Personal Information Protection Policy
Ultima Medical Service Inc; (UMS) is committed to providing our clients with exceptional service and privacy. Ultima Medical Services follows the privacy laws as dictated by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C. As providing medical assessment involves the collection, use and disclosure of some personal information about our clients, protecting their personal information is one of our highest priorities.
We will inform our clients, of why and how we collect, use and disclose their personal information, obtain their consent where required, and only handle their personal information in a manner that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances, unless required by law to do otherwise.
This Personal Information Protection Policy, in compliance with PIPA, outlines the principles and practices we will follow in protecting personal information. Our privacy commitment includes ensuring the accuracy, confidentiality and security of our clients’ personal information and allowing our clients, to request access to, and correction of, their personal information.
This Personal Information Protection Policy applies to all subcontractors and subsidiaries.
This policy also applies to any service providers collecting, using or disclosing personal information on behalf of Ultima Medical Services Inc.
Definitions
Personal Information –means information about an identifiable individual. Personal information does not include contact information.
Contact information – means information that would enable an individual to be contacted at a place of business and includes name, position name or title, business telephone number, business address, business email or business fax number. Contact information is not covered by this policy or PIPA.
Privacy Officer – means the individual designated responsibility for ensuring that Ultima Medical Services complies with this policy and PIPA.
Policy 1 – Collecting Personal Information
With your consent, we may collect the following information about you, depending on the services required:
– Contact information, (e.g. name, address, telephone number)
– Date of Birth
– Primary language
– Claim or file number, Personal Health Number, Social Security number
– Health, education, financial, or employment history
– Citizenship or immigration status
1.2 We will only collect information that is reasonable and necessary, or as authorized by law.
2 – Consent
2.1 When you start receiving services from Ultima, we will obtain a written consent form that outlines the information collected and its use. We gather information through:
– Outside sources (e.g. referral agencies)
– Telephone conversations
– Interviews
– Questionnaires and forms
– Other Medical or Clinical professionals
2.2 Consent may also be implied where a client, customer, member is given notice and a reasonable opportunity to opt-out of his or her personal information being used for mail-outs, the marketing of new services or products, fundraising and the client, customer, member does not opt-out.
2.3 We may collect, use or disclose personal information without the client’s knowledge or consent in the following limited circumstances:
– When the collection, use or disclosure of personal information is permitted or required by law;
– In an emergency that threatens an individual’s life, health or personal security;
– When the personal information is available from a public source (e.g., a telephone directory);
– When we require legal advice from a lawyer;
– For the purposes of collecting a debt;
– To protect ourselves from fraud;
– To investigate an anticipated breach of an agreement or a contravention of law
3 – Using and Disclosing Personal Information
3.1 We will only use or disclose personal information where necessary to fulfill the purposes identified at the time of collection.
3.2 We will not use or disclose personal information for any additional purpose unless we obtain consent to do so.
3.3 We will not sell lists or personal information to other parties.
4 – Retaining Personal Information
4.1 If we use personal information to make a decision that directly affects the client, we will retain that personal information for at least one year so that the client has a reasonable opportunity to request access to it.
4.2 Subject to policy 4.1, we will retain personal information only as long as necessary to fulfill the identified purposes or a legal or business purpose. (e.g. Medical records – 14yrs).
5 – Ensuring Accuracy of Personal Information
5.1 We will make every reasonable effort to ensure that personal information is accurate and complete where it may be used to make a decision or disclosed to another organization.
5.2 Clients may request correction to their personal information in order to ensure its accuracy and completeness. A request to correct personal information must be made in writing and provide sufficient detail to identify the personal information and the correction being sought.
5.3 Any request to correct personal information should be forwarded to the Privacy Office or designated individual.
5.4 If the personal information is demonstrated to be inaccurate or incomplete, we will correct the information as required and send the corrected information to any organization to which we disclosed the personal information in the previous year
6 – Securing Personal Information
6.1 We are committed to ensuring the security of personal information in order to protect it from unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, copying, modification or disposal or similar risks.
6.2 We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration and disclosure. All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers behind firewalls. Any information provided through a referral form or through a web portal will be encrypted using SSL technology. The only remote access allowed to the network is via an L2TP VPN tunnel which only one user utilizes. All file services are password protected.
6.2 The following security measures will be followed to ensure that personal information is appropriately protected:
– the use of locked filing cabinets;
– physically securing offices where personal information is held;
– the use of user IDs, passwords,
– password notification
– encryption when transferring private and confidential information,
– firewalls;
– restricting employee access to personal information as appropriate (i.e., only those that need to know will have access; contractually requiring any service providers to provide comparable security measures
6.3 We will use appropriate security measures when destroying personal confidential information. Examples may include: shredding documents, deleting electronically stored information, destruction of hardware, etc.)
6.4 We continually review and update our security policies and controls as technology changes to ensure ongoing personal information security.
Note that confidentiality and security are not assured when information is transmitted through e-mail or other digital or wireless communication.
7 – Providing Access to Personal Information
7.1 Clients have a right to access their personal confidential information, subject to limited exceptions.
Some examples include: solicitor-client privilege, disclosure that would reveal personal information about another individual, health and safety concerns).
7.2 A request to access personal information must be made in writing and provide sufficient detail to identify the personal information being sought. All requests to access personal confidential information should be forwarded to the Privacy Officer.
7.3 Upon request and if applicable, we will also tell clients how we use their personal information and to whom it has been disclosed.
7.4 We will make the requested information available within 30 business days, or provide written notice of an extension where additional time is required to fulfill the request.
7.5 A minimal fee may be charged for providing access to personal information. Where a fee may apply, we will inform the individual(s) of the cost and request further direction on whether or not we should proceed with the request.
7.6 If a request is refused in full or in part, we will provide written notification outlining the reasons for refusal.
8 – Questions and Complaints: The Role of the Privacy Officer or designated individual
8.1 The Privacy Officer or designated individual is responsible for ensuring Ultima Medical Services’ compliance with this policy and the Personal Information Protection Act.
8.2 Clients should direct any complaints, concerns or questions regarding Ultima Medical Services’ compliance in writing to the Privacy Officer. If the Privacy Officer is unable to resolve the concern, the client, may also write to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia.
 Website
Who we are
Our website address is: https://www.ultimamedical.com/
What personal data we collect and why we collect it
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
Contact forms
Unless you ask us not to, we may contact you via email in the future to tell you about specials, new products or services, or changes to this privacy policy.
You may opt out of any future contacts from us at any time. You can do the following at any time by contacting us via the email contact form on our website
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
We use “cookies” on this site. A cookie is a piece of data stored on a site visitor’s hard drive to help us improve your access to our site and identify repeat visitors to our site. For instance, when we use a cookie to identify you, you would not have to log in a password more than once, thereby saving time while on our site. Cookies can also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our site. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information on our site.
Who we share your data with
We share aggregated demographic information with our partners and advertisers. This is not linked to any personal information that can identify any individual person.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
How we protect your data
While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, billing or customer service) are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers/servers in which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.
We take precautions to protect your information. When you submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and offline.