Patient Rights and Privacy

We have many ways of safeguarding your privacy – like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. This multi-faceted law improves a variety of service areas related to your treatment. Issues covered include health insurance, medical savings accounts, waste reduction, and more.

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA is the acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that was signed into law on August 21, 1996, Public Law 104-191.

Read the complete HIPAA notice of privacy practices

This law impacts all areas of the healthcare industry and was designed to provide insurance portability, to improve the efficiency of healthcare by standardizing the exchange of administrative and financial data, and to protect the privacy, confidentiality and security of healthcare information.

The law is designed to:

• Improve portability and continuity of health insurance coverage.
• Combat waste, fraud and abuse in health insurance and healthcare delivery.
• Promote the use of medical savings accounts.
• Improve access to long-term care services and coverage.
• Simplify administration of health insurance and for other purposes. [H.R. 3103].

Health information disclosure

You can choose to authorize disclosure of your health or billing information to a third party.

You have the right to release your personal information

Under federal law, we can only release your personal health information to those directly involved in providing your care; however, you have the right to grant access to your personal medical or billing information to other individuals or organizations of your choice. If you choose to do so, we require a written authorization.

Download the Authorization to Disclose Health or Billing Information form

Download the Authorization to Disclose Health or Billing Information (Spanish) form

If you still have questions or concerns pertaining to this section, contact your local Novant Health provider.