Notice of Privacy Practices

Last Modified May 03, 2022

Please view our Privacy Policy to learn more about our privacy practices for our websites and other services.

THIS NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES (“NOTICE”) DESCRIBES HOW HEALTH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

This Notice of Privacy Practices applies to Tempus Labs, Inc. and its affiliate AKESOgen, Inc. (collectively referred to as “Tempus,” “our,” “us,” or “we” in this Notice).

Tempus collects protected health information about you that is necessary to perform the laboratory testing and other services we provide (“Services”). “Protected health information” or “PHI” is information about you, including demographic information, that may identify you and that relates to past, present, and/or future physical or mental health conditions and related health care services.

We reserve the right to change the terms of this Notice from time to time, and any change will apply to all PHI we maintain. The current version of this Notice is available on our website and upon request. It is your responsibility to periodically review this Notice for changes.

If you have any questions about anything in this Notice, please contact our privacy officer at privacy@tempus.com.

Our Responsibilities

Tempus is committed and required by law to maintain the privacy and security of your PHI. We are required to follow the terms of this Notice and, except as described in this Notice, will not disclose your PHI without your authorization. We will let you know promptly if a breach occurs that may have compromised the privacy or security of your PHI. If you provide us with authorization to use or disclose your PHI for a specific purpose and later change your mind, please let us know in writing using the contact information at the end of this notice.

Your Rights

You have certain rights when it comes to your PHI. You have the right to:

Ask that we limit how we use or share your PHI. We are not required to agree to your request and may say “no”. If you pay for a service out-of-pocket in full, you can ask us not to share information related to that service for the purposes of payment or our health care operations with your health insurer, in which case we will agree to your requested limitation unless a law requires us to share that information.

Ask us to contact you in a specific and/or confidential way (for example, home or office phone) or to send mail to a different address. Your request must be in writing and specify the alternative means or locations. We will agree to all reasonable requests. We reserve the right to verify your identity in order to confirm the alternative contact and address information.

Ask for an electronic or paper copy of your medical record and other information we have about you. We will provide a copy or a summary of your health information. We may charge a reasonable, cost-based fee associated with producing copies of your medical records and other information. We may deny access to certain information for specific reasons, for example, if the access requested is reasonably likely to endanger the life or safety of you or another person or if you have agreed to a temporary suspension of access in a research consent form. If your request for information is denied, you may request that the denial be reviewed by filing a request for review with our privacy officer at the contact information at the end of this notice.

Ask us to correct your protected health information that you think is incorrect or incomplete. Your request must be in writing and must explain why the information should be corrected or updated. We may deny this request if we believe the change would violate any law or other legal requirement or would otherwise cause the information to be incorrect, but if that is the case we will explain why in writing.

Ask for a list (accounting) of times we’ve shared your PHI in the six years prior to the date of your request, who we shared it with, and why. We will include all disclosures except those disclosures related to treatment, payment, and our health care operations, and certain other disclosures, such as disclosures you asked us to make. We will provide one accounting to you in any twelve (12) month period free of charge. We may charge a reasonable, cost-based fee associated with producing additional accountings in any twelve (12) month period in which you have already received a free accounting.

Ask for a paper copy of this Notice at any time, even if you have agreed to receive the notice electronically. We will provide you with a paper copy.

Our Uses and Disclosures

Your PHI may be used and disclosed for treatment, payment, health care operations, and other purposes permitted or required by law. If we wish to use or disclose your PHI for other purposes, we would have to obtain your authorization. We may, however, use or disclose your PHI without specific authorization or permission for certain purposes, including:

Treatment. We may use and share your PHI to provide and coordinate your treatment with medical professionals responsible for your care. We may use and share your PHI for provision, coordination, or management of health care and related services by one or more health care providers, including the coordination or management of health care by a health care provider with a third party; consultation between health care providers relating to a patient; or the referral of a patient for health care from one health care provider to another. For example, we may use your PHI to perform tests, or send your test results to your health care provider.

Payment. We may use and share your PHI to bill and receive reimbursement from health plans or other entities. For example, we may provide information about you to your health insurance plan so it will pay for the Services you receive.

Health care operations. We may use and share your PHI to support the operations of our business and monitor, evaluate and improve the quality of the Services we provide, and for other internal management purposes. For example, to the extent permitted by law, we may conduct quality assessment and improvement activities, including outcomes evaluation and development of clinical guidelines; patient safety activities; population-based activities relating to improving health or reducing health care costs, protocol development, case management and care coordination, contacting of health care providers and patients with information about treatment alternatives; and related functions that do not include treatment.

Business associates. There are some services provided to us through contracts with business associates (e.g., billing services), and we may disclose your PHI to our business associate so that they can perform the job we have asked them to do. To further protect your PHI, we require our business associates to appropriately safeguard your information.

Communication with individuals involved in your care or payment for your care. We may disclose your PHI to a family member, other relative, close friend, or any other person you identify that is directly relevant to that person’s involvement in your care or payment related to your care.

Protected health information of minors. As permitted by federal and state law, we may disclose PHI about minors to their parents or guardians.

Research activities. We or external researchers may access your PHI to develop research projects or identify patients who may potentially qualify to participate in research studies. We may otherwise use your PHI for research when it is in the form of a limited data set, meaning that most identifiable information has been removed from the information, or once an institutional review board or privacy board has reviewed the research proposal and determined that your specific authorization or consent for the research use of your PHI is not needed in whole or in part. We may also use or disclose the PHI of deceased persons for research purposes if certain conditions are met.

Creating “de-identified” information. We may use your PHI to create “de-identified” information, which means that direct identifiers that can be reasonably used to identify you will be removed. Tempus maintains a database of de-identified health data from many patients, including de-identified DNA and RNA data, that is used to facilitate future health care discoveries. In connection with our laboratory testing services, we also typically retain leftover tissue, cells, and/or DNA or RNA extracted from your cells