Policy and Standards – Power and Associates

Privacy Policy

Power & Associates is committed protecting the privacy of your personal and health information. This Privacy Policy is intended to provide you with information on how we ensure that your private information remains private. All of our associates and affiliates are bound by this policy.

Objective & Scope

Power & Associates is dedicated to maintaining the highest standards of confidentiality with respect to all information provided to us. This policy statement outlines our commitment to maintaining the privacy of our clients, and to inform you of our practices concerning the collection, use and disclosure of personal information; including and not limited to personal information and health information. Our obligations as set out in this policy apply to all professionals, employees, contractors and agents who provide services directly or indirectly on behalf of Power & Associates. As healthcare professionals our confidentiality obligations are also governed by the national and provincial regulations that oversee each of our healthcare professionals as members of their applicable regulatory bodies (e.g.: College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, etc.). This Privacy Statement outlines the practices of Power & Associates in relation to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information (including personal health information).

Protecting Your Privacy

At Power & Associates we protect your privacy by:

Keeping your information and the business you do with us strictly confidential
Never selling, renting, sharing or trading your personal or health information
Giving you access to the personal or health information we have about you
Respecting your privacy when we market our products and services.

Maintaining our records and processes in a secure and audit-ready status. We are committed to meeting or exceeding the privacy standards established by federal and provincial regulations and industry bodies. All of our information handling practices comply with federal and applicable provincial laws including the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA), and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

We obtain information to establish a relationship and serve your medical and rehabilitative needs. Having accurate information helps us provide you with the best possible service; this includes recommendations and, when indicated, the ability to offer you additional services that may be of benefit. Most of this information is provided directly by you with your consent, or from other health practitioners whom you have authorized to disclose to us.

The types of information that we usually collect and maintain in your file can include, but is not limited to the following:

Power & Associates collects only information from individuals or organizations as is required for the purposes of providing services or information to them, or for aggregated/anonymous statistical analysis. To the extent possible, when we collect personal information we do this directly from you. Occasionally we will seek your consent to collect personal information from other sources, including but not limited to your employer, treating medical personnel, and/or insurers. Our purpose in collecting personal and heath information includes, but is not limited to the following:

Providing you with health services (including medical evaluations, pre-placement examinations, diagnostic services)
Collecting information on behalf of your insurer for their benefit determination/underwriting requirements;
Providing disability management services to you or your employer;
Providing you with other services as may be required by you;
Maintaining internal quality control.

You have the right to determine how your information is used and disclosed. In some cases, your consent to the use and/or disclose your personal information will be obtained verbally or in writing, through an informed consent process. In other cases your consent may be implied for use and disclosure of personal information needed for care and treatment as outlined in the Canadian Medical Association’s discussion on privacy in medical practice.

Occasionally circumstances may arise that necessitate the disclosure of your personal and health information without your consent. These circumstances may include:
Where required by law or court order
Where Power & Associates determines based on reasonable assessment of circumstances that disclosure of such information is needed on an emergency basis to protect the life, health or security of an individual

Power & Associates and its authorized affiliates including medical and rehabilitative sub-contractors only use your personal and health information to provide you with relevant services. This information is securely retained only as long as it is required to provide you with services or as required by law and provincial health/health professional regulations; in most circumstances this means no greater than 10 years beyond our last service to you. Disclosure is limited to only those individuals who essentially require the information to provide you with required services. Unauthorized access to and/or disclosure of your information by any employee or affiliate of Power & Associates is strictly prohibited. Failure to fully comply with this condition results in disciplinary action and/or termination of employment.

Currently, all personal and health information held by Power & Associates is stored securely in its central location. Individual associates and third party contractors affiliated with Power & Associates may also maintain some information at their own premises but only in a secure fashion which complies with this policy.

When your Personal Information is no longer required it is completely destroyed, deleted and erased – this includes Level 5 shredding for paperwork and the complete removal and destruction of hard-drives when secure computer hardware systems are upgraded.

