Privacy Policy

NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES Effective Date: April 13, 2003

THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW MEDICAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

If you have any questions about this notice, please contact the Privacy Officer.

Our Obligations:

We are required by law to:

Maintain the privacy of protected health information (PHI)
Give you this notice of our legal duties and privacy practices regarding health information about you
Follow the terms of our notice that is currently in effect

How We May Use and Disclose Health Information:

Described below are the ways we may use and disclose health information that identifies you (protected health information or PHI). Except for the following purposes, we will use and disclose PHI only with your written permission. You may revoke such permission at any time by writing to our practice Privacy Officer.

Treatment. We may use and disclose PHI for your treatment and to provide you with treatment-related health care services. For example, we may disclose PHI to doctors, nurses, technicians, or other personnel, including people outside our office, who are involved in your medical care and need the information to provide you with medical care.

Payment. We may use and disclose PHI so that we or others may bill and receive payment from you, an insurance company, or a third party for the treatment and services you received. For example, we may give your health plan information so that they will pay for your treatment.

Health Care Operations. We may use and disclose PHI for health care operation purposes. These uses and disclosures are necessary to make sure that all of our patients receive quality care and to operate and manage our office. For example, we may use and disclose information to make sure the obstetrical or gynecological care you receive is of the highest quality. We also may share information with other entities that have a relationship with you (for example, your health plan) for their health care operation activities.

Appointment Reminders, Treatment Alternatives and Health Related Benefits and Services. We may use and disclose PHI to contact you and to remind you that you have an appointment with us. We also may use and disclose PHI to tell you about treatment alternatives or health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you.

Special Situations:

As Required by Law. We will disclose PHI when required to do so by international, federal, state or local law.

Family and Friends. We may disclose PHI to your family member or close friend if we obtain your verbal agreement or if when given an opportunity to object, you do not. We may also disclose PHI to family or friends if we can infer from the circumstances, based on our professional judgment that you would not object. For example, we may assume you agree to disclosure when you bring your spouse with you into the exam room for discussion, evaluation, or treatment.

To Avert a Serious Threat to Health or Safety. We may use and disclose PHI when necessary to prevent a serious threat to your health and safety or the health and safety of the public or another person. Disclosures, however, will be made only to someone who may be able to help prevent the threat.

Emergency Situation. We may use or disclose PHI to provide treatment in an emergency situation.

Business Associates. We may disclose PHI to our business associates that perform functions on our behalf or provide us with services if the information is necessary for such functions or services. For example, we may use another company to perform transcription services on our behalf. All of our business associates are obligated to protect the privacy of your information and are not allowed to use or disclose any information other than as specified in our contract.

Organ and Tissue Donation. If you are an organ donor, we may use or release PHI to organizations that handle organ procurement or other entities engaged in procurement; banking or transportation of organs, eyes, or tissues to facilitate organ, eye or tissue donation; and transplantation.

Military and Veterans. If you are a member of the armed forces, we may PHI as required by military command authorities. We also may release PHI to the appropriate foreign military authority if you are a member of a foreign military.

Workers' Compensation. We may release PHI for workers' compensation or similar programs. These programs provide benefits for work-related injuries or illness.

Public Health Risks. We may disclose PHI for public health activities. These activities generally include disclosures to prevent or control disease, injury or disability; report births and deaths; report communicable or sexually transmitted diseases; report child abuse or neglect; report reactions to medications or problems with products; notify people of recalls of products they may be using; a person who may have been exposed to a disease or may be at risk for contracting or spreading a disease or condition; and the appropriate government authority if we believe a patient has been the victim of abuse, neglect or domestic violence. We will only make this disclosure if you agree or when required or authorized by law.

Health Oversight Activities. We may disclose PHI to a health oversight agency for activities authorized by law. These oversight activities include, for example, investigations, audits, inspections, and licensure. These activities are necessary for the government to monitor the health care system, government programs, and compliance with civil rights laws.

Lawsuits and Disputes. If you are involved in a lawsuit or a dispute, we may disclose PHI in response to a court or administrative order. We also may disclose Health Information in response to a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful process by someone else involved in the dispute, but only if efforts have been made to tell you about the request or to obtain an order protecting the information requested.

Law Enforcement. We may release PHI if asked by a law enforcement official if the information is: (1) in response to a court order, subpoena, warrant, summons or similar process; (2) limited information to identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person; (3) about the victim of a crime even if, under certain very limited circumstances, we are unable to obtain the person's agreement; (4) about a death we believe may be the result of criminal conduct; (5) about criminal conduct on our premises; and (6) in an emergency to report a crime, the location of the crime or victims, or the identity, description or location of the person who committed the crime.

Coroners, Medical Examiners and Funeral Directors. We may release PHI to a coroner or medical examiner. This may be necessary, for example, to identify a deceased person or determine the cause of death. We also may release PHI to funeral directors as necessary for their duties.

National Security and Intelligence Activities. We may release PHI to authorized federal officials for intelligence, counter-intelligence, and other national security activities authorized by law. We may also disclose PHI to authorized federal officials so they may provide protection to the President, other authorized persons, or foreign heads of state, or to conduct special investigations.

