THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DICLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY. --------------------------------------------- We respect our legal obligation to keep health information that identifies you private. We are obligated by law to give you notice of our privacy practices.This notice describes how we protect your health informationand what rights you have regarding it.

TREATMENT, PAYMENT, AND HEALTH CARE OPERATIONS The most common reason why we use or disclose your health information is for treatment payment or health care operations. Examples of treatment purposes are: faxing perscriptions or referrals to other doctors or getting information from other doctors.Examples of payment purposes are: insurance claims and billing and collecting unpaid amounts. Health care operations mean the functions of running our office.

We routinely use your health information inside our office for these purposes without any special permission. If we need to disclose your health information outside our office for these reasons we usually will not ask for your special written permission.

USUS AND DISCLOSURES FOR OTHER REASONS WITHOUT PERMISSION

In some limited situations the law allows or requires us to disclose your health information without your permission. Not all of these situations will apply to us; some may never come up at our office at all. Such uses or diclosures are:

when a state or federal law mandates that certain health information be reported for a specific purpose;

for public health purposes, such as contagioes disease reporting,investigation or surveillance; and notices to and from the federal Food and Drug Administration regarding drugs or medical devices;

disclosures to governmental authorities about victims of suspected abuse, neglect,or domestic violence;

uses and disclosures for health oversight activities, such as for the licensing of doctors; for audits by Medicare and Medicaid; or for investigation of possible violations of health care laws;

disclosures for judicial and administrative proceedings, such as in response to a subpoena;

disclosure for law enforcement purposes;

disclosure to a medical examner;

uses or disclosures for health related research;

disclosures of deidentified information

disclosures related to worker's comp programs

Unless you object we will also share relevant information about your care with your family or friends who are helping you with your eye care.