Patient Rights & Policies

As a patient, you have the right to:

• Privacy and confidentiality regarding your medical care.
• Expect that your medical records will be kept confidential and that access to information about you will be limited to those legitimately involved in your care. Your medical records will be released only in cases of medical emergencies, in response to court-ordered subpoenas or to persons you specify with your written consent.
• Receive the necessary information to participate in decisions about your care, including cost, risk benefits, limitations of and alternatives to diagnostic and therapeutic modalities.
• Give your informed consent before any diagnostic or therapeutic procedure is performed.
• Information concerning diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of an illness or health-related condition.
• Request a health care professional of either gender or particular treatment approach.
• Be treated in a professional, courteous and caring manner that does not discriminate because of age, race, disability, handicap, national origin, religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation or veteran status.
• Information regarding fees for services. This includes being notified of services that may be involved, additional charges, the nature of the charges and methods of payment.
• A second opinion or appropriate referral.
• Express suggestions and concerns in an appropriate manner.
• Know the names and positions of people involved in your care by official name tags or personal introduction.
• A full explanation of any research or experimental procedure proposed for evaluation or treatment, and the opportunity to give your informed consent before participating in a research study.
• Request that health care services be communicated in your native language and that efforts will be made to accommodate that request.
• Appropriate assessment and effective management of pain.

You have the responsibility:

• To ask questions if you do not understand the explanation of your diagnosis, treatment, prognosis or any instructions.
• To follow instructions concerning medications, follow-up visits, education recommendations, other essential steps in your treatment plan and to notify the health care provider if this plan cannot be followed or if problems develop.
• For treating the Marquette University Medical Clinic personnel in a respectful manner.
• To arrive as scheduled for appointments and to notify the Marquette University Medical Clinic in advance in case of canceled appointments.
• For following all rules and regulations that are posted within the Marquette University Medical Clinic.
• To carry adequate health insurance, be familiar with policy coverage and provide information necessary to process your insurance claims.
• To pay any charges billed to you.
• To help your health care provider assess your needs with respect to pain and to work with your health care provider to develop a pain management plan.

This notice describes how medical information about you may be used and disclosed, and how you can access this information. Please review it carefully.

1. Treatment & Health Care Operations

The most common reasons we use your health information are for treatment and health care operations. We routinely use your health information inside our office for the purposes listed below. We will not disclose any of your health information without a signed consent.

How we use information for treatment purposes:

• Setting up an appointment for you
• Referring you to another health care provider
• Getting copies of your health information from another health care provider

How we use information for health care operations purposes:

Health care operations refers to administrative and managerial functions necessary to run our office. Examples include:

• Internal quality assurance
• Business planning
• Records storage

2. Uses & Disclosures

We will not make any other uses or disclosures of your health information unless you sign a written Authorization to Disclose Medical Information form. The content of this authorization is determined by federal law.

We may initiate the authorization process if we refer you to another health care provider or if we need records from a provider you have seen before (e.g., Pap or lab results).

You may initiate the process if you want us to send your information to someone; use a properly completed authorization form from your provider's office or use one of ours.

If you do sign an authorization form, you may revoke it at any time unless we have already acted in reliance upon it. Revocations must be in writing and sent to our office.

3. Uses & Disclosures for other reasons

In some limited situations, the law allows or requires us to use or disclose your health information without a signed consent form from our office. Not all of these situations will apply to us; most will never come up at all. Such uses or disclosures are:

• When a state or federal law mandates that certain health information be reported for a specific purpose
• For public health purposes, such as contagious disease reporting, investigation or surveillance; and notices to and from the federal Food and Drug Administration regarding drugs or medical devices
• Disclosures to governmental authorities about victims of suspected abuse, neglect or domestic violence
• Uses and disclosures for health oversight activities, such as for the licensing of doctors; for audits by Medicare or Medicaid; or for investigation of possible violations of health care laws
• Disclosures for judicial and administrative proceedings, such as in response to subpoenas or orders of courts or administrative agencies
• Disclosures for law enforcement purposes, such as to provide information about someone who is or is suspected to be a victim of a crime; to provide information about a crime at our office; or to report a crime that happened somewhere else
• Disclosure to a medical examiner to identify a dead person or to determine the cause of death; or to funeral directors to aid in burial; or to organizations that handle organ or tissue donations
• Uses and disclosures to prevent a serious threat to health or safety
• Uses or disclosure for specialized government functions, such as for the protection of the president or high ranking government officials; for lawful national intelligence activities; for military purposes; or for the evaluation and health of members of the foreign service
• Disclosures of de-identified information
• Disclosures relating to worker's compensation programs
• Disclosures of a “limited data set” for research, public health, or health care operations

