Privacy Policy

Ananda Labs is required by law to maintain the privacy of your PHI. We are also required to provide you with this Notice of our legal duties and privacy practices upon request. It describes our legal duties, privacy practices, and patient rights as determined by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). We are required to follow the terms of this Notice currently in effect. We are required to notify affected individuals in the event of a breach involving PHI that is unsecured. PHI is stored electronically and is subject to electronic disclosure. This Notice does not apply to certain services that we perform, such as some drugs of abuse testing services and insurance applicant services.

We use your PHI for treatment, payment, healthcare operations purposes and other purposes permitted or required by law. Not every use or disclosure is listed in this Notice, but all of our uses or disclosures of your PHI will fall into one of the categories listed below.

We need your authorization to use or disclose your PHI for any purpose not covered by one of the categories below. With limited exceptions, we will not use or disclose psychotherapy notes, use or disclose your PHI for marketing purposes or sell your PHI unless you have signed an authorization. You may revoke any authorization you sign at any time. If you revoke your authorization, we will no longer use or disclose your PHI except to the extent we have already taken action based on your authorization.

We may use and disclose your PHI for the following purposes:

Ananda Labs provides laboratory testing for physicians and other healthcare professionals, and we use your PHI in our testing process. We disclose your PHI to authorized healthcare professionals who order tests or need access to your test results for treatment purposes. We may use and disclose PHI to contact you to remind you of an appointment or to tell you about our health-related products and services that may be of interest to you. Examples of other treatment-related purposes include disclosure to a pathologist to help interpret your test results or the use of your PHI to contact you to obtain another specimen, if necessary.

However, for self-pay purchases made through labananda.com, except for the ordering provider, we do not share test results with other providers or healthcare professionals for treatment purposes.

Ananda Labs may use and disclose your PHI for purposes of billing and payment. For example, we may disclose your PHI to health plans or other payers to determine whether you are enrolled with the payer or eligible for health benefits or to obtain payment for our services. Suppose you are insured under another person’s health insurance policy (for example, a parent, spouse, domestic partner, or a former spouse). In that case, we may also send invoices to the subscriber whose policy covers your health services.

Ananda Labs may use and disclose your PHI for activities necessary to support our healthcare operations, such as performing quality checks on our testing, internal audits, arranging for legal services, or developing reference ranges for our tests.

We may provide your PHI to other companies or individuals that need it to provide services to us. These other entities, known as “business associates,” are required to maintain the privacy and security of PHI. For example, our business associates may use your PHI to conduct billing, collections, imaging, courier, or record storage services on our behalf.

We may disclose relevant PHI to a family member, friend, caregiver, or other individual involved in your healthcare or payment for your healthcare if you tell us that this is acceptable to you or you do not object; or if in our professional judgment, we believe that you do not object.

We may use and disclose your PHI as required by law.

We may use and disclose your PHI if necessary to prevent or lessen a serious threat to your health and safety or that of another person. We may also provide PHI to law enforcement officials, for example, in response to a warrant, investigative demand, or similar legal process, or for officials to identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person. We may disclose your PHI as required to comply with a court or administrative order. We may disclose your PHI in response to a subpoena, discovery request, or another legal process in the course of a judicial or administrative proceeding, but only if efforts have been made to tell you about the request or to obtain an order of protection for the requested information.

We may use or disclose PHI for research purposes when permitted by law, such as when an Institutional Review Board or privacy board has reviewed the research proposal and plans to ensure the privacy of your PHI and determined that your authorization is not required. We may also use or disclose PHI about deceased patients to researchers if certain requirements are met.

We may use and disclose a limited data set containing some of your PHI for research purposes. However, we will only disclose a limited data set if we enter into a data use agreement with the recipient.

We may also disclose PHI to those assisting in disaster relief efforts so that family or friends can be notified about your condition, status, and location.

Sometimes, your PHI may be used or disclosed in the course of our primary uses and disclosures, such as for treatment, payment or healthcare operations. For example, we may call your name in the waiting room at one of our Patient Service Centers, or use it in a telephone conversation with a provider. We are permitted to make such incidental uses and disclosures as long as we take reasonable steps to minimize them, and have in place appropriate safeguards to protect them.

For all of the above purposes, when state law is more restrictive than federal law, we are required to follow the more restrictive state law.

You have the right to request that we send your health information by alternative means or to an alternative email address, and we will accommodate reasonable requests.

You have the right to obtain a paper copy of this Notice upon request.

You may write or send an email to us with your specific request. Please refer to the Contact Information below. Ananda Labs will consider your request and provide you with a response.

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you have the right to file a complaint with us. You also have the right to file a complaint with the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. Quest Diagnostics will not retaliate against any individual for filing a complaint.  To file a complaint with us, or should you have any questions about this Notice, send an email to us at [email protected] or write to us at the following address:

Non-Discrimination Notice

We comply with applicable Federal civil rights laws and do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex. Ananda Labs does not exclude people or treat them differently because of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex.