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. Our Privacy Obligations
We understand that your health information is personal and we are committed to protecting your privacy. In addition, we are required by law to maintain the privacy of your Protected Health Information, to provide you with this Notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to your Protected Health Information, and to notify you in the event of a breach of your unsecured Protected Health Information. When we use or disclose your Protected Health Information, we are required to abide by the terms of this Notice (or other notice in effect at the time of the use or disclosure).
II. Who We Are
This Notice describes the privacy practices of CooperGenomics, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of CooperSurgical Inc., and its affiliates (“we” or “us”), including all employees with access to your medical or billing records or health information about you (“Protected Health Information”).
III. Permissible Uses and Disclosures Without Your Written Authorization
In certain situations, which we will describe in Section IV below, we must obtain your written authorization in order to use and/or disclose your Protected Health Information. However, unless the Protected Health Information is Highly Confidential Information (as defined in Section IV.B below) and the applicable law regulating such information imposes special restrictions on us, we may use and disclose your Protected Health Information without your written authorization for the following purposes:
A. Treatment. We use and disclose your Protected Health Information to provide treatment and other services to you–for example, to conduct genetic testing or to consult with your physician about your genetic test. We may use your information to direct or recommend alternative treatments, therapies, health care providers, or settings of care to you or to describe a health-related product or service. We may also disclose Protected Health Information to other health care providers involved in your treatment.
B. Payment. We may use and disclose your Protected Health Information to obtain payment for health care services that we provide to you–for example, disclosures to claim and obtain payment from your health insurer, HMO, or other company or program identified by you that arranges or pays the cost of your health care (“Your Payor”) to verify that Your Payor will pay for the health care.
C. Health Care Operations. We may use and disclose your Protected Health Information for our health care operations, which include internal administration and planning and various activities that improve the quality and cost effectiveness of the care that we deliver to you, as described in the consent form that you sign with us. For example, we may use Protected Health Information to ensure the quality of our laboratory testing procedures. We may disclose Protected Health Information to our Quality and Regulatory Manager in order to resolve any complaints you may have and ensure that you our satisfied with our services.
D. As Required by Law. We may use and disclose your Protected Health Information when required to do so by any applicable federal, state, provincial or local law.
E. Public Health Activities. If applicable, and only to the extent required in accordance with applicable law, we may disclose your Protected Health Information: (1) to report health information to public health authorities for the purpose of preventing or controlling disease, injury or disability; (2) to report information about products under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; and (3) to alert a person who may have been exposed to a communicable disease or may otherwise be at risk of contracting or spreading a disease or condition.
F. Health Oversight Activities. To the extent required in accordance with applicable law, we may disclose your Protected Health Information to an agency that oversees the health care system and is charged with responsibility for ensuring compliance with the rules of government health programs such as Medicare or Medicaid.
G. Judicial and Administrative Proceedings. To the extent required in accordance with applicable law, we may disclose your Protected Health Information in the course of a judicial or administrative proceeding in response to a legal order or other lawful process.
H. Law Enforcement Officials. We may disclose your Protected Health Information to the police or other law enforcement officials as required by applicable law or in compliance with a court order.
I. Decendents. We may disclose your Protected Health Information to a coroner or medical examiner as required by applicable law.
J. Clinical Trials and Other Research Activities. We may use and disclose your Protected Health Information for research purposes, if such disclosure is in compliance with applicable health privacy legislation, pursuant to a valid authorization from you or when an institutional review board or privacy board has waived the authorization requirement.
K. Health or Safety. To the extent permitted in accordance with applicable law, we may use or disclose your Protected Health Information to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to a person’s or the public’s health or safety.
L. Specialized Government Functions. To the extent required in accordance with applicable law, we may use and disclose your Protected Health Information to units of the government with special functions, such as the U.S. military or the U.S. Department of State under certain circumstances.
M. Service Providers. We may use other companies to help us provide our services to you. As a result, these partner companies may have some of your Protected Health Information in their systems. Our partners are subject to contractual obligations governing data security and confidentiality consistent with this Notice and applicable laws.
These service providers include our:
- Affiliated laboratories, being Reprogenetics, Recombine, Genesis Genetics;
- Cloud services infrastructure providers; and
- Certain other third party vendors that assist with data processing, security and fraud prevention, which is subject to change from time to time. A list of our current third party providers can be found here: https://www.coopergenomics.com/data-processors/.
IV. Uses and Disclosures Requiring Your Written Authorization
For any purpose other than the ones described above in Section III, we only use or disclose your Protected Health Information when you give us your written authorization.
A. Marketing. We must obtain your written authorization prior to using your Protected Health Information for purposes that are marketing under the HIPAA privacy rules or other applicable health privacy legislation. For example, we will not accept any payments from other organizations or individuals in exchange for making communications to you about treatments, therapies, health care providers, settings of care, case management, care coordination, products or services unless you have given us your authorization to do so or the communication is permitted by law.
We may market to you in a face-to-face encounter and give you promotional gifts of nominal value without obtaining your written authorization.
B. Sale of Protected Health Information. We will not make any disclosure of Protected Health Information that is a sale of Protected Health Information without your written authorization.
