Notice of Privacy Practices

Neuropsychological Associates is required by law to maintain the privacy of your protected health information, to give you this notice of our legal duties and privacy practices, and to follow the terms of the notice currently in effect.

Neuropsychological records — which include test data, clinical observations, diagnostic impressions, and psychological information — are treated with particular care, and in some circumstances receive protection beyond that required for general medical records.

For treatment: to provide, coordinate, or manage your care. This includes sending your evaluation report to the physician who referred you.

For payment: to bill and collect payment from you or your insurer, including verifying your eligibility and benefits and obtaining prior authorization where a plan requires it.

For healthcare operations: for quality assessment, staff review, business management, and administrative activities necessary to run the practice.

As required by law: including mandatory reporting of suspected abuse or neglect, responses to court orders or subpoenas, and reporting where there is a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of you or another person.

We will obtain your written authorization before releasing your report or records to an attorney, a school, an employer, a disability insurer, or any other third party who is not involved in your treatment or payment.

We will never sell your health information, and we will never use it for marketing, without your written authorization. You may revoke an authorization in writing at any time, except to the extent we have already acted on it.

When you call our office, you may be assisted by an automated AI assistant. It identifies itself as automated and never claims to be a clinician. It may collect the information needed to take a message, complete an intake, or verify your insurance eligibility.

These calls and chats are recorded and stored securely, and are reviewable only by authorized staff. Every access to that information is logged.

The automated assistant does not provide clinical advice, does not diagnose, and does not interpret test results. Anything of that nature is routed to a person.

Standard text messaging is not a secure or HIPAA-compliant channel. For that reason we do not send health information by text. Our text messages contain no patient-specific health information — at most a notification that there is a message waiting for you and a link to view it securely.

Email is not encrypted in transit. If you ask us to send appointment or health information to your email address, we will ask you to confirm that you understand and accept that risk, and we will record that you did. If you prefer not to, we will send you a short notification with a secure link instead, and the detail stays behind that link.

You may change your mind at any time by telling the office.

You have the right to inspect and receive a copy of your health information. For neuropsychological evaluations, raw test data may be released to another qualified professional rather than directly to you, in order to preserve test security and to ensure results are interpreted properly. We will explain this if it applies.

You have the right to request a correction to information you believe is inaccurate or incomplete.

You have the right to request that we communicate with you in a particular way or at a particular location — for example, only by post, or only to a specific phone number.

You have the right to request a restriction on certain uses and disclosures. We are not required to agree to every request, but we will consider it.

You have the right to receive an accounting of certain disclosures we have made of your information.

You have the right to a paper copy of this notice on request, even if you have agreed to receive it electronically.

Access to your records is restricted to staff who need it to do their job. Every access to, and every change made to, records containing health information is written to an audit log that cannot be altered or deleted.

Information is stored on encrypted systems, and is transmitted to our clearinghouse and to insurers over encrypted connections.

Where a third party handles health information on our behalf, we require a Business Associate Agreement obliging them to protect it to the same standard.

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with the practice by contacting our Office Manager at (631) 366-3369, or in writing at 475 East Main Street, Suite 201, Patchogue, NY 11772.

You may also file a complaint with the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights.

You will not be retaliated against in any way for filing a complaint. Your care will not be affected.

We may change this notice, and the changes will apply to information we already hold as well as to information we receive in future. The current notice will always be posted on this page, with its effective date, and a copy is available at the office.