Privacy Practice
NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES
Effective February 17, 2010
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.
AIA Insurance, Inc. (we, us, our) is committed to protecting the privacy
of your personal financial and health information. We maintain physical,
electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with legal requirements. This
notice explains our privacy practices, our legal duties, and your rights concerning your
personal information. We reserve the right to change the way your personal
information is used or disclosed. However, if we make any changes, you will
receive a new notice by mail within 60 days of the change.
Uses and Disclosures of Personal Financial Information
We use certain financial information to carry out insurance activities as
allowed by law. This includes information collected from you when you apply
for our products or services, such as your name, address, age, and social security number. We
may verify or obtain additional information through others, such as adult family members,
employers, other insurers, physicians, hospitals, and other medical providers. We
disclose information only to our affiliates and others who perform services within the scope
of health care operations on our behalf. For example, information is disclosed to
our affiliates and others to help us evaluate requests for insurance benefits, perform
general administrative activities, and process claims. In addition, we disclose
information to law enforcement and other regulatory agencies to help us prevent fraud. We
do not make any disclosures of your financial information to other companies who may want to sell
their products or services to you.
Uses and Disclosures of Personal Health Information
We use your personal health information for health care payment and operations as
allowed or required by law.
We must use and disclose your personal health information to provide information:
- To you or someone who has the right to act on your behalf (your legal or personal
representative);
- To the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, if necessary, to
make sure your privacy is protected; and
- As required by law.
We have the right to use and disclose your personal health information to pay
for your health care and to carry out our health care operations. For example,
we may use your personal health information:
- To establish your premium rate, to pay or deny your claims, to collect your premiums,
to share your benefit payment information with your other insurer(s), and to inform
your provider regarding your eligibility for coverage under a health plan.
- To provide customer services to you, or to resolve any complaints you may have.
- To inform the policyholder about determinations made regarding claims submitted for
all dependents on the policy.
- To send you a reminder to obtain preventive health services or to inform you about
alternative medical treatments or other health-related benefits and services that
may interest you.
- With others who help us conduct our business operations. However, we
will not share your information with these outside groups unless they agree to
protect it.
- If you are an enrollee of a group health plan, to share information with the plan
sponsor (employer) or the group health plan through which you receive health
benefits. However, we will not share detailed health information with
your benefit plan unless they agree in writing to protect it.
We may use or disclose personal health information for the following purposes
under limited circumstances:
- To meet regulatory requirements of state and federal agencies;
- For public health activities (such as reporting disease outbreaks, child abuse,
neglect or domestic violence);
- For government health care oversight activities (such as fraud and abuse
investigations);
- For judicial and administrative proceedings (such as in response to a court
order);
- For law enforcement purposes (such as providing limited information to locate
a missing person);
- For research studies that meet all privacy law requirements (such as research
related to the prevention of disease or disability);
- To avoid a serious and imminent threat to health or safety;
- To a coroner, medical examiner, funeral director or organ donation organizations
(for reasons such as to identify a deceased person, determine a cause of death,
or as authorized by law);
- To a correctional institution or to a law enforcement official (for reasons such
as the health and safety of the inmates and for the safety and security of the
correctional institution;
- To specialized government functions (such as military and veteran activities,
national security and intelligence activities, and the protective services for
the President and others);
- To state worker compensation departments (for reasons such as to report
information on job-related injuries); and
- To others involved in your health care or payment for health care (for reasons
such as to inform your spouse of the status of a claim).
Other Uses and Disclosures of Your Personal Health Information
By law, we must have your written authorization to use or disclose your
personal health information for any purpose that is not set out in this notice.
You may revoke your written authorization at any time, except if we have already acted
based on your authorization. Potential Impact of State Law: In some situations
we may choose to follow state privacy or other applicable laws that provide greater
privacy protections to individuals. If a state law that we follow requires
that we not use or disclose protected health information (such as age of majority or
parental notification restrictions), then we may not use or disclose that information.
Your Rights
By law, you have the right to:
- Inspect and get a copy of your personal health information held by us upon your
written request. There may be a fee for copies of this information.
- Have your personal health information amended if you believe (and we agree) that
it is wrong or if information is missing. You must make this request
in writing and the request must explain why you think the information should be
amended.
- Receive, upon your written request, a list of instances in which we may have
disclosed your personal health information for purposes other than those described
in this notice. This list does not include disclosures made for treatment,
payment or health care operations, certain other activities, and those authorized
by you.
- Ask us to communicate with you in a different manner or at a different place (for
example, by sending materials to a post office box instead of your home address)
if you believe that you would be harmed if we sent your information to your current
mailing address. You must make this request in writing and you must state
the reason for the confidential communication.
- Ask us to restrict how your personal health information is used and disclosed in
order to pay your claims and run our health care operations. We are
not required to agree to any restriction that you may request.
- Get a copy of this notice at any time.
Questions and Complaints
If you believe we have violated your privacy rights set out in this notice,
you may file a complaint with us at the following address:
Legal Department
AIA Insurance, Inc.
PO Box 538
Lewiston, ID 83501
You also may file a complaint with the Secretary of the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.
Complaints filed directly with the Secretary must:
- be in writing;
- contain the name of the entity against which the complaint is lodged;
- describe the relevant problems; and
- be filed within 180 days of the time you became or should have become aware of the problem.
We will not penalize or in any other way retaliate against you for filing
a complaint with the Secretary or with us.
Please contact our legal department at 1-800-635-1519 for more information
about this notice.
