Website and Office Privacy Policy

Welcome to the Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic, Inc. web site. Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic products and services that are offered to the consumer via the web pages at www.advancedhearingaidclinic.com are made available subject to this Privacy Policy. By utilizing the programs and services, you agree, without limitation, to be bound by this Privacy Policy.

Who we are

Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic is a privately owned corporation that provides audiologic and balance diagnostics and treatments for individuals with hearing loss and balance disorders. Services offered by the clinic include diagnostic audiology testing, (evaluations include conventional Pure Tone Audiometry, Sound Field Audiometry, Auditory Processing Disorders, Impedance, Acoustic Reflex, Auditory Brainstem Response, Electrocochleography, Vestibular Evoked Myogenic response, Auditory Steady State Response, Middle Latency, Late Vertex, Video Electronystagmography, Otoacoustic Emissions, Real Ear Measurements, Speech Mapping, and Electroacoustic testing), hearing aid dispensing, hearing aid repairs, cerumen debridement, and sales of batteries, sundries, custom earmolds, ear protection, musician monitor systems, and assistive listening devices.

The information that is obtained by Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic allows us to provide ongoing personalized quality audiologic care to our patients. The information that is collected is limited to what is required for this goal. Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic collects information that provides insight into specific medical conditions related to ear, hearing, and balance disorders that will enable us to offer effective intervention options.

What is Personal Information?

Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic may obtain information from our web site and services that can be classified in one of two ways: Personally Identifying Information or Non-Personally-Identifiable Information.

Personally-Identifiable Information refers to information that relates to personal characteristics (your name, date of birth, address, phone number, race, and Email address), health (healthcare history or health conditions), or activities (educational, religion, criminal and employment history, opinions expressed by an individual or an opinions expressed about an individual) or personal information related to financial history. Personal information is to be contrasted with business information (e.g. and individual's business address and telephone number), which is not protected by privacy legislation. This client information is used exclusively to help service our patients better or to provide them with additional information with respect to Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic.

Non-Personally-Identifiable Information includes information from visitors to our web site that is not personally identifiable. Specifically, examples of this type of information would include the type of internet browser that you are using, the type of computer operating system, and the domain name of the web site from which you are linked to our web site.

Primary Purposes for Personal Collecting Information

Patients

Our primary purpose for collecting personal information is to provide hearing and balance services. For example, we collect information about you health history that will be relevant to communication and balance disorders and assist us in offering effective intervention options. A second primary purpose is to obtain a baseline of your communication skills or hearing to track how that may change over time. It would be rare for us to collect such information without your express consent, however, this might occur in an emergency (e.g. the patient is unconscious) or where we believe you would consent if asked and it is impractical to obtain consent (e.g. a family member passing a message on from you and we have no reason to believe that the message is not genuine).

Members of the General Public

Our patient's privacy is important to us. Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic has a legal obligation to maintain the privacy of an individual's health information and to provide you with notice of its legal duties and privacy practice with regards to your health information. Any information that is obtained from the internet will be used to improve our information and services. This information will not be sold to third parties.

Our primary purpose for collecting contact information about members of the public is to make them aware of hearing and balance services in general or our services in particular. We try to obtain consent before using any personal contact information, but where this is not possible, we will, upon request, immediately remove the information from our distribution list.

On our website we only collect the personal information that you provide and only use that information for the purpose you gave it to us (e.g., to respond to your email message). Any information inadvertently collected will only be used to help you navigate our website (e.g. a website "cookie").

This information collected on the website may be used for a variety of reasons, including and not limited to:

• improving the design of this web site
• help us create content that is most relevant to you
• ensuring that the web site is operating properly
• investigating the popularity of various web pages
• tracking the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns
• alert you to product upgrades, special offers, updated information and other new services from Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic

Contract Staff, Volunteers, and Students

For people who are contracted to do work for us (e.g. temporary workers), our primary purpose for collecting personal contact information is to ensure we can get in touch with them for employment purposes to better serve our patients. It is rare for us to collect such information without prior consent, but it might happen in the case of a health emergency (e.g. an infectious disease outbreak) or to investigate a possible breach of law (e.g. if a theft were to occur in our office). We also collect information in order to do performance appraisals, provide feedback to students' instructors or write references if requested.

Related and Secondary Purposes for Collecting Personal Information

Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic also collects, uses and discloses information for purposes related to or secondary to our primary purposes. The most common examples are as follows:

• To secure payment for goods or services.
  
   
• To advise patients of the need for follow up services.
  
   
• To advise patients and others of special events or opportunities (e.g. a seminar, new service, a new hearing aid, or other product)
  
   
• To evaluate our services and the performance of our staff. This may involve external consultants (e.g. auditors, lawyers, practice consultants, voluntary accreditation programs) to do audits and continuing quality improvement reviews of our services, including reviewing patient files and interviewing our staff.
  
   
• To allow us to meet our regulatory obligations. The College of Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists may inspect our records and interview our staff as a part of their regulatory activities in the public interest. Various government agencies (e.g. Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, Privacy Commissioner, Human Rights Commission, etc.) have the authority to review our files and interview our staff as a part of their mandates. External regulators have their own strict privacy obligations. In these circumstances, we may consult with professionals (e.g. lawyers, accountants) who will investigate the matter and report back to us.
  
   
• To provide information to third party payers (e.g. OHIP, WSIB, private insurance companies, Assistive Devices Program) when they pay for the goods and services you receive from us. We will obtain your consent to disclose your personal information in these instances except in instances where there is legislative authority to collect, use, or disclose the information.
  