Information Not Personally Identifiable. We may use or disclose health information about you in a way that does not personally identify you or reveal who you are.

Other Uses and Disclosures:

We will not use or disclose your PHI for any purpose other than those identified in the previous sections without your specific Authorization. We must obtain your Authorization separate from any Consent we may have obtained from you. If you give us Authorization to use or disclose PHI about you, you may revoke that Authorization, in writing, at any time. If you revoke your Authorization, we will no longer use or disclose information about you for the reasons covered by your written Authorization, but we cannot take back any uses or disclosures already made with your permission.

In Illinois, a specific written authorization (different than the Authorization and Consent mentioned above) is required to disclose or release records of mental health treatment, alcoholism treatment, drug abuse treatment or HIV/AIDS treatment information.

We do not use or disclose PHI for marketing purposes or research activities.

Your Rights:

You have the following rights regarding PHI we have about you:

Right to Inspect and Copy. You have a right to inspect and copy PHI that may be used to make decisions about your care or payment for your care. This includes medical and billing records, other than psychotherapy notes. To inspect and copy this PHI, you must make your request, in writing, to Privacy Officer, Northwestern Women's Health Associates, 680 N Lake Shore Drive, # 1200, Chicago, 60611. If you request a copy of this information, we may charge a fee as allowed under Illinois law. We may deny your request in certain limited circumstances. You may ask that the denial be reviewed. If such a review is required by law, we will select a licensed healthcare professional to review your request and our denial. The person conducting the review will not be the person who denied your request, and we will comply with the outcome review.

Right to Amend. If you feel that PHI we have is incorrect or incomplete, you may ask us to amend the information. You have the right to request an amendment for as long as the information is kept by or for our office. To request an amendment, you must make your request, in writing, to Privacy Officer, Northwestern Women's Health Associates, 680 N Lake Shore Drive, # 1200, Chicago, 60611. We may deny your request as permitted by law.

Right to an Accounting of Disclosures. You have the right to request a list of certain disclosures we made of PHI for purposes other than treatment, payment and health care operations or for which you provided written authorization. To request an accounting of disclosures, you must make your request, in writing, to Privacy Officer, Northwestern Women's Health Associates, 680 N Lake Shore Drive, # 1200, Chicago, 60611. We may charge you for the costs of providing the list. We will notify you of the costs involved and you may choose to withdraw or modify your request at that time before any costs are incurred.

Right to Request Restrictions. You have the right to request a restriction or limitation on the PHI we use or disclose for treatment, payment, or health care operations. You also have the right to request a limit on the PHI we disclose to someone involved in your care or the payment for your care, like a family member or friend. For example, you could ask that we not share information about a particular diagnosis or treatment with your spouse. To request a restriction, you must make your request, in writing, to Privacy Officer, Northwestern Women's Health Associates, 680 N Lake Shore Drive, # 1200, Chicago, 60611. We are not required to agree to your request. If we agree, we will comply with your request unless the information is needed to provide you with emergency treatment.

Right to Request Confidential Communication. You have the right to request that we communicate with you about medical matters in a certain way or at a certain location. For example, you can ask that we only contact you by mail or at work. To request confidential communication, you must make your request, in writing, to Privacy Officer, Northwestern Women's Health Associates, 680 N Lake Shore Drive, # 1200, Chicago, 60611. Your request must specify how or where you wish to be contacted. We will accommodate reasonable requests.

Right to a Paper Copy of This Notice. You have the right to a paper copy of this notice. You may ask us to give you a copy of this notice at any time. Even if you have agreed to receive this notice electronically, you are still entitled to a paper copy of this notice. You may obtain a copy of this notice at our web site: www.northwesternobgyn.com To obtain a paper copy of this notice, ask any of our office personnel.

Changes to This Notice:

We reserve the right to change this notice and make the new notice apply to PHI we already have as well as any information we receive in the future. We will post a copy of our current notice at our office. The notice will contain the effective date on the first page, in the top right-hand corner.

Complaints:

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with our office or with the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. To file a complaint with our office, contact Privacy Officer, Northwestern Women's Health Associates, 680 N Lake Shore Drive, # 1200, Chicago, 60611. All complaints must be made in writing. You will not be penalized for filing a complaint.

Visitors’ privacy

Northwestern Women's Health Associates is committed to respecting our visitors’ privacy and protecting their personal information from misuse or unauthorized disclosure and complying with privacy laws.

Northwestern Women's Health Associates values its reputation and aims to maintain high ethical standards in the conduct of our business affairs.

Northwestern Women's Health Associates (“us”, “we”, or “our”) operates www.northwesternobgyn.com (the “Site”). This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information we receive from users of the Site. We use your Personal Information only for providing and improving the Site. By using the Site, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.

What information do we collect?

When filling in forms or calling the phone number listed on the website as appropriate, you may be asked to enter or provide your name, postcode, email address and telephone number.

We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type for system administration. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns and does not identify any individual.

We will not collect any information about you without your explicit consent.

