HIPAA & Your Privacy · Sofia RN, HIPAA Privacy Officer

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HIPAA — the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 — gives you and your loved one legally protected control over health information. This page is a plain-English summary of what that means when 24 Hour Home Care NJ is placing a caregiver in your home. Our complete Privacy Policy and Notice of Privacy Practices has the full legal detail — this page is the family version.

What HIPAA Means in Everyday Home Care

The moment Sofia opens a case for your loved one, we create records: the Registered Nurse initial assessment, the care plan, daily caregiver logs, medication tracking, hospital discharge paperwork, insurance policy details, family contact notes, and photos we take with your consent. All of that is Protected Health Information, or PHI. HIPAA gives you six specific rights over PHI, and it gives 24 Hour Home Care NJ specific duties to safeguard it.

Your Six HIPAA Rights — and How Sofia Honors Each One

1. Right to See Your Records

You can request a copy of your loved one’s care records at any time. Sofia’s commitment: written request by email or phone, and we send a secure PDF within 30 days — often within a week. No fee for the first request each year, and no fee ever for records sent to a hospital, insurance carrier, or another treating provider on your behalf.

2. Right to Correct Your Records

If you see anything in the record that is inaccurate — a wrong medication name, an outdated allergy, a missing diagnosis — you can ask us to amend it. Sofia’s commitment: we review every amendment request within 60 days, and if we agree with the correction we update the record permanently. If we disagree, we still add your written statement to the file so both perspectives are visible.

3. Right to Know Who Saw Your Records

HIPAA calls this an “accounting of disclosures.” You can ask for a list of every time we shared PHI with someone outside of the ordinary treatment-payment-operations workflow. Sofia’s commitment: the accounting covers the previous six years, is free once every 12 months, and shows you the date, the recipient, and the reason for each disclosure.

4. Right to Request Restrictions

You can ask us not to share specific information with specific people. Example: you may not want a particular relative to know a diagnosis. Sofia’s commitment: we always agree to any restriction you request when the PHI relates to a service you paid for out of pocket and the disclosure would go to a health plan. For other restrictions, we discuss them with you and confirm in writing what we can and cannot honor.

5. Right to Confidential Communication

You can tell us how and where to reach you — a specific phone number, a specific email, a designated family member instead of the client. Sofia’s commitment: we honor any reasonable request without asking why. Common examples families ask for: send billing to a spouse rather than the client, call the daughter’s cell not the household landline, mail records to a P.O. Box.

6. Right to File a Complaint

If you believe your HIPAA rights were violated, you have two independent complaint paths — and there is no retaliation for using either. Sofia’s commitment: our internal path routes directly to me. Call (908) 912-6342 or email privacy@24hourhomecarenj.com. Federal path: file with the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights at hhs.gov/ocr/complaints.

When 24 Hour Home Care NJ Shares PHI

HIPAA lets covered entities share PHI without your specific authorization for three purposes — Treatment, Payment, and Health Care Operations. Here is what each looks like in home care:

• Treatment — the Registered Nurse shares the care plan with the caregiver we place in the home; we relay a client’s condition update to their hospital case manager during a discharge; we coordinate with hospice, physical therapy, or the primary care physician as agreed.
• Payment — we submit documentation to a long-term care insurance carrier (with your written authorization) for reimbursement; we send invoices and hour logs to the paying family member.
• Health Care Operations — Sofia reviews caregiver notes for quality improvement; we conduct annual HIPAA training for every CHHA; we audit our own systems.

Some disclosures we make because the law requires us: suspected abuse or exploitation of a vulnerable adult under N.J.S.A. 52:27D-406, communicable disease reporting to the NJ Department of Health, court orders, and law enforcement requests that meet legal thresholds. We document every required disclosure and add it to your accounting of disclosures on request.

Everything else needs your written authorization. You can revoke that authorization in writing at any time.

How Sofia Personally Protects Your Information

Under our HIPAA Security Rule policy, every safeguard has a named person accountable to me. In plain terms:

• Access is minimum-necessary. The CHHA placed in your home sees only the care plan and daily log — not billing, not full medical history, not other clients’ data.
• Digital records are encrypted. Care plans and RN notes live in a secure system encrypted at rest and in transit. No client PHI ever sits in a personal email inbox.
• Paper records stay in a locked cabinet at our Scotch Plains office. Caregivers do not carry paper client records between homes.
• Phones and laptops require passcodes and remote-wipe. If a caregiver loses a device we can wipe it within minutes.
• Annual training is documented for every caregiver, and Sofia signs off on the training log personally each year.
• Breach notification protocol. If a breach of your PHI ever occurs, HIPAA requires us to notify you within 60 days. We commit to notifying you within 5 business days of confirmation and to walking you through exactly what happened.

How to Exercise Any of Your Rights

You never need a lawyer or a form to invoke these rights. The three fastest paths:

1. Call Sofia directly: (908) 912-6342. I answer or return the call the same business day.
2. Email: privacy@24hourhomecarenj.com — I read this inbox personally.
3. Write to: Sofia Elmer, RN · HIPAA Privacy Officer · 24 Hour Home Care NJ · 210 Haven Avenue, Suite 2C · Scotch Plains, NJ 07076.

Read the Full Legal Notice

This page is the family-friendly summary. The complete Privacy Policy and HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices has every legally required section: Uses and Disclosures of PHI, Individual Rights (§164.522, §164.524, §164.526, §164.528), Duties of the Entity, Effective Date, and the Cross-Border Notice for New Jersey residents. If a legal question is not answered on this page, it is answered there.

One Call to Sofia — Any HIPAA Question, Answered

Effective Date: 2026-07-23 · HIPAA Privacy Officer: Sofia Elmer, RN · Contact: (908) 912-6342 · privacy@24hourhomecarenj.com