PRIVACY POLICY

Privacy of personal information is an important principle to Lifestyle Health & Chiropractic.  We are committed to collecting, using and disclosing personal information responsibly and only to the extent necessary for the goods and services we provide.  We also try to be as open and transparent as to how we handle personal information.  This document describes our privacy policies.

WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Personal information is information about an identifiable individual.  Personal information includes information that relates to their personal characteristics (e.g., gender, age, income, home address or phone number, ethnic background, family status) , their health (e.g., health history, health conditions, health services received by them) or  their activities and views (e.g., religion, politics, opinions expressed by an individual, an opinion or evaluation of an individual).  Personal information is to be contrasted with business information (e.g., an individual’s business address and telephone number), which is not protected by privacy legislation.

WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION:PRIMARY PURPOSES

About clients

Like all chiropractors, we collect, use and disclose personal information in order to serve out clients.  For our clients, the primary purpose for collecting personal information is to provide chiropractic treatment.  For example, we collect information about a client’s health history, including their family history, physical condition and function and social situation in order to help us assess what their health needs are, to advise them of their options and then to provide the health care they choose to have. A second primary purpose is to obtain a baseline of health and social information so that in providing ongoing health services we can identify changes that are occurring over time. It would be rare to collect such information without the client’s express consent, but this might occur in an emergency (e.g., the client is unconscious) or where we believe the client would consent if asked and it is impractical to obtain consent (e.g., a family member passing a message on from our client and we have no reason to believe that the message is not genuine).

About Members of the General Public

For members of the general public, the primary purposes for collecting personal information are to provide notice of special events (e.g., a seminar or conference) or to make them aware of chiropractic services in general or our clinic in particular.  For example, while we try to use work contact information where possible, we might collect home addresses, fax numbers and email addresses.  We try to obtain consent before using any such personal information, but where this is not, for any reason possible, we will upon request immediately remove any personal information from our distribution list. 

WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION:RELATED AND SECONDARY PURPOSES

Like most organisations, we also collect, use and disclose information for the purposes related to or secondary to our primary purposes.  The most common examples or related purposes are as follows.

• To invoice clients for goods and services that are not paid for at the time, to process credit card payments or to collect unpaid accounts.
• To advise clients that their product or service should be reviewed (e.g., to ensure a product is still functioning properly and appropriate for their ten current needs and to consider modifications or replacement).
• To advise clients and others of special events or opportunities (e.g., a seminar, development of a new service, arrival of a new product) that we have available.
• Our clinic review client and other file for the purpose of ensuring that we provide high quality services, including assessing the performance of our staff. In addition, external consultants (e.g., auditors, lawyers, practice consultants, voluntary accreditation programs) may on our behalf do audits and continuing quality improvement reviews of our Clinic, including reviewing client files and interviewing our staff.
• Chiropractors are regulated by the College of Chiropractors of Ontario who may inspect our records and interview our staff as a part of their regulatory activities in the public interest.  In addition, as chiropractors, we will report serious misconduct, incompetence or incapacity of other practitioners, whether they belong to other organizations or our own.  Also, our organization believes that it should report information suggesting serious illegal behaviour to the authorities. External regulators have their own strict privacy obligations.  Sometimes these reports include personal information about our clients, or other individuals to support concern (e.g., improper services). Also like all organizations, various government agencies (e.g., Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, Information and Privacy Commissioner, Human Rights Commission, etc.) have the authority to review our files and interview our staff as a part of their mandates.  In these circumstances, we may consult with professionals (e.g., lawyers, accountants) who will investigate the matter and report back to us.
• The cost of some goods/services provided by the organization to clients is paid for by third parties (e.g., WSIB, private insurance, Assistive Devices Program).  These third-party payers often have your consent or legislative authority to direct us to collect and disclose to them certain information in order to demonstrate client entitlement to this funding.
• Clients or other individuals we deal with may have questions about our goods or services after they have been received.  We also provide ongoing services for many of our clients over a period of months or years for which our previous records are helpful.  We retain our client information for a minimum of ten years after that last contact to enable us to respond to those questions and provide these services (our regulatory College also requires us to retain our client records).

You can choose not to be a part of some of these related or secondary purposes (e.g., by declining to receive notice of special events or opportunities, by paying for your services in advance).  We do not however, have much choice about some of these related or secondary purposes (e.g., external regulation).

PROTECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION

We understand the importance of protecting personal information.  For that reason, we have taken the following steps:

• Paper information is either under supervision or secured in a locked or restricted area. 
• Electronic hardware is either under supervision or secured in a locked or restricted area at all times.  In addition, passwords are used on computers.  All cell phones are digital, which signals are more difficult to intercept.
• Paper information is transmitted through sealed, addressed envelopes or boxed by reputable companies.
• Electronic information is transmitted wither through a direct line or is anonymized or encrypted.
• Staff are trained to collect, use and disclose personal information only as necessary to fullfill their duties and in accordance with our privacy policy
• External consultants and agencies with access to personal information must enter into privacy agreements with us

RETENTION AND DESTRUCTION OR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We need to retain personal information for some time to ensure that we can answer any questions you might have about the services provided and for our accountability to external regulatory bodies.  However, we do not want to keep personal information too long in order to protect your privacy.

We keep client files for about ten years.  Client and contact directories are much more difficult to systematically destroy, so we remove such information when we can if it does not appear that we will be contacting you again. However, if you ask, we will remove such contact information right away.  We keep any personal information relating to our general correspondence (i.e., with people who are not clients) newsletters, seminars and marketing activities for about 6 months after the newsletter ceases publication or a seminar or marketing activity is over.

We destroy paper files containing personal information by shredding. We destroy electronic information by deleting it and, when the hardware is discarded, we ensure that the hard drive is physically destroyed.  Alternatively, we may send some or all of the client file to our client.

YOU CAN LOOK AT YOUR INFORMATION

With only a few exceptions, you have the right to see what personal information we hold about you. Often all you have to do is ask.  We can help you identify what records we might have about you.  We will also try to help you understand any information you do not understand (e.g., short forms, technical language, etc.).  We will need to confirm your identity, if we do not know you, before providing you with this access.  We reserve the right to charge a nominal fee for such requests.

If there is a problem we may ask you to put your request in writing.  If we cannot give you access, we will tell you within 30 days if at all possible and tell you the reason, as best we can, as to why we cannot give you access.

If you believe there is a mistake in the informant, you have the right to ask for it to be corrected.  This applies to factual information and not to any professional opinions we may have formed.  We may ask you to provide documentation that our files are wrong.  Where we agree that we made a mistake, we will make the correction and notify anyone to whom we sent this information.  If we do not agree that we have made a mistake, we will still agree to include in our file a brief statement from you on the point and we will forward that statement to anyone else who received the earlier information.

If you have a concern about the professionalism or competence of my services or the mental or physical capacity of any of our professional staff we would ask you to discuss those concerns with us. However, if we cannot satisfy your concerns, you are entitled to complain to our regulatory body: