Privacy

Notice of Privacy Practices

Exhale Psychiatry, S.C. · Effective Date: September 14, 2026

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.

Our Duties

Applicable law requires us to protect the privacy of your protected health information (PHI), to give you this notice of our legal duties and privacy practices, to follow the notice currently in effect and to notify you if a breach of your unsecured PHI occurs. Nicholas Bracciano, MD is the practice's Privacy and Security Officer.

How We May Use and Disclose Your Information Without Your Authorization

For treatment. We use your PHI to evaluate, diagnose and treat you and to coordinate your care. Prescriptions to your pharmacy, laboratory orders, Prescription Drug Monitoring Program checks, emergencies and disclosures required by law happen without a separate authorization. Beyond those, as a matter of practice policy, we coordinate with your other providers and the people you name only under a written authorization you sign.

For payment. We use your PHI to bill you, to prepare a superbill at your request and to document the services provided.

For health care operations. We use your PHI to run the practice, including quality review, training, auditing, compliance and business planning. Cognitive test data is used for quality improvement and analytics only in de-identified, aggregated form, as your Consent for Third-Party Cognitive Testing (Document 4 of the intake packet) describes.

Service providers. We use companies that help us deliver care and run the practice, including a computerized cognitive testing platform, a video visit platform, a medical scribe and dictation service, an electronic health record with its patient portal, an e-signature service, a scheduling service and a phone service. Each one that handles your PHI works under a written business associate agreement that requires it to protect your information. Companies that process your payments do not sign that agreement and receive only what payment requires.

Appointment reminders and care options. We may contact you to remind you of appointments and to tell you about treatment alternatives or health-related services that may interest you.

As required or permitted by law. We disclose PHI when federal, Wisconsin or local law requires it, and we may disclose it when that law permits. This includes reports of suspected child abuse or neglect, which the law requires in some situations and permits in others. For an elder adult at risk or another adult at risk, Wisconsin law requires a report in defined circumstances and permits one in others, including suspected abuse, neglect, self-neglect and financial exploitation. We must report when the person asks us to. We must also report when we have reason to believe either of two things: that the person is at imminent risk of serious bodily harm, death, sexual assault or significant property loss and cannot make an informed judgment about whether to report, or that another adult at risk is at risk of serious bodily harm, death, sexual assault or significant property loss from a suspected perpetrator. The law lets us not report when Dr. Bracciano believes a report would not be in the person's best interest and documents his reasons in the record. We may report other suspected abuse, neglect, self-neglect or financial exploitation when the person agrees or when we believe the report is needed to prevent serious harm to the person or to someone else, and we tell the person promptly when we do unless that would put them at risk of serious harm.

To avert a serious threat. We may use or disclose PHI when necessary to prevent a serious and imminent threat to your health or safety or that of another person, limited to someone able to help prevent the threat.

Other purposes permitted by law. We may disclose PHI for public health activities; to health oversight agencies for audits, investigations and licensing; in response to a court order, or to a subpoena or other lawful process only where federal and Wisconsin law permit release without your consent; to law enforcement in the limited circumstances the law allows; to a family member, friend or other person involved in your care or in payment for your care, limited to what that person needs to know, when you agree or do not object; for disaster relief efforts; to coroners, medical examiners, funeral directors and organ procurement organizations as the law allows; for research only under an authorization you sign or a waiver approved by a privacy board or institutional review board; for specialized government functions such as military and national security purposes; and for workers' compensation claims as authorized by law. For research using your cognitive test data we rely only on your written authorization, as your Consent for Third-Party Cognitive Testing (Document 4 of the intake packet) states.

Uses and Disclosures That Require Your Written Authorization

Most uses and disclosures of psychotherapy notes, any use or disclosure of PHI for marketing and any sale of your PHI require your written authorization. Any use or disclosure not described in this notice also requires your written authorization. You may revoke an authorization at any time by writing to office@exhalepsych.com or to the address below; the revocation takes effect when we receive it and does not affect actions already taken in reliance on it.

Your Rights

Access. You have the right to inspect and obtain a copy of your PHI, including an electronic copy of records we keep electronically. Ask in writing at office@exhalepsych.com; we respond within 30 days, or sooner where Wisconsin law requires, and if we need more time we may extend once by up to 30 days with written notice of the reason and the new date. We may charge a reasonable cost-based fee for copies.

Amendment. You may ask us in writing to amend PHI you believe is incorrect or incomplete. We may deny the request in certain cases, and we will tell you why and how to respond.

Accounting of disclosures. You may request a list of certain disclosures we have made of your PHI in the six years before your request, other than for treatment, payment, health care operations and certain other purposes.

Restrictions. You may ask us in writing to restrict how we use or disclose your PHI for treatment, payment or health care operations, or to people involved in your care. We are not required to agree to a restriction request except one: if you pay for a service in full out of pocket and ask us not to disclose information about that service to your health plan for payment or operations, we will honor that request unless the disclosure is required by law.

Confidential communications. You may ask us to communicate with you by a specific method or at a specific location, and we will accommodate reasonable requests.

Breach notification. You have the right to be notified if a breach of your unsecured PHI occurs.

Paper copy. You may receive a paper copy of this notice at any time, even if you agreed to receive it electronically.

Wisconsin Law and Substance Use Treatment Records

Where Wisconsin law gives your mental health information more protection than federal law, we follow the more protective rule. If we ever receive records from a substance use treatment program covered by federal confidentiality rules (42 CFR Part 2), we protect and redisclose those records only as those rules permit. Records we receive from such a program, and testimony about what those records say, are not used or disclosed in any civil, criminal, administrative or legislative proceeding against you unless you consent in writing or a court order is issued after you or the holder of the record has had notice and a chance to be heard. Under those federal rules, a court order by itself allows a disclosure of such a record but does not compel one; under such an order we use or disclose the record only when the order is accompanied by a subpoena or another legal requirement that compels it. A separate written consent from you, specific to that use, remains its own route.

Changes to This Notice

We may change this notice and our privacy practices at any time. A revised notice applies to PHI we already hold as well as PHI we receive later. The current notice is posted at exhalepsych.com, is available from us on request and is provided to you at intake.

Complaints

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with us or with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. To reach us: Privacy and Security Officer, Exhale Psychiatry, S.C., 9000 West Chester Street, Suite 100, Milwaukee, WI 53214; (414) 262-5385; office@exhalepsych.com. To reach the Office for Civil Rights: 200 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20201; 1-800-368-1019; www.hhs.gov/ocr/complaints. We will not retaliate against you for filing a complaint.