4. Rights regarding your health information

The law gives you many rights regarding your health information. You can:

• Ask us to restrict our uses and disclosures for purposes of treatment (except emergency treatment), payment or health care operations. We do not have to agree to do this, but if we agree, we must honor the restrictions that you want. To ask for a restriction, send a written request to our office.
• Ask us to communicate with you in a confidential way, such as by phoning you at work rather than at home, by mailing health information to a different address, or by sending e-mail to your personal e-mail address. We will accommodate these requests if they are reasonable, and if you pay us for any extra cost. If you want to ask for confidential communications, send a written request to our office.
• Ask to see or to get photocopies of your health information. By law, there are a few limited situations in which we can refuse to permit access or copying. For the most part, however you will be able to review or have a copy of your health information within 30 days of asking us (60 days if the information is stored off-site). You may have to pay for photocopies in advance. If we deny your request, we will send you a written explanation, and instructions about how to get an impartial review of our denial if one is legally available. By law, we can have one 30-day extension of the time for us to give you access or photocopies if we send you a written notice of the extension. If you want to review or get photocopies of your health information, send a written request to our office.
• Ask us to amend your health information if you think it is incorrect or incomplete. If we agree, we will amend the information within 60 days from when you ask us. We will send the corrected information to persons whom we know got the wrong information and others that you specify. If we do not agree, you can write a statement of your position, and we will include it with your health information along with any rebuttal statement that we may write. Once your statement of position and/or our rebuttal is included in your health information, we will send it when we make a permitted disclosure of your health information. By law, we can have one 30-day extension to consider a request for amendment if we notify you in writing of the extension. If you want to ask us to amend your health information, send a written request, including your reasons for the amendment, to our office.
• Get a list of the disclosures that we have made of your health information within the past six years (or shorter period). By law, the list will not include: disclosures for purposes of treatment, payment or health care operations; disclosures with your authorization; incidental disclosures; disclosures required by law; and some other limited disclosures. You are entitled to one such list per year without charge. If you want more frequent lists, you will have to pay for them in advance. We will usually respond to your request within 60 days of receiving it, but by law we can have one 30-day extension if we notify you of the extension in writing. If you want a list, send a written request to our office.
• Get additional paper copies of this Notice of Privacy Practices. If you want additional copies, send a written request to our office.

 5. Our notice of privacy practices

We reserve the right to change this notice at any time as allowed by law.

If we change this notice, the new privacy practices will apply to your health information that we already have, as well as to information we may generate in the future.

If we change this notice, we will both post the new notice and have copies available in our office.

6. Complaints

If you think that we have not properly respected the privacy of your health information, you are free to complain to us or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. We will not retaliate against you if you make a complaint.

If you want to complain to us, send a written complaint to our office. If you prefer, you can discuss your complaint in person or by phone.

 

It is the policy of the Marquette University Medical Clinic not to provide medical excuses for short-term absences that result in missed classes, exams, or assignments due to illness or injury. In certain circumstances where the illness or injury is prolonged (an absence of more than five days) and requires medical attention or hospitalization we will work with students in providing appropriate documentation.

The decision for our policy is based on our limited resources, which are better dedicated to providing health care access for as many students as possible rather than toward verification of short-term medical absences; the inability for us to make valid determinations about illnesses or injuries that have been effectively managed by self care; and our commitment to student privacy.

This policy, endorsed by the Office of the Provost, is similar to other major universities; is consistent with the recommendations of the American College Health Association; and is in accord with the university policy that does not require its employees to provide a written medical excuse for short-term medical absences.

Students are instructed to contact their professor or teaching assistant in the event they need to miss class due to an illness, injury or an emergency. While absence from class should be a rare occurrence, the Marquette University Medical Clinic encourages students to make mature decisions when they are too sick to attend class. All decisions about the impact of an absence, as well as any arrangements for making up work, rest with the instructors.

Information on the Marquette University attendance policy can be found in the undergraduate bulletin (with hyperlink to: https://bulletin.marquette.edu/undergrad/academicregulations/#attendance)

Any questions relating to the policy may be directed to your course instructor and/or your Faculty Advisor.

