Privacy policy
Confidential information
Provincial and federal privacy laws protect the privacy of your personal health information and personal information (your “confidential information”), including information about you that is maintained by Grace Fertility Centre (“the Clinic”).
You have certain rights and choices regarding how your confidential information is used and disclosed by the Clinic. As a custodian of confidential information, the Clinic is required to comply with applicable privacy laws.
The following outlines the approach taken by the Clinic to protect your privacy. Everyone who works on behalf of the Clinic must strictly follow the terms stated below.
Safeguards
We have physical, technological, and administrative security safeguards in place to protect your confidential information from theft, loss and unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification, and we train our staff on privacy and their obligation to protect your confidential information.
How we collect your confidential information
The Clinic collects confidential information about you directly from you or from any person who is acting on your behalf.
Occasionally, we collect confidential information about you from other sources if we have obtained your consent to do so or if the law permits.
We only collect the information that is required to provide care and communicate with you. We do not collect any other information or allow information to be used for any other purposes, without your verbal or written consent, except where authorized to do so by law.
Who may use or see your confidential information
The Clinic must document the services and care we provide to you and may share your confidential information with other healthcare professionals involved in your healthcare.
We may also collect, use and provide your confidential information to other individuals, as reasonably necessary, without your prior consent, in order to:
obtain payment for your fertility care,
plan, manage and administer fertility care programs and services,
conduct research studies and trials,
conduct quality control studies and peer review, or
fulfill other purposes as permitted or required by law.
Your consent
The Clinic must obtain your written consent before using or disclosing your confidential information for purposes other than providing care. Some examples include the following:
using your information in research projects,
disclosing your information to media or third parties,
giving insurance companies or legal counsel access to your confidential information, or
contacting you to inform you of health-related services or benefits.
There are some situations where the Clinic is legally required to disclose your confidential information without your consent. Such situations include, but are not limited to the following:
billing provincial healthcare plans,
responding to a court order, or
providing information for an inquiry for internal purposes, a professional disciplinary body or to a regulating body.
Your rights and choices
Privacy legislation identifies specific rights that individuals have with respect to their confidential information. You have the right, subject to certain limited exceptions, to:
ask us not to give out your confidential information to other healthcare providers or other parties, in which case we will not disclose that information unless permitted or required to do so by law,
request to examine or receive a copy of your confidential information. A reasonable fee may be charged for providing you with a copy of your record. Requests for access to a copy of your confidential information can be made verbally or in writing to legal@thefertilitypartners.com,
designate another person to make decisions about your confidential information,
ask us to make corrections to inaccurate or incomplete confidential information,
file a complaint with legal@thefertilitypartners.com if you believe that your rights have not been respected, and
contact the Office of the Ombudsperson for British Columbia or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) contact the Office of the Ombudsperson for British Columbia or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC)
Additional information
We retain patient records as required by law and professional regulations. When information is no longer required, it is destroyed in a secure manner, according to a set of procedures that govern the storage and destruction of confidential information.
Contact us
If you have any questions regarding our privacy practices, or wish to express your concern about how we have handled your confidential information, please contact:
legal@thefertilitypartners.com