Patient Privacy

Your privacy matters to us

At Yam Dental, we consider the privacy of our patients’ personal information to be paramount in our commitment to provide excellence in dentistry. We collect, use, and disclose your personal information in a responsible and discreet manner, as we do understand the importance of protecting your personal information. We are committed to being as transparent as possible in the ways in which we handle your personal information.

Close up of dentist looking at patient records

We understand that most privacy policies can be difficult to comprehend, and we have made every effort to make sure that ours is clear and simple. Our privacy policy does comply with the Federal Privacy Legislation, and the Personal Information and Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

At Yam Dental, Dr. Kenneth Yam acts as the Privacy Information Officer, and is responsible for all information collected by him, or under his direction. All staff members who come into contact with your personal information have been trained in the appropriate uses, as well as policies implemented to protect said information.

Please be assured that every staff member of Yam Dental is committed to ensuring you receive the best quality dental care while dealing with your personal information in an appropriate and discreet manner.

To help you to understand why we collect, use, and disclose information about our patients, we have compiled the following list:

To deliver safe and efficient patient care
To identify and ensure continuous high quality service
To assess your health needs
To provide health care
To advise you of treatment options
To enable us to contact you
To establish and maintain communication with you
To offer and provide treatment, care, and services, in relationship to the oral and maxillofacial complex and dental care generally
To communicate with other treating health-care providers, including specialists and general dentists who are the referring dentists and/or peripheral dentists
To allow us to maintain communication and contact with you to distribute health-care information and to book and confirm appointments
To allow us to efficiently follow up with treatment, care, and billing
For teaching and demonstrating purposes on an anonymous basis
To complete and submit dental claims for third party adjudication and payment
To comply with legal and regulatory requirements, including the delivery of patients’ charts and records to the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario in a timely fashion, when required, according to the provisions of the Regulated Health Professions Act
To permit potential purchasers, practice brokers or advisers to conduct and audit in preparation for a practice sale
To deliver your charts and records to the dentist’s insurance carrier to enable the insurance company to assess liability and quantify damages, if any
to prepare materials for the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board
To invoice for goods and services
To process credit and debit card payments
To collect unpaid accounts
To assist Yam Dental to comply with all regulatory requirements
To comply generally with the law

Yam Dental will only collect that information which is necessary for the identified purposes. If a new purpose is identified, your consent is required before your information can be used or disclosed for that purpose.

Consent for the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information may be given in a number of ways, including:

Signed medical history form
Signed introductory questionnaire
Taken verbally over the telephone
Written communication including e-mail

You may withdraw consent with reasonable notice.

Information collected shall be sufficiently accurate, complete, and up-to-date to minimize the possibility that inappropriate information is used in the making of a decision about you, as a patient of Yam Dental.

Yam Dental has taken appropriate measures to safeguard your personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, or tampering. Safeguards are in place to protect your information against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized copying, access, or disclosure. Care is used in the destruction of personal information to prevent unauthorized access even during disposal.

As a patient of Yam Dental, you always have access to your personal information, upon written request. With reasonable notice, our office shall provide you with an accounting of how your personal information has been used, including third party disclosures. In providing this information, we will attempt to be as specific as possible. We comply with the regulations of the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario, Ontario Dental association, and the Canadian Dental Association, which define patient access to records.