These records are maintained by medical records staff who are trained to ensure that these files are complete, confidential and accessible to you. The privacy and confidentiality of your records is protected by law.

Medical records questions: Please call (414) 288-7184 if you have any questions regarding billing. Every time a clinician or other health care staffer has an encounter with you in an appointment, on the phone or through an email, that information is documented in our medical records. Our medical records are a collection of those documentation's. 

Common documentation found in your medical records include:

• Your completed health history form
• Any appointment or treatment you received
• Lab reports
• E-mail communication between you and any clinician
• Copies of referrals you may have received
• Consult reports
  (a summary of your visit with the clinician you were referred to)
• Any time your health information was released
• Any documents received from other clinics
  (i.e., previous medical records)

Getting a copy of your records

Although your medical records are the physical property of the Marquette University Medical Clinic (or the facility that compiled them), you can submit a Release of Patient Medical Records form to access or obtain a copy of your records. The Marquette University Medical Clinic has a seven-year record retention policy; your records are destroyed seven years after you graduate. 

There is no cost to receive a copy of your medical records if you are sending or taking the records to another health care facility, if you are taking a copy for your personal records, or if you need them for school-related purposes.

To pick up medical records yourself, you need to show proper identification. Otherwise, we'll mail them to you.

To release information from your records regarding alcohol or other drug assessments/treatments, or HIV/AIDS testing or treatment, special permission is required.

For more information, contact the Medical Records Department at (414) 288-7184.

Protecting your privacy

Confidentiality, privacy and security of your medical records are the responsibility of the health care facility that owns them, but there are ways you can help keep your records confidential too:

• Know what health information is being collected about you
• Know who is collecting that information
• Find out what health care facility is in charge of your medical records
• Ask how that health care facility keeps your records
  confidential
• Read the fine print before you authorize to release your health information. Make sure the authorization specifies who will receive your information and how it will be used.

Keeping your own medical records

It's a good idea to keep a file of your own medical records at home so you can access your health information whenever you need it.

Doing this can be as simple as filing all the medical documents and data you receive in a folder. You probably don't need to keep copies of every documented communication with a clinician. If you visit a hospital, though, you should get copies of any significant tests, operative reports, or discharge summaries.

Other documents that belong in your own medical records include:

• Personal identification
• Emergency contact(s)
• Health insurance information
• Allergies to medications as well as any other allergies
• Current medications
• Immunization dates
• Important test results (e.g., x-rays) 
• Important events in your medical history

Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to reduce the possibility of misuse and abuse of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications on campus and to provide consistent recommendations regarding diagnosis and treatment.

Policy

Stimulant Medications (Ritalin, Adderall, Dexedrine) are Class II narcotics that are commonly used in the treatment of ADD/ADHD. While these medications can have a meaningful impact on individuals with a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD, without appropriate medical oversight stimulant medications can lead to addiction, psychosis and other serious cardiovascular side effects. In recent years, the use of ADHD medications without prescriptions by college students has increased considerably.

Due to the current prevalence of misuse and abuse on college campuses, stimulant medications will not be prescribed by the Marquette University Medical Clinic. In order for students with a current diagnosis of ADD/ADHD to receive appropriate treatment, medical monitoring and continuity of care, the Marquette University Medical Clinic recommends that you continue your prescription with your home provider. You should meet with your home provider at a clinically appropriate frequency during holiday periods and visits home. If that is not feasible, we can help you find a psychiatrist in the local community.

If you have not been diagnosed but suspect that you have ADHD, you can schedule a screening at the MU Counseling Center by calling (414) 288-7172.

The Marquette University Medical Clinic welcomes the chance to share health information with the campus community. Please keep the following information in mind with respect to all media-related requests:

Requests for information or staff interviews must be made via phone (414) 288-7184 or via email to the Marquette University Medical Clinic.

Please note that all requests will be subject to the following policy guidelines, with no exceptions:

• Requests must be made at least 48 hours in advance of any deadline.
• Requests will be taken on a first come, first served basis.
• Interview questions must be submitted via email, to ensure that we have time to pull materials for the health topic you are researching.
• While our intention is to provide accurate and quality information to serve your needs, there will be times when we are just unable to respond to your request by your specified deadline, due to the various operations and priorities of our department. We will do our best to accommodate your needs, but reserve the right to inform you of the aforementioned possibility.
• The Marquette University Medical Clinic reserves the right to deny interviews pertaining to any topic area.