new purpose.

The following examples describe different ways we may use or disclose your Personal Information. These examples are not meant to be exhaustive.

  • Common Uses and Disclosures

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

    2. We may use and disclose your Personal 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 your Personal Information 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.

    4. Appointment: We may use or disclose your Personal 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 Personal Information to tell you about treatment options or alternatives or health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to.

    6. Disclosure to Family Member and/or Legal Guardian: We may disclose your health information to a family member or legal guardian who is involved with your care or payment for your care if you do not object or if you are not present, and we believe it is in your best interest to do.

    7. Disclosure to Business Associates:We may disclose your Personal 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, 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.

  • Less Common Uses and Disclosures

    1. Disclosures Required by Law: We may use or disclose Personal Information to the extent we are required by law to do.

    2. Public Health Activities: We may disclose Personal 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.

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

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

    5. Law Enforcement Purposes: We may disclose your Personal Information to a law enforcement official for law enforcement purposes, such as to identify or locate a suspect, material witness, or missing person or to alert law enforcement.

    6. Coroners, Medical Examiners, and Funeral: We may disclose your Personal Information to a coroner, medical examiner, or funeral director to allow them to carry out their duties.

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

    8. 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.

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

    10. Workers’ Compensation: We may disclose your Personal Information to comply with workers’ compensation laws or similar programs that provide benefits for work-related injuries.

Consent

The patient’s knowledge and consent are required for the collection, use, and/or disclosure of Personal Information, except where inappropriate and subject to some exceptions set out in the law.

Our office has undertaken reasonable efforts to ensure that you are advised of the purposes for which information is being used, and that you understand these purposes. At the time of collection, the employee collecting your Personal Information will be available and able to answer questions you may have about the purposes of the collection. Within this office, consent for the collection, use, and disclosure of Personal Information may be given through signed medical history forms, signed introductory questionnaire, taken verbally over the telephone, and then charted, e-mail, or written correspondence. Once obtained, we do not need to seek your consent again, unless the use, purpose, or disclosure changes. For an individual who is a minor, seriously ill, or mentally challenged, consent may be obtained from a legal guardian, or person having power of attorney.

Existing protocols for electronic submissions of dental claims require a signature on file. Specific consent may be required for additional requests from insurers. This shall be collected at the time, or in conjunction, with predeterminations for extensive services, providing the scope of information released is disclosed. If there is any doubt, the information shall be released directly to you for review and submission. You may withdraw consent at any time upon reasonable notice.

Limiting Collection

The collection of Personal Information by our office shall be limited to that which is necessary for the purposes identified in this Privacy Code.

Limiting Use, Disclosure, and Retention

Our office will not use, disclose or retain Personal Information for purposes other than those for which it is collected, except with the consent of the patient or as required by law. Personal Information shall only be retained for long as necessary to fulfill those purposes. Your Personal Information shall be disclosed to only those who have a need to know and the specific information disclosed shall be restricted to only that information relevant to the recipients need to know. Those who need to know include other dentists and health care providers. Further, the Personal Information disclosed to dental benefit providers is limited to only that Personal Information required by the provider. You may at any time designate any restrictions as to whom we may disclose your Personal Information or restrict the content of the disclosure. We will retain your Personal Information for the period necessary to continue providing oral health services to you, and for its related administration. We will securely destroy the information when the information is no longer necessary for the provision of oral health services and is not required to be retained for compliance with provincial or federal regulations or statutes.

Accuracy

Personal Information shall be as complete, accurate, and as up-to-date as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected to minimize the possibility that inappropriate information is used to decide for you as our patient. If your Personal Information changes, or if you believe the Personal Information maintained by our office is inaccurate, we ask that you contact us to have the information updated or corrected.

Safeguards

Personal Information shall be protected by security safeguards. The safeguards will be appropriate to the sensitivity of the information collected and are in place to protect against loss or theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use, or modification. Your information is protected, whether recorded on paper or electronically and all staff members have been educated on the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of Personal Information. Specific safeguards are in place to limit the person(s) who may use your Personal Information to those specifically in need of this information to perform his or her duties with this office, to ensure that Personal Information under our control cannot be used unless the identity of the person seeking to use the information is verified, prevent the interception of electronic information by unauthorized persons; and to ensure that requests for disclosure of Personal Information contain sufficient detail to uniquely identify the individual the information is

Openness

Upon request, our office will make available, information about its policies and practices, and our management of Personal Information.

Patient Access To Their Personal Information

We are committed to providing you with open access to your Personal Information held by our office. Upon written request and with reasonable notice, you shall be informed of the existence, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information, and shall be given access to it. Our office shall provide you with an accounting of how your Personal Information has been used, including third-party disclosures. In providing this information, we will attempt to be as specific as possible. When it is not possible to provide a list of the organizations or individuals to which there has been disclosure about you, we will provide you with a list of such organizations or individuals.

Upon written request and with reasonable notice, you may challenge the accuracy and completeness of your Personal Information and seek to have it altered, amended, or changed. When a challenge is not resolved to your satisfaction, our office will record the substance of the unresolved challenge. When appropriate, the existence of the unresolved challenge shall be transmitted to third parties having access to the information in question.

Privacy Policy Updates

We reserve the right to change the terms of this policy at any time. We will promptly revise the document when there is a material change to the uses or disclosures, individual’s rights, our legal duties, or other privacy practices discussed in this policy. 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 November 13, 2020.

Challenging Compliance

Individuals are able to challenge compliance concerning the above principles laid out within this policy. To do so, please submit a formal written complaint to our Privacy Information Officer to

Attention: Privacy Information Officer

Dentouch Dental

103-180 King St

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3B 3G8

or email to

admin@dentouch.ca

The Privacy Information Officer will investigate all written complaints. If a complaint is found to be justified, the Privacy Information Officer will take appropriate steps to correct the information and if necessary, amending office policies and practices.

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