Privacy Policy

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.

Effective April 14, 2003
Revised September 7, 2018

Wood’s Ambulance, Inc. (Wood’s) is required by law to maintain the privacy of certain confidential health care information, known as Protected Health Information or PHI, and to provide you with a notice of our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to your PHI. Wood’s is also required to abide by the terms of the version of this Notice currently in effect.

Uses and Disclosures of PHI.

Wood’s may use PHI for the purposes of treatment, payment, and health care operations, in most cases without your written permission. Examples of our use of your PHI:

Video Recording Devices.

Wood’s utilizes Drive Recorder Cameras to ensure patient safety while being transported in our vehicles. These cameras record video of the front of the truck as well as the driver area, they are not placed in the patient compartment. However, there is a possibility of patient images being captured on video. This information is removed from the cameras, and stored on a HIPAA compliant server. If a patient is captured on video, receiving treatment from a Wood’s employee, it is considered part of the treatment record and is PHI.

For Treatment.

This includes such things as obtaining verbal and written information about your medical condition, history, and treatment from you as well as from others, such as doctors and nurses who give orders to allow us to provide care to you. We may give your PHI to other health care providers involved in your treatment, and may transmit your PHI via radio or telephone to the hospital or dispatch center.

For Payment.

This includes any activities we must undertake in order to get reimbursed for the services we provide to you, including such things as submitting bills to insurance companies, making medical necessity determinations and collecting outstanding accounts.

For Health Care Operations.

This includes quality assurance activities, licensing, and training programs to ensure that our personnel meet our standards of care and follow established policies and protocols, as well as certain other management functions.

Reminders for Scheduled Transports and Information on Other Services.

We may also contact you to provide you with a reminder of any scheduled appointments for non-emergency ambulance and medi-van transportation, or to give you information about other services we provide.

Use and Disclosure of PHI Without Your Authorization.

Wood’s is permitted to use PHI without your written authorization, or opportunity to object, in certain situations, and unless prohibited by a more stringent state law, including:

• For treatment, payment or health care operations activities of another health care provider who treats you;
• For health care and legal compliance activities;
• To a family member, other relative, or close personal friend or other individual involved in your care if we obtain your verbal agreement to do so or if we give you an opportunity to object to such a disclosure and you do not raise an objection, and in certain other circumstances where we are unable to obtain your agreement and believe the disclosure is in your best interests;
• To a public health authority in certain situations as required by law (such as to report abuse, neglect or domestic violence);


• For health oversight activities including audits or government investigations, inspections, disciplinary proceedings, and other administrative or judicial actions undertaken by the government (or their contractors) by law to oversee the health care system;


• For judicial and administrative proceedings as required by a court or administrative order, or in some cases in response to a subpoena or other legal process;


• For law enforcement activities in limited situations, such as when responding to a warrant;


• For military, national defense and security and other special government functions;


• To avert a serious threat to the health and safety of a person or the public at large;


• For worker’s compensation purposes, and in compliance with worker’s compensation laws;


• To coroners, medical examiners, and funeral directors for identifying a deceased person, determining cause of death, or carrying on their duties as authorized by law;


• If you are an organ donor, we may release health information to organizations that handle organ procurement or organ, eye or tissue transplantation or to an organ donation bank, as necessary to facilitate organ donation and transplantation;


• For research projects, but this will be subject to strict oversight and approvals;


• We may also use or disclose health information about you in a way that does not personally identify you or reveal who you are.

Any other use or disclosure of PHI, other than those listed above will only be made with your written authorization. You may revoke your authorization at any time, in writing, except to the extent that we have already sued or disclosed medical information in reliance on that authorization.

Patient Rights:

As a patient, you have a number of rights with respect to your PHI, including:

The right to access, copy or inspect your PHI.

This means you may inspect and copy most of the medical information about you that we maintain. We will normally provide you with access to this information within 30 days of your request. We may also charge you a reasonable fee for you to copy any medical information that you have the right to access. In limited circumstances, we may deny you access to your medical information, and you may appeal certain types of denials. We have available forms to request access to your PHI and we will provide a written response if we deny you access and let you know your appeal rights.

You also have the right to receive confidential communications of your PHI. If you wish to inspect and copy your medical information, you should contact our Privacy Officer:

The right to amend your PHI.

You have the right to ask us to amend written medical information that we may have about you. We will generally amend your information within 30 days of your request and will notify you when we have amended the information. We are permitted by law to deny your request to amend your medical information only in certain circumstances, like when we believe the information you have asked us to amend is incorrect. If you wish to request that we amend the medical information that we have about you, you should contact our Privacy Officer.

The right to request an accounting.

You may request an accounting from us of certain disclosures of your medical information that we have made in the six years prior to the date of your request. We are not required to give you an accounting of information we have used or disclosed for purposes of treatment, payment of health care operation, or when we share your health information with our Business Associates, like a medical facility from or to which you have been transported. We are also not required to give you an accounting of our uses of PHI for which you have already given us written authorization. If you wish to request an accounting, contact our Privacy Officer:

The right to request that we restrict the uses and disclosures of your PHI.

You have the right to request that we restrict how we use and disclose your medical information that we have about you. Wood’s is not required to agree to any restrictions you request, but any restrictions agreed to by Wood’s in writing are binding.

Internet, Electronic Mail, and the right to obtain Copy of Paper Notice on Request.

If we maintain a web site, we will prominently post a copy of this Notice on our web site. If you allow us, we will forward you this Notice by electronic mail instead of on paper and you may always request a paper copy of the Notice.

Revisions to the Notice.

Wood’s reserves the right to change the terms of this Notice at any time, and the changes will be effective immediately and will apply to all PHI that we maintain. Any material changes to the Notice will be promptly posted in our facilities and posted on our web site. You can get a copy of the latest version of this Notice by contacting our Privacy Officer.

Privacy Officer Contact Information:

Privacy Officer
Wood's Ambulance, Inc.
457 Main Street
Gardner, Massachusetts 01440
1-978-632-6352 x1003
Secure Fax Line 1-978-630-2714