   
• To answer any questions you may have about the service you received once it is concluded. The College of Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists requires that we keep records for at least 10 years following your last intervention or in the case of a child, 10 years past the child's 18th birthday.
  
   
• To allow us to provide required information to a prospective purchaser if this practice or its assets are to be sold, in order to conduct a "due diligence" review of our accounting and service files. Only reputable purchasers who have already agreed to buy the organization's business or its assets would be provided access to personal information, and only for the purpose of completing their due diligence search prior to closing the purchase.

If you choose not to be part of some of these related or secondary purposes, please let us know so that we may take the appropriate measures where possible.

Safeguards-Protecting Personal Information

Several safeguards are implemented to ensure the safety of your personal information at Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic. We employ strict security standards to ensure that all personal information is protected against unauthorized access, disclosure, inappropriate alteration, or misuse. Staff members are trained to collect, use and disclose personal information only as necessary to fulfill their duties and in accordance with our privacy policy. Paper information is stored in numbered files in a restricted area. This paper information is under constant supervision. Paper information is sealed and transported or transmitted by reputable companies. Specific names associated with the files cannot be accessed without logging onto our secured computerized database which requires a password. Special care is taken to ensure privacy when transmitting electronic information. Where we are unsure of the security of the electronic transfer of electronic information, identifying information is removed. All electronic hardware that contains personal information is placed in a secured area and requires the use of a password. Digital telephones are used throughout the clinic as conversations are more difficult to intercept. All consultants that Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic utilizes for the smooth day-to-day operations are required to sign privacy agreement contracts and enter into a privacy agreement with us (such as computer programmers and network consultants).

Collection, Retention, and Disposal of Personal Information

Only information that is relevant to our practice is collected by Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic. We will retain client records and personal information within those records in accordance with the College of Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists of Ontario (CASLPO) Proposed Regulation for Records. Personal information that is not deemed necessary or charts that remain inactive that exceed the proposed time limit will be disposed of appropriately. Contact information for members of the public is kept for 3 years unless requested to do so earlier.

CASLPO requires that records are retained for our patients for 10 years past the last patient's visit or, in the case of a child, for 10 years past a child's 18th birthday. Files will be destroyed within three months of that time. Paper files and information is destroyed via shredding and discarded appropriately. Electronic information will be deleted from our database. If hardware is not functioning and discarded, we take steps to ensure the hard drive is physically destroyed.

Access to Personal 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 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 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.

The Privacy Officer will also ensure that our clients will have access to their personal information that is held by Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic (as per PIPEDA). Staff members will provide the necessary assistance to clients who require assistance in accessing or understanding their personal information.

Accuracy of Held Information

Patients may be asked to verify their personal information at each visit in order to ensure the accuracy of the individuals file. If it is mutually agreed that any personal information contained within the file is wrong, Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic must make the necessary corrections. This pertains to factual information and not to professional opinions. Patients may be required to provide documentation supporting their claims. Disagreements about information contained within the file will be forwarded to the Privacy Officer for his perusal. The Federal Information and Privacy Commissioner may be called upon to review the situation. 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.

Consent

Patients of Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic may be required to provide verbal or written consent for specific procedures, release of information, or contact permission. In the event that a patient refuses this consent and Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic requires such consent to perform the procedures safely and accurately, we reserve the right to refuse to provide specific procedures.

Privacy Officer

The Privacy Officer is not only a contact person within the organization for public or client enquiries, but is responsible for monitoring and ensuring that Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic is in compliance with the obligations set for the in the Privacy Act. The Privacy Officer will review and audit the practices of the clinic with respect to personal information and ensure the safety and security of personal information. The Privacy Officer will also ensure that our clients will have access to their personal information that is held by Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic (as per the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, 2004 - PIPEDA).

PIPEDA requires audiologists and speech-language pathologists in private practice to obtain the consent of their patients/clients to collect, use and disclose their patients/clients' personal information, which includes personal health information.

If you have any questions about specific sections of our privacy policy, or should you require additional information, please contact our privacy officer:

Rodney D. Taylor, Doctor of Audiology

Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic
1663 Carling Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada
K2A 1C4

(613) 728-4327 Telephone
(613) 728-1723 Fax
rodney.taylor@advancedhearingaidclinic.com

Inquiries/Complaints Process

If you wish to make a formal complaint about our privacy practices, you may make it in writing to our Privacy Officer. He will acknowledge receipt of your complaint, ensure that it is investigated promptly and that you are provided with a formal decision and reasons in writing.

Patients can contact the Privacy Officer of Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic with any inquiries that the staff members cannot address. Concerns or inquires should be forwarded in writing by mail or fax to:

Rodney Taylor, AUD( C ), Reg. CALSPO, FAAA, Doctor of Audiology
President, Advanced Hearing Aid Clinic/Advanced Hearing and Balance Institute/Advanced Hearing Institute
1663 Carling Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario
K2A 1C4

(613) 726-1723 fax

This policy is made under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. For more general inquires, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada oversees the administration of the privacy legislation in the private sector. The Commissioner also acts as a kind of ombudsman for privacy disputes. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner can be reached at:

112 Kent Street/Ottawa, Ontario/K1A 1H3
(613) 995-8210 / 1 (800) 282-1376 / Fax (613) 947-6850 / TTY (613) 992-9190
www.privcom.gc.ca