C. Uses and Disclosures of Your Highly Confidential Information. Federal and state law requires special privacy protections for certain health information about you (“Highly Confidential Information”), including genetic testing results and other health information that is given special privacy protection under provincial, state or federal laws other than HIPAA. However, in order for us to disclose any Highly Confidential Information for a purpose other than those permitted by law, we must obtain your written authorization.
D. Revocation of Your Authorization. You may revoke any authorization you have provided, except to the extent that we have taken action in reliance upon it, by delivering a written revocation statement to the Privacy Office identified below. By giving such reasonable notice to CooperGenomics, you may withdraw consent to the collection, use or disclosure of your Protected Health Information at any time and CooperGenomics will stop collecting, using or disclosing your Protected Health Information, unless collection, use or disclosure is permitted by applicable health privacy legislation.
V. Your Individual Rights
A. For Further Information; Complaints. If you desire further information about your privacy rights, are concerned that we have violated your privacy rights or disagree with a decision that we made about access to your Protected Health Information, you may contact our Privacy Office. You may also file written complaints with the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Upon request, the Privacy Office will provide you with the correct address for the Secretary. We will not retaliate against you if you file a complaint with us or the Secretary.
B. Right to Request Additional Restrictions. You may request restrictions on our use and disclosure of your Protected Health Information (1) for treatment, payment and health care operations, (2) to individuals (such as a family member, other relative, close personal friend or any other person identified by you) involved with your care or with payment related to your care, or (3) to notify or assist in the notification of such individuals regarding your location and general condition. While we will consider all requests for additional restrictions carefully, we are not required to agree to a requested restriction unless the request is to restrict our disclosure to a health plan for purposes of carrying out payment or health care operations, the disclosure is not required by law. If you wish to request additional restrictions, please obtain a request form from our Privacy Office and submit the completed form to the Privacy Office. We will send you a written response.
C. Right to Receive Communications by Alternative Means or at Alternative Locations. You may request, and we will accommodate, any reasonable written request for you to receive your Protected Health Information by alternative means of communication or at alternative locations.
D. Right to Inspect and Copy Your Health Information. You may request access to your medical record file and billing records maintained by us in order to inspect and request copies of the records. Under limited circumstances, we may deny you access to a portion of your records if permitted by applicable law. If you desire access to your records, please obtain a record request form from the Privacy Office and submit the completed form to the Privacy Office. If you request copies, we may charge you a reasonable copy fee.
E. Right to Amend Your Records. You have the right to request that we amend or delete your Protected Health Information maintained in your medical record file or billing records. If you desire to amend or delete your records, please obtain an amendment request form from the Privacy Office and submit the completed form to the Privacy Office. We will comply with your request unless we believe that the information that would be amended would become inaccurate or incomplete, retention is required by law or other special circumstances apply.
F. Right to Receive An Accounting of Disclosures. Upon request, you may obtain an accounting of certain disclosures of your Protected Health Information made by us during any period of time prior to the date of your request provided such period does not exceed seven years. If you request an accounting more than once during a twelve (12) month period, we may charge you a reasonable fee for the accounting statement.
G. Right to Receive Paper Copy of this Notice. Upon request, you may obtain a paper copy of this Notice, even if you agreed to receive such notice electronically.
VI. Effective Date and Duration of This Notice
A. Effective Date. This Notice is effective on June 1, 2018.
B. Right to Change Terms of this Notice. We may change the terms of this Notice at any time. If we change this Notice, we may make the new notice terms effective for all your Protected Health Information that we maintain, including any information created or received prior to issuing the new notice; provided that any such amendments shall comply with applicable law. If we change this Notice, we will post the new notice in our waiting room and on our website at www.coopergenomics.com. You also may obtain any new notice by contacting the Privacy Office.
VII. Privacy Office
You may contact the Quality and Regulatory Manager at:
Quality/Regulatory Manager
CooperGenomics, Inc. /CooperSurgical Inc.
75 Corporate Drive
Trumbull, CT 06611 USA
E-mail: [email protected]
Website Privacy Statement
The company respects your right to privacy and is committed to providing a safe, secure website for your use. We currently have an online ordering system, which allows customers to place orders over the Internet. Cookies are currently associated with the website. Any contact information submitted to the website may be used as a point of contact. We will monitor site traffic and usage patterns to improve site design and operation as well as the products, programs, and services we provide. This information is not sensitive or personal in nature and may include:
- Your Internet protocol address
- What kind of browser or computer you use
- The number of links you click within the site
- The state or country from which you accessed the site
- The date and time of your visit
- The name of your Internet service provider
- The web page you linked to our site from
- The pages you viewed on the site
Business Relationships
The website may contain links to other websites for our business partners, or other companies that are not affiliated with CooperSurgical. These links have been provided as a convenience to our users. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of those sites, and we encourage you to use caution when visiting them. In particular, we recommend you view the privacy policy posted on each site.
Other Important Information
CooperSurgical is committed to protecting your privacy and will incorporate the necessary technologies to provide a safe and pleasurable user experience. CooperSurgical reserves the right to modify this procedure at any time.