Information for health care providers
As a provider of health care, your help advising patients of their right to privacy is essential. In the process of providing care to your patients, you are on the forefront of dealing with issues of privacy and confidentiality. It is critical that you and your clinic staff are aware of the steps to request confidential communication.
To help support your patients, please consider:
- Ensuring all clinic staff are aware that any patient has the right to request confidential communications from their insurance company, and where the form to do so can be found.
- Educating your patients about their rights.
- Adopting clinic processes that aide clients in requesting confidential communication.
- Have hard-copy versions of the standardized form available at your clinic.
- Help patients complete each section of the form.
- Identify where patients need to send the form based on their insurance company and assist them to do so.
Important points to consider and share with patients:
- Confidential communication requests made
by mail may take up to
30 days to process.
- Confidential communication requests made by
electronic meansmay take up to
7 days to process.
- It is important that patients confirm with their insurance company that their request has been received and processed.
If a patient requests confidential communications and the request has not been fully processed, information about their visit may be sent to the policy holder. In other words, information about their current visit may not be kept confidential, even if they submit a confidential communications request on the day of the visit.
If you have questions or concerns about this process, please contact:
Jesse O'Brien
Senior Policy Advisor
Oregon Insurance Division
971-707-3670
jesse.e.obrien@dcbs.oregon.gov