Genetics Associates, Inc. Privacy Notice

The privacy of your medical and demographic information is important to us. 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.

We collect information from two sources. When you click on the "contact us" button on our web page and send us an email, at the very minimum your email address is shown on your correspondence. This information is not used other than to send you a response. The second source of your personal information comes to us directly from your physician or the reference laboratory that he/she uses. If your physician requests that we perform one of our laboratory studies on your behalf, we ask for the following information:

• Patient name, address, date of birth, social security number and both home and work telephone numbers
• Health insurance and other payment information (not necessary if your physician or laboratory pays us directly)
• Your physician’s reason for referral, including diagnosis
• The name and address of your physician
• Other physical and medical information that we may need to complete your study. Examples for prenatal studies could include your sex, height and race, previous number and result of pregnancies, gestational age, and whether or not you have diabetes.

We use this information for three purposes. Your name, address and social security number are used for identification purposes. This information will be included with our study results when they are sent to your physician or laboratory, or requested and verified from a telephone caller requesting your information. Our geneticist and technologist staff will use your medical information in determining which study to perform, and to determine if we will need to send your information and study sample to another laboratory for a more extensive or specialized study. Depending upon the agreement for payment we have with your physician or laboratory, we may use your name, address, social security number and health insurance information in billing you and your insurance company for the services we provide.

We treat all of this information as anyone would expect of a professional medical service. This information is maintained in a physical medical record (medical chart) and within our electronic office information system. We have signed confidentiality agreements with each of our employees. We have professionally maintained hardware and software firewall protection between the Internet and your personal medical information.

Your physician will normally ask that notification of the results of our studies be reported as quickly as possible. For our studies for which we can give a one-day preliminary report, we will telephone your doctor’s office and give this report. Upon conclusion of our full study and the preparation of our final report, your physician may request that we send this report to him/her by facsimile (fax) machine. These fax numbers are electronically stored and retrieved whenever practical to minimize the possibility of error in entering an incorrect fax number. All faxed information is sent with a cover sheet advising the recipient what to do if the report is received in error. We will also mail an original copy of our report to the address of your physician or laboratory that was provided in the initial request.

To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the appropriate use of medical or personal information, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information that we possess. Effective February 1, 2001, Genetics Associates, Inc. now maintains a record of the name all persons/facilities and date for which we have released confidential information.

You have a right to view the personally identifiable information maintained by Genetics Associates, Inc. by taking or mailing a written and signed request to Genetics Associates, Inc., 1916 Patterson St., Suite 400, Nashville, TN 37203. Copies may be provided upon request and payment of a per copy charge. You may correct factual errors by sending a request and providing the correct information.