HIPAA: Protecting Patient Privacy
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia is committed to ensuring that your medical information is private and secure. The Hospital protects medical information as required by state laws and the federal privacy rules of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
Privacy rights
Patients or their parents/legal guardians have certain privacy rights under HIPAA, including the right to:
- Look at or request a copy of your/your child's medical records
- Request a correction or a change to information you believe is inaccurate or incomplete
- File a complaint
View a complete list of privacy rights with links to request forms
Notice of Privacy Practices
Children's Hospital maintains a Notice of Privacy Practices that describes the privacy rights of patients and the ways we may use and share medical information. We provide a copy to all patients/families when they first receive services from Children's Hospital. At that time, you will be asked to sign a form acknowledging that you received a copy of our Notice.
Use and sharing of information
In general, written authorization from the patient or parent/legal guardian is needed before information may be released by Children's Hospital. In some cases, as described in our Notice of Privacy Practices, we may use and share information for certain purposes without the written authorization of a patient/parent/legal guardian.
For example, we may:
- Use and share information with doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers to treat the patient
- Share information with health insurance companies to get paid for the services we provide
- Use information to review the quality of our services
- Share information with local health departments to report certain contagious diseases, such as meningitis
- Share information with local authorities about suspected child abuse or neglect
- Share limited information with police in certain situations, such as if the patient was the victim of a crime
Please direct any questions to our Privacy Office at 267-426-6036.
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