We strive to ensure that all decisions we make involving your personal information are based on accurate information. Because it is important that your personal and health information is accurate and complete we rely on you to disclose all pertinent information and to advise us of any relevant changes. Despite our dedication to accuracy, errors can still occur. Should you identify any incorrect or out-of-date information in your file we will correct this and provide you with a copy of the corrected information. Where appropriate we will advise other parties of these changes if they have already received inaccurate information from us.

Whether paper or electronic; we protect the security of your information with appropriate safeguards. Paper records are stored in locked filing cabinets kept onsite at our office. Only authorized Power & Associates personnel and affiliated health care providers have access to these records and only in situations where access is required by them to execute their specific function or service. All personnel are legally bound to safeguard your privacy. Our electronic records and computer systems are password-protected and accessible only to authorized individuals. Our internet server is firewall protected and our web site and its applications where personal information is collected or stored uses Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and 256 bit encryption technology to enhance the safety of your information when you visit the secured areas of our site. SSL is the standard industry tool for protecting and maintaining the security of data transmitted over the Internet. When you or we access or send information from our secured site, encryption will scramble that data into an unreadable format to prevent unauthorized access by others.

You should note that as a client, you own your personal information. You are entitled to request access to, obtain copies of, and/or make changes to your personal information.

All requests to access, or to make corrections and changes to your information must be made in writing and you will receive a prompt response; also in writing. If you are requesting provision of copies of your information an estimate of reasonable costs associated with copying your file (materials and time) will be provided to you. At your option you can elect to simply review your original records under the supervision of one of our staff; in this circumstance an estimate of cost based on staff time will be provided to you.

Please be advised that Power & Associates will only refuse access to medical records in circumstances where the information may endanger the mental or physical health or safety of an individual – this can include the person requesting the information. Disclosure would also be declined in circumstanced where disclosure of the information involves revealing the personal information of another individual who has not consented to disclosure of their information.

If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy we will be pleased to provide you with any additional information you may need and/or to investigate your specific concern. Our contact information can be found on our website.

Individuals who feel that we have been unable to respond appropriately to their concerns in respect of privacy may also seek recourse through the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. The Commissioner’s role is that of an ombudsman, trying to find solutions to privacy problems, and resolving complains through negotiation, persuasion, and by using mediation and conciliation if appropriate.

The employees of Power & Associates respect the privacy of our clients and those who use our website. We have created this separate Web Privacy Statement in order to demonstrate our commitment to privacy and to disclose our practices in gathering, using and disclosing personal information in connection with our website. This Web Privacy Statement in no way supersedes or substitutes our Privacy Policy (previous section) but is additional and complementary to it.

Personal information is any data about a person that includes identifying information about that person. When you use our website, we receive and collect certain information. The information that we receive and collect depends on what you do when using the site. The following are guiding principles that Power & Associates adheres to as relates to the privacy of your information:

Any information you submit to us through our website — whether through a survey, registration form, employment form or email — will be used exclusively Power & Associates or authorized third parties performing services for Power & Associates.

We will use your personally identifiable information only for the specific reason for which you submitted it.

We will take reasonable precautions to protect your personal information including 256 bit encryption with SSL technology and passwords.

Generally, you will only receive email correspondence for information that you have requested or as confirmation of information that you have submitted.

Power & Associates may use the overall demographic data of our web users to improve the site and enhance services. These demographic trends will not be traceable to an individual’s personal information. On rare occasion, Power & Associates may contact registered users by email to inquire about potential interest in additional services.

Power & Associates is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others except to authorized agents of Power & Associates who are directly engaged in authorized service activity. Power & Associates does not commercially sell any client lists or email addresses. Power & Associates may, however, disclose personal information if permitted or required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to (a) conform to applicable law or comply with legal process served on Power & Associates; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Power & Associates, the website, or website users; or (c) act under exceptional circumstances to protect the personal safety of Power & Associates patients, clients, site users, or the public.

For most of the services provided on our website, we neither require nor collect user information that could personally identify you. However, in some instances we do need you to actively submit personally identifiable information. During the registration process, a user is required to give their contact information; name and email address. This information is primarily used to contact users about the services on our site for which they have expressed interest or to allow secure file sharing on the site. It is optional for users to provide demographic data, but encouraged, so we can provide you with better information when using our site.

Cookies are small files that are placed on a user’s computer hard drive to distinguish each website visitor. Power & Associates uses cookies to help identify usage patterns so we can analyze trends, administer the site, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. Cookies are not linked to any personally identifiable information while visiting our website. While the use of cookies is a standard practice among websites, users can reject the use of cookies and still use our website. The only drawback to this is that the user will be limited in some areas of our site (i.e., cannot view certain content). Power & Associates does not use cookies to retrieve information from your computer that was not originally sent in a cookie. Except as described in this Privacy Statement, we do not use information transferred through cookies for any promotional or marketing purposes, nor is that information shared with any third parties except when those third parties who are performing authorized services for Power & Associates.

The Power & Associates website may contain links to other websites. Please be aware that Power & Associates is not responsible for the privacy practices of these websites, nor are we responsible for content provided on these sites, or for the validity of content on these sites. We encourage our users to be aware that when they leave our site they should read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This Privacy Statement only applies to our website.

We exercise care in providing secure transmission of your information from your PC to our website and vice versa. Personal information collected on our website is stored in secure operating environments that are not available to the public. Only those employees who need access to your information in order to do their jobs are allowed access, each being bound to our Privacy Policy. Any employee who violates our privacy and/or security policies is subject to disciplinary action, including possible termination of employment and civil and/or criminal prosecution.

If Power & Associates decides to change our Privacy Policy or Web Site Statement, we will post those changes so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We will use this information in accordance with the Privacy Policy under which the information was collected. We do, however, recommend that you read this Privacy Policy each time you use our website for notice of changes to the Privacy Policy. Access to and Management of Your Information Power & Associates enables you to correct or update personally identifiable information that you have previously provided to us at any time. To do so, send an email to info@powerandassociates.ca indicating the information that you wish to be corrected or updated.

Power & Associates is committed to working in partnership with you to achieve your health related goals. To that partnership we bring our knowledge and expertise, while also preserving the independence, objectivity and integrity you require from us as your third party partner. We will meet and exceed your expectations by:

Bearing foremost in mind that you are our valued client and that ensuring you are completely satisfied with our services.
Responding to, and wherever possible, anticipating any questions or concerns you may have and addressing these decisively.
Maintaining our independence, professionalism, objectivity, fairness and integrity at all times.
Delivering our services in a consistently excellent and timely manner.

In order to accomplish our QA commitments Power & Associates maintains and monitors the following QA protocols:

We maintain 24/7 availability including phone and on-line access
We work closely and in partnership with you to identify your precise service goals
Our assignment of work to qualified consultants is rapid and thoughtful
We monitor timelines and ensure rapid turnaround
Our work is consistently accurate, objective, and mediation/arbitration/court ready
We can provide quotation of anticipated costs for all work
We are ever mindful of limiting costs and strive to provide maximum value to our clients
We respond to all feedback with concrete actions wherever required
We maintain statistics about your use of our services (type, frequency, clients, outcomes, etc.) which we can share with you at any time.
Power & Associates Privacy, Website & QA Policy is updated regularly. Our last update was on: November 27, 2013

Whilst every possible care is taken to ensure information on this website is accurate and up to date, the information and services published may include inaccuracies or errors. Power & Associates makes no representations about the suitability of the information and services contained on this web site for any purpose. All such information and services are provided ‘as is’ without warranty of any kind. In no event shall Power & Associates be liable (save where such liability cannot be limited or excluded by law) for any direct, indirect, punitive, incidental, special or consequential damages or losses arising out of or in any way connected with the delay or inability to use this web site, any information, products, and services obtained through this web site, or otherwise arising out of the use of this web site.

Power & Associates is not responsible for the contents or reliability of the linked websites and does not necessarily endorse the views expressed within them. Listing shall not be taken as endorsement of any kind. We cannot guarantee that these links will work all of the time and we have no control over the availability of linked pages.

This web site is for users’ personal use for information purposes only. Users may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information or services obtained from this web site. Power & Associates reserves the right to make changes to this web site at its sole discretion at any time without notice and/or at its discretion to deny access to this web site to anyone at anytime.

Policy & Standards

Our Privacy Policy is implemented to address these 10 principles as follows:

Power and Associates