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.

Understand Your Health Record/Information 

Each time you visit the Cancer Care Center of York County, a record of your visit is made. Typically, this record contains your symptoms, examination and test results, diagnoses, treatment, and a plan for future care or treatment. This information, often referred to as your health or medical record, serves as a:

• basis for planning your care and treatment
• means of communication among the many health professionals who contribute to your care
• legal document describing the care you received
• means by which you or a third-party can verify that services billed were actually provided
• tools in educating health professionals
• source if information for public health officials charged with improving the health of the nation
• source of data for medical research
• tool with which we can assess and continually work to improve the care we render and the outcomes we achieve

Your Health Information Rights

Although your health record is the physical property of CCCYC, the information belongs to you. You have the right to:

• request a restriction on your health information that is used or disclosed to carry out treatment, payment or health care operations and other permitted disclosures.
• obtain a paper copy of the notice of privacy practices upon disclosure.
• inspect and receive a copy of your health record.
• amend your health record.
• obtain an accounting of disclosure of your health information.
• revoke your authorization to use or disclose health information except to the extent that action has already been taken.
• be notified if we are unable to agree to a requested restriction or alternate communication methods.
• You may exercise these rights by contacting the Executive Director of CCCYC

You also have the right to request that reasonable accommodations be made to have health information communicated to you by alternative means or at alternative locations. Such requests must be made to the receptionist.

Our Responsibilities 

CCCYC is required to:

• Maintain the privacy of your health information
• provide you with a notice as to our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to information we collect and maintain about you
• abide by the terms of the notice currently in effect
• notify you when we cannot fulfill your request for restricted access or for alternate notification.

Except as described in this notice, we will not use or disclose your health information without your authorization, and you may revoke that authorization at any time as described in this notice.

We reserve the right to change our practices and to make new provisions effective for all protected health information we maintain. Should our information practices change, we will make the notice available to you.

How We May Use and Disclose Your Health Information Without Your Written Authorization 

Treatments, Payments, And Normal Business Operation 

The Physicians and other clinicians and staff members within CCCYC may use your health information or share it with others in order to treat your condition, obtain payment for that treatment, and run CCCYC’s normal business operations. Your health information may also be shared with affiliated hospitals and health care providers so that they may jointly perform certain payments activities and business operations along with our practice. Below are further examples of how your information may be used for treatment, payment, and health care operation.

Treatment. We may share your health information with doctors or nurses within CCCYC who are involved in taking care of you, and they may in turn use that information to diagnose or treat you. A doctor within our practice may share your health information with another health care institution (such as a hospital), to determine how to diagnose or treat you. A doctor in CCCYC may also share your health information with another doctor to whom you have been referred for further health care.

Payment. We may use your health information or share it with others so that we obtain payment for your health care services. For example, we may share information about you with your health insurance company in order to obtain reimbursement after we have treated you. We may also share information about you with your health insurance company to determine whether it will cover your treatment or to obtain necessary pre-approval before providing you with treatment.

Business Operations. We may use your health information or share it with others in order to conduct our normal business operation. For example, we may use your health information to evaluate the performance of our physicians or staff in caring for you, or to educate our physicians or staff on how to improve the care they provide for you. We may also share your health information with another company that performs business services for us, such as billing companies. If so, we will have a written contract to ensure that this company also protects the privacy of your health information.

Appointment Reminders, Treatment Alternatives, Benefits And Services. We may use your health information when we 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.

Uses and Disclosure Made Without Authorization Notification 

We may use or disclose information to notify, or assist in notifying a family member, personal representative, or another person responsible for your care, your location, and general condition.

Communication with family: Health professionals, using their best judgment, may disclose to a family member, other relative, close personal friend or any other person you identify, health information relevant to that person’s in involvement in your care or payment related to your care.

Research: We may disclose your information to researchers when their research has been approved by an institutional review board that has reviewed the research proposal and established protocols to ensure the privacy of your health information.

Funeral Directors, Coroners, & Medical Examiners: We may disclose medical information to funeral directors consistent with applicable law to carry out their duties. We may also release information to Coroner and Medical Examiners for such activities as identifying a deceased person or determining a cause of death.

Organ procurement organizations: Consistent with applicable law, we may disclose health information to organ procurement organizations or other entities engaged in the procurement, banking or transplantation of organs for the purpose of tissue donation and transplant.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA): We may disclose to the FDA health information relative to adverse events with respect to food, supplements, product and product defect, or post marketing surveillance information to enable product recalls, repairs, or replacement.

Workers Compensation: We may disclose health information to the extent authorized by and to the extent necessary to comply with laws relating to workers compensation or other similar programs established by law.

Public health: As required by law, we may disclose your health information to public health or legal authorities charged with preventing or controlling disease, injury, or disability.

Correctional institution: Should you be an inmate of a correctional institution, we may disclose to the institution or agents thereof health information necessary for your health and the health and safety of other individuals.

Law enforcement: We may disclose health information for law enforcement purposes as required by law.

Health Oversight Activities: We may disclose medical information to a health oversight agency for activities authorized by law. These oversight activities, for example, include audits, investigations, inspections, and licensure.

Fund Raising: We may use demographic information (name, address, etc.) for fund-raising activities unless we are informed in writing that you object to this use.

We may, without authorization, use or disclose protected health information regarding:

• Victims of abuse, neglect or domestic violence.
• Judicial and administrative proceedings.
• Disclosure to avert a serious threat to health or safety.
• Specialized government functions.
• Circumstances when, in good faith, we believe the use or disclosure is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious or imminent threat to a person or to the public.
• Substance an abuse in accordance with the regulations contained in 42 CFR part 2.

For More Information or to Report a Problem

If you have questions or would like additional information please contact the Executive Director, Cancer Care Center of York County, 27 Industrial Avenue, Sanford, Maine 04073 at (207) 459-1600, or the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

This Notice of Privacy Practices applies to all employees of the Cancer Care Center of York County, including physicians, nurses, other health care providers and administrative staff. It also applies to all other persons or entities who provide treatment and care to CCCYC patients on-site even if they are not directly employed by CCCYC. For example, this may include physicians and health care providers on CCCYC’s medical or allied health staff, contract physicians who provide laboratory, anesthesia or radiology services, and crisis counselors, among others. 

Internet website
Rest assured that we honor and value your privacy. Remember, email is not a secure medium, and if you email us, do not send private or confidential information.

Our hosting company collects non-personally-identifiable website usage statistics for us (as do most websites you visit). Information obtained from our website usage reports includes the one or more of the following details supplied by the webserver: your IP address; referring domain name and source; origin (state, country); length of time at site; number of hits; web browser and operating system used.

We collect, retain, and use the above listed information from users of our website, only where we reasonably believe that it will help administer, design or improve our website.

We do not use cookies to store session data, but we may in the future. Cookies are small text files that store information about your visit to our website. They are benign data files that you can delete at any time.