Notice of Privacy Practices

Who this notice covers

This notice applies to two medical practices that work together as Golden Leaf Health Center:

• Golden Leaf Naturopathic, PC provides care to patients located in California.
• Golden Leaf Health, PC provides care to patients located in the other states we serve.

The two practices share a care team, and share your health information with each other as needed for your treatment, payment, and health care operations.

We provide care by video, phone, secure messaging, and other online services. Protected health information may include your intake answers, medical history, visit notes, messages, images you send us, prescriptions, lab results, payment and insurance information, and records created during virtual care. The same privacy rules apply to this information whether your visit is in person or remote.

Your rights

Get a copy of your records

You may ask to inspect or receive an electronic or paper copy of your medical record and other health information we keep about you. Contact us, or use our CharmHealth patient portal. We generally respond within 30 days, and may charge a reasonable, cost-based fee where the law allows.

Ask us to correct your records

If you believe information is incorrect or incomplete, you may ask us to amend it. We may deny the request, but we will explain why in writing, generally within 60 days.

Request private communications

You may ask us to contact you at a particular phone number, email address, or mailing address, or by another reasonable method. We will accommodate reasonable requests. Please tell us if a voicemail, text message, or appointment reminder could reveal information to someone else.

Ask us to limit use or sharing

You may ask us not to use or share certain information for treatment, payment, or health care operations. We are not generally required to agree, but we will consider your request. If you pay for a service or item in full out of pocket, you may ask us not to share information about it with your health plan for payment or operations. We must honor that request unless the law requires the disclosure.

Get an accounting of disclosures

You may ask for a list of certain disclosures we made in the six years before your request. The list leaves out disclosures for treatment, payment, and health care operations, and certain other exceptions. One accounting in any 12-month period is free. We may charge a reasonable, cost-based fee for another.

Get this notice

You may ask for a paper copy at any time, even if you agreed to receive it electronically.

Choose a representative

A person legally authorized to act for you, such as a health care agent or guardian, may exercise your rights once we verify that authority.

Complain without retaliation

If you believe your privacy rights were violated, contact our Privacy Officer. You can also file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights at hhs.gov/hipaa/filing-a-complaint or by calling 1-877-696-6775. We will not retaliate against you for filing a complaint.

Your choices

You may tell us whether to share information with family, friends, or others involved in your care or in paying for it, and whether to share information for disaster relief. If you cannot tell us your preference, we may share information when we believe it is in your best interest, or when needed to reduce a serious and imminent threat to health or safety, as the law permits.

We need your written authorization to use or disclose your information for marketing, to sell your protected health information, or to disclose most psychotherapy notes, if we keep any. Other uses or disclosures not described in this notice also require your written authorization. You may revoke an authorization in writing at any time, except to the extent we have already relied on it.

How we use and share health information

Treatment

We use and share information to provide and coordinate your care. For example, a clinician may review your intake and lab results during a video visit, then send a prescription to a pharmacy or an order to a laboratory. Members of our care team, including clinicians in either practice, our pharmacist, and our medical assistant, may use your information to support your care. We may also communicate with other professionals who treat you.

Payment

We use and share information to bill for services, process payments, and, if applicable, get payment from your health plan. Payment processors and billing vendors may receive the information they need to perform services for us, under applicable privacy protections.

Health care operations

We use and share information to run our practices: to manage appointments, assess quality, train staff, investigate concerns, and improve care. Vendors that host our patient portal, video visits, records, messaging, or other services may handle information for us under business associate agreements.

Other uses allowed or required by law

Subject to legal limits, we may use or disclose information for:

• public health activities, including reporting adverse drug reactions or suspected abuse or neglect;
• preventing or reducing a serious threat to health or safety;
• health oversight;
• research, when legal requirements are met;
• organ and tissue donation;
• coroners, medical examiners, and funeral directors;
• workers’ compensation;
• certain law enforcement or government purposes; and
• responding to a court order, subpoena, or other legal process, when the applicable requirements are met.

We will disclose information to HHS when required to show that we comply with federal privacy law.

Information with extra legal protection

Some information has stricter protection under federal or state law, including certain mental health, substance use disorder, HIV, genetic, and reproductive health records. Where a stricter law applies, we follow it.

Records protected by 42 CFR Part 2

If we receive or keep substance use disorder records protected by 42 CFR Part 2, additional protections apply. We will not use or disclose those records in civil, criminal, administrative, or legislative investigations or proceedings against you unless you consent in writing, or a Part 2 court order, together with a subpoena or similar legal mandate, authorizes it. Other uses of these records follow Part 2’s consent requirements and exceptions.

Our responsibilities

We are required by law to protect the privacy and security of your protected health information. We will notify you after a breach of unsecured information when the law requires it. We must follow the duties and privacy practices described in this notice, and give you a copy of it. We will not use or share your information in ways not described here unless you authorize it in writing, or the law permits or requires it.

We may change this notice, and the changes will apply to information we already hold. The current version is always available on this website, at our office, and on request.

Questions or requests

Contact our Privacy Officer at (760) 542-8898, info@goldenleafhc.com, or 1902 Wright Pl. Suite 200, Carlsbad, CA 92008.