With your general written consent, we may use your health information or share it with others in order to treat your condition, obtain payment for that treatment, and run our business operations. In some cases, we may also disclose your health information for payment activities and certain business operations of another healthcare provider or payor. Below are further examples of how your information may be used and disclosed for these purposes.
Treatment
We may share your health information with doctors or nurses at the hospital who are involved in taking care of you, and they may in turn use that information to diagnose or treat you. A doctor at our hospital may share your health information with another doctor inside our hospital, or with a doctor at another hospital, to determine how to diagnose or treat you. Your doctor may also share your health information with another doctor to whom you have been referred for further healthcare. If you are a bone marrow/peripheral blood stem cell donor or recipient, your information may also become part of that person's medical record.
Payment
We may use your health information or share it with others so that we may obtain payment for your healthcare services. For example, we may share information about you with your health insurance company in order to obtain reimbursement after we have treated you, or to determine whether it will cover your treatment. We might also need to inform your health insurance company about your health condition in order to obtain pre-approval for your treatment, such as admitting you to the hospital for a particular type of surgery. Finally, we may share your information with other healthcare providers and payors for their payment activities.
Business Operations
We may use your health information or share it with others in order to conduct our business operations. For example, we may use your health information to evaluate the performance of our staff in caring for you, or to educate our staff on how to improve the care they provide for you. Finally, we may share your health information with other healthcare providers and payors for certain of their business operations if the information is related to a relationship the provider or payor currently has or previously had with you, and if the provider or payor is required by federal law to protect the privacy of your health information.
Appointment Reminders, Treatment Alternatives, Benefits and Services
In the course of providing treatment to you, we may use your health information to contact you with a reminder that you have an appointment for treatment or services at our facility. We may also use your health information in order to recommend possible treatment alternatives or health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you.
Fundraising
To support our business operations, we may use demographic information about you, including information about your age and gender, where you live or work, and the dates that you received treatment, in order to contact you to raise money to help us operate. We may also share this information with a charitable foundation that will contact you to raise money on our behalf.
Business Associates
We may disclose your health information to contractors, agents and other business associates who need the information in order to assist us with obtaining payment or carrying out our business operations. For example, we may share your health information with a billing company that helps us to obtain payment from your insurance company. Another example is that we may share your health information with an accounting firm or law firm that provides professional advice to us about how to improve our healthcare services and comply with the law. If we do disclose your health information to a business associate, we will have a written contract to ensure that our business associate also protects the privacy of your health information.
Note
We can do all of these things if you have signed a general written consent form. Once you sign this general written consent form, it will be in effect indefinitely until you revoke your general written consent. You may revoke your general written consent at any time, except to the extent that we have already relied upon it. For example, if we provide you with treatment before you revoke your general written consent, we may still share your health information with your insurance company in order to obtain payment for that treatment. To revoke your general written consent, please contact the Privacy Office:
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Privacy Office
633 Third Avenue
New York, New York 10017
Telephone: 646-227-2056.
