Privacy Statement

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

WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Personal information includes information that relates to personal characteristics to each individual (e.g., gender, age, income, home address or phone number, 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., business address and phone number), which is not protected by privacy legislation.

WHO WE ARE

Our organization, Ajax Chiropractic & Wellness, includes at the time of writing two Chiropractors, five Registered Massage Therapists, on Naturopath, one acupuncture therapist, and six support staff. We use a number of consultants and agencies that may, in the course of their duties, have limited access to personal information we hold, and we also have their assurance that they follow appropriate privacy principles.

WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION: PRIMARY PURPOSES

We collect, use and disclose personal information in order to serve our clients.

We collect information about your health history, your physical condition and function, and your social situation in order to help us assess what your needs are, to advise you of your options and then to provide the health care that you choose to have. Also, we collect information about your health history to obtain a baseline of health and social information so that in providing ongoing health care we can identify changes that are occurring over time. At no time do we rent, sell, barter, exchange or distribute our membership list to any third party for commercial purposes.

WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION:

RELATED & SECONDARY PURPOSES

We collect, use and disclose information for purposes related to or secondary to our primary purposes such as: To invoice clients for goods or services that were not paid for at the time, to process credit cards payments or to collect unpaid accounts. To advise clients that their product or service should be reviewed (e.g. to ensure product is still functioning properly and is appropriate for their current needs, to consider modifications of treatment). To advise clients of special events or opportunities (e.g., seminars, new service, arrival of new products) that we have available.

Regulatory bodies of our health care providers (e.g. Chiropractic College of Ontario, Acupuncture Council of Ontario, and College of Massage Therapy of Ontario) may inspect our records and interview our staff as a part of their regulatory activities in the public interest. Third parties (OHIP, WSIB, private insurance) may cover the cost of some goods/services provided by our organization to clients. These third-party payers often have your consent or legislative authority to direct us to collect and disclose certain information in order to demonstrate the client entitlement for this funding. Clients we deal with may have questions about our goods or services after they have been received. We retain our client information for a minimum of seven years, after the last contact, to enable us to respond to those questions and provide these services. If part of our Clinic or its assets were to be sold, the purchaser would want to conduct a “due diligence” review of the Clinic’s records to ensure that it is a viable business that has been honestly portrayed to the purchaser, and that may involve some review of our accounting and service files.

PROTECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION

We understand the importance of protecting personal information, and for that reason, we have taken the following steps: Staff is trained to collect, use and disclose personal information only as necessary to fulfill their duties and in accordance with our privacy policy. Electronic information is transmitted either through a direct line or is encrypted. Electronic hardware is either under supervision or secured in a restricted area at all times, and passwords are used on computers. Paper information is either under supervision or secured in a restricted area, and is transmitted through sealed, addressed envelopes by reputable companies External consultants and agencies with access to personal information must enter into privacy agreements with us.

RETENTION AND DESTRUCTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We need to retain personal information for some time to ensure that we can answer any questions you might have about services provided and for our own accountability to external regulatory bodies. We keep our client files for about seven years. Our 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. 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.

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; also we will try to help you understand any information that you do not understand (e.g., short forms, technical language, etc.). If you believe there is a mistake in the information, 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.

DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION?

Our Information Officer, Sandra Fattibene can be reached at:

Ajax Chiropractic & Wellness

314 Harwood Avenue South

Unit 20

Ajax, Ontario L1S 2J1

Phone (905) 426-9004 Fax (905) 426-8253

She will attempt to answer any questions or concerns you might have.

If you wish to make a formal complaint about our privacy practices, you may make it in writing to our designated Information Officer. She will acknowledge receipt of your complaint; ensure that it is investigated promptly and that you are provided with a formal decision and reason in writing. If you have a concern about the professionalism or competence of our 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. This policy is made under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

For more general inquiries, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Canada oversees the administration of the privacy legislation in the private sector, and can be reached at:

112 Kent Street l Ottawa, On l K1A 1H3

Phone (613) 995-8210 l Toll free 1-800-282-1376 l Fax (613) 947-6850