We will ask your consent every time we need to collect personal information about you.

We will explain in clear, simple terms why we want to collect your information and what we will do with it before seeking your consent, so you are fully informed. You will be given a clear and unambiguous option to opt in to any communications or services we might want to offer you.

All data is collected directly from you, the individual. We do not collect any of your personal data from any other sources. This includes any publicly accessible lists and or data sources, whether in the public domain or if we have a legitimate interest to be able to access those sources legally.

No mobile information will be shared with third parties/affiliates for marketing/promotional purposes. All the above categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways:

Identify you as a user in our system
Provide you with the Services and complete your transactions;
Provide you with customer support;
Help understand your needs and tailor the features and content of the services to you;
Respond to and, as applicable, fulfill your requests, resolve disputes and/or troubleshoot problems;
Send you administrative e-mail notifications, such as security, or support and maintenance advisories;
Send newsletters, surveys, offers, and other promotional materials related to our Services and for other marketing purposes;
Improve the quality and functionality of the services;
Share with our third-party software and services providers in order to facilitate our communications; and
Communicate with you about our services.

Any and all data in respect of – ‘What Information Do We Collect?’ is not subject to any automated decision making. We do not profile you using your data, any actions taken by us or our systems are as a direct result of explicit requests or consents you have chosen.

There are no foreseeable consequences of any significance in respect of providing the data or being removed from the records, except that we will not be able to contact you.

How do we protect your information?

We will store and process your data following industry best practices and security.

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that there are appropriate arrangements in place that include provisions covering the appropriate secure transfer, handling and processing of the personal information by those entities and third parties.

Do we use cookies?

Yes. Refer our Cookie Policy. Visit: COOKIE POLICY

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you. Where processing takes place by one of our trusted data processors, we ensure that our contracts with those third parties contain the appropriate GDPR / PIPEDA model clauses and that all our third parties are also compliant with the GDPR, PIPEDA. This affords your data the same protection away from our organization, as it does within it.

We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Third party links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our website. These third-party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

Your rights as an individual in respect of the data we hold

We respect the rights and freedom of individuals and as such we would like to make you aware of the following.

You have the right to:

Request access to your data
Request rectification of your data where there are errors or inaccuracies, or the data is not current
Request that the data we hold is removed entirely from our systems
Request us to restrict processing your data
Object to our processing your data
Request your data in a format that is commonly used/accepted
Send your data to another controller
Withdraw consent already provided – at any time

You also have the right to complain or withdraw your consent. To exercise your above rights, send a written request to policy@pri-pol.com

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Why Choose Us?

Expert's Touch

Highly Recommended

Success Stories

Jen Weitz
"Wonderful experience with Dr. Julianne Morton @ NW Women's Associates. I've recommended her to countless girlfriends. Being a first time mom, I went through many physical symptoms and emotions that accompany pregnancy. She is extremely thorough, patient, and has wonderful bedside manner. I felt confident going into delivery with Dr. Morton taking the lead with my delivery. Wonderful practice!"

VIA
Melissa P.
"Dr. Morton is absolutely amazing. She cared for me throughout my first pregnancy and we found her to be kind and caring and straightforward - could not have asked for a better experience! Dr. Dunn ended up being on call during my delivery and she was great as well. I have always found the nurses and office staff to be friendly and on top of things - very happy with the practice!"

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Jeanne S.
"I had to have a laproscopic hysterectomy done by Dr. Friedell and all went fabulously! They were very detailed in pre-op which made a lot of difference. I came out of surgery feeling great and post op I was back to work within two weeks. Everyone at the practice, at the hospital, at pre-op were incredible."

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Kelly C.
"Dr.Julianne Morton is amazing! I was recommended by a friend when I moved to the Chicago area and was looking for an OB-GYN. I have seen her for two years in Chicago for my yearly exam. She is beyond kind and great at what she does. Dr.Morton makes you feel very comfortable and is such an incredible doctor! I have recommended her to all of my friends as well who need a new gyno/OB-GYN."

VIA
Ashes M.
"Dr. Morton is a really great doctor. She has an incredible bedside manner and makes you feel comfortable. She makes sure to ask if you have any questions and will happily answer all of them with you. Would highly recommend!"

VIA
Mengmeng L.
"Dr. Friedell is amazing! He helped delivered my first baby and the whole process was super smooth and stress free. All the staff in the office are super friendly too. Highly recommend!"

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Anahita K.
"Dr Freidell is extremely knowledgeable, thorough and really cares about his patients. He is very good at getting to the root of the problem, especially with overlapping symptoms. He guided me through all my options and their implications. I will highly recommend him and his team."

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Dana M.
"I love Dr. Belmonte. I have been going to her since 2006! She rocks!!! She is straight to the point, I love that about her. When I leave her office after seeing her I always feel great, like a just left a good friends house or something!"
VIA
Barbara A

"I can not tell you how wonderful my experiences have been. Dr. Sharon Wise is my doctor and she is fantastic. She is straightforward and honest about treatments and procedures. I enjoy her sense of humor, and I found her bedside manner when delivering my son to be excellent. "

VIA