Privacy Policy

Notice of Information Practices and Privacy statement for the Bariatric Medicine Institute 

809 Easton Road, Willow Grove, PA, 19090. Phone (215) 392-9911

Our Responsibilities: We are required by law to maintain the privacy of your health information and to provide you with this Notice of our legal duties and privacy practices and your rights with respect to the health information we collect, create and maintain about you.  The Bariatric Medicine Institute will abide by the terms of this Notice currently in effect. We are required to notify you if your information has been affected by a breach of unsecured protected health information. 

How We Collect Information About You: The Bariatric Medicine Institute (BMI) and its employees, contractors, resident physicians, students and volunteers collect data through a variety of means including but not necessarily limited to letters, phone calls, emails, voicemails, and from the submission of applications that are either required by law or necessary to process applications or other requests for assistance through our organization.

What We Do Not Do With Your Information: Information about your financial situation and medical conditions and care that you provide to us in writing, via email, on the phone (including information left on voicemails), contained in or attached to applications, or directly/indirectly given to us, is held in strictest confidence.

We do not give out, exchange, barter, rent, sell, lend, or disseminate any information about applicants or clients who apply for or actually receive our services that are considered patient confidential, is restricted by law, or has been specifically restricted by a patient/client in a signed HIPAA consent form.

How We Do Use Your Information: Information is only used as is reasonably necessary to process your application or to provide you with health or counseling services which may require communication between BMI and health care providers, medical product or service providers, pharmacies, insurance companies, and other providers necessary to: verify your medical information is accurate; determine the type of medical supplies or any health care services you need including, but not limited to; or to obtain or purchase any type of medical supplies, devices, medications, insurance,

If you apply or attempt to apply to receive assistance through us and provide information with the intent or purpose of fraud or that results in either an actual crime of fraud for any reason including willful or un-willful acts of negligence whether intended or not, or in any way demonstrates or indicates attempted fraud, your non-medical information can be given to legal authorities including police, investigators, courts, and/or attorneys or other legal professionals, as well as any other information as permitted by law.

Information We Do Not Collect: We do not use cookies on our website to collect data from our site visitors. We do not collect information about site visitors except for one hit counter on the main index page (www.BMIGoals.com) that simply records the number of visitors and no other data. We do use some affiliate programs that may or may not capture traffic data through our site. To avoid potential data capture that you visited an outside site simply do not click on any of our outside affiliate links.

Limited Right to Use Non-Identifying Personal Information From Biographies, Letters, Notes, and Other Sources: Any pictures, stories, letters, biographies, correspondence, or thank you notes sent to us become the exclusive property of BMI. We reserve the right to use non-identifying information about our clients (those who receive services or goods from or through us) for fundraising and promotional purposes that are directly related to our mission.

Clients will not be compensated for use of this information and no identifying information (photos, addresses, phone numbers, contact information, last names or uniquely identifiable names) will be used without client’s express advance permission.

You may specifically request that NO information be used whatsoever for promotional purposes, but you must identify any requested restrictions in writing. We respect your right to privacy and assure you no identifying information or photos that you send to us will ever be publicly used without your direct or indirect consent.

YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS

You have rights regarding your health information. However, there are limited circumstances where we may deny these requests. You may make these requests by contacting our office directly.  We may ask that your request be made in writing.

View and receive your health information: You have the right to inspect and obtain a copy of your health information, with certain exceptions. We may charge a reasonable fee for any copying and mailing costs we incur. 

Request an amendment of your health information: You have the right to request an amendment of your health information that you feel is incorrect or incomplete.

Request information on how your health information was disclosed: You have the right to receive an accounting of the disclosures we have made of your health information. 

Request restrictions of your health information: You have the right to request restrictions and limitations on how we use and disclose your health information, either for treatment, payment, or operations functions as described above, or restrictions on disclosing information to certain individuals. However, we are not required to agree with your restriction, unless it is to restrict the disclosure of health information for payment and/or operations functions, where the item or service has been paid in full, out of pocket, by the patient. 

Changes to our privacy practices: We are required to abide by the terms of this Notice. However, we reserve the right to change this Notice in the future. We reserve the right to make the revised or changed Notice effective for health information we already have about you as well as any information we receive in the future. Updated Notices will be available upon request, and we will post a copy of the updated Notice in our office and website.

YOUR AUTHORIZATION

Uses and disclosures of health information that do not fall within the categories listed above will be made only with your written authorization. There are certain types of health information subject to more stringent privacy protections, and the disclosure of this information requires your authorization, except for certain limited circumstances.

Psychotherapy notes, recorded by a mental health care professional documenting or analyzing the contents of a conversation during a private, group, joint or family counselling session, are afforded additional protections, such as being kept separately from the medical record, and require the patient’s authorization before they are disclosed. Since Bariatric Medicine Institute is an integrated medical group, any information that is disclosed in psychotherapy noted by the other care providers in our group as a way to transparently work to give you the best care, however the subjects of these notes will not be documented in the medical side unless you bring it up in one of the other care sessions.