Privacy Policy

PRAXES Emergency Specialists Incorporated

Last Updated: Nov 2, 2020

PRAXES Emergency Specialists Inc. (“PRAXES”) recognizes the importance of privacy and the sensitivity of your personal information. We are committed to protecting any personal information we hold and have an obligation to keep confidential all information by which you can be identified. This Privacy Policy outlines how we manage your personal information and safeguard your privacy.

Your privacy rights

Effective January 1, 2004, all Canadian businesses engaged in commercial activities were required to comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). This Act gives you rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.

In addition, for any affected residents in the European Union, as of May 25, 2018, PRAXES is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

We are responsible for the personal information we collect and hold. To ensure this, we have developed this policy, and trained our representatives about our policies and practices.

Why do we collect personal information?

We provide services to a wide range of clients. In order to do this, we must collect information about our clients and individual users of our Services.

What personal information do we collect?

Personal information is any information that identifies you, or by which your identity could be deduced. Depending on the services you request of us, it will include some or all of the following: your name, date of birth, address, email address, phone number, insurance company, place of employment, provincial health insurance number, information regarding your health and medical history and more. We need this information in order to provide healthcare and other services to our clients.

How do we collect your personal information?

We collect information only by lawful and fair means and not in an unreasonably intrusive way.  Wherever possible, we collect your personal information directly from you.

Sometimes we may obtain information about you from other sources which, depending on the type of services we provide to you, may include:

1. Your insurance company;
2. Your doctor or other health care provider; and
3. Government agencies or registries.

Consent

By requesting one of our services, you are consenting to our collecting, using and disclosing the information referred to in this document. In some cases we require additional consent from you.  In some cases, written consent may be necessary.

Use of your information

We use your personal information to provide advice and service to you, and, from time to time, to provide you with information about our services, or to request feedback about services we have provided to you. If you tell us that you no longer wish to receive information about our services, we will remove you from our mailing list.

Disclosure of your personal information

We do not disclose your personal information to any third parties to enable them to market their products and services. We are required, however, to disclose information to certain government organizations and to your insurer to obtain payment of our account. In addition, we will disclose your personal information when:

1. Required or authorized by law to do so;
2. You have consented to the disclosure;
3. Necessary in order to establish or collect sums owing to us;
4. We engage a third party to provide administrative services to us, such as computer back-up services or archival file storage; and
5. The information is already publicly known.

We also disclose your personal information to third parties to facilitate the provision of health care services. By way of example, we may disclose information about a health incident to another health care provider, or medical facility.

Retention of your personal information

The Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons in each Province of Canada require that medical records are retained for a minimum of 10 years after the last date on which services were provided, or for 10 years after the patient has reached the age of majority. This allows us to respond to enquiries about any Services we have provided to you.

Updating your information

Since we use your personal information to provide services to you, it is important that the information be accurate and up-to-date. If any of your information changes after your initial registration for the Services, please inform us so that we can make any necessary changes.

Is your personal information secure?

We take all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access, modification or disclosure. Among the steps taken to protect your information are:

1. Security of our premises;
2. Restricted access to personal information;
3. Deploying technological safeguards like security software and firewalls to prevent hacking or unauthorized computer access;
4. Internal password and security policies.
5. Data encryption during transmission and storage.

Notifications and Communications

For any EU residents, the GDPR requires us to notify you about any unauthorized access to your data within 72 hours.

For non-EU residents, we have a duty to notify you about any unauthorized access to your data as soon as we are able to.

You may provide us with instructions with respect to communications. Normally, our policies are as follows:

Telephone: Unless we are otherwise instructed, we will only leave our name and telephone number when we leave a message for you.

Fax: Each of our fax transmissions is accompanied by a cover sheet which indicates that the information is confidential.  It is not possible, however, for us to confirm the privacy policies in place at the receiving end.

Mail or Courier: When we deliver health information, we place it in an envelope which is then sealed and marked confidential, and addressed to the attention of the authorized recipient.

Email: We will provide email notification if there has been a change (addition, modification) to your personal health record (PHR) but you will have to access that information by using your username and password to log into our secure software system with a username and password.

Right of Access to your personal information and data portability

You may ask for access to any personal information we hold about you. Summary information is available on request. We may ask to be reimbursed for copying charges if you require copies of the information held in our files.

Denial of access to personal information

Your right to access your personal information is not absolute. We may deny access when:

1. Denial is required or authorized by law;
2. Granting access would have an unreasonable impact on other people’s privacy;
3. It is necessary to protect our rights and property;
4. Where the request is frivolous or vexatious.

If we deny your request for access to, or refuse a request to correct information, we will explain why.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may change our Privacy Policy from time to time. Information about our current policies is available on our website.

Privacy Officer

For privacy related matters, please email our Privacy Officer at privacy@praxes.ca , or phone us at +1 (877) 808-8559

Requests for Access

If you have any questions, or wish to access your personal information, please contact us at:

• PRAXES Emergency Specialists Inc.
• 5539 Young Street, Suite B, Halifax, NS B3K 1Z7
• Phone: +1 (877) 808-8559
• Fax: +1 (902) 420-9987
• Email: privacy@praxes.ca

Privacy Commissioner of Canada

If you are not satisfied with our response, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada can be reached at:

• Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
• 30 Victoria Street
• Gatineau, Quebec
• K1A 1H3 Canada
• Toll-free: 1-800-282-1376
• Phone: (819) 994-5444
• TTY: (819) 994-6591
• https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/contact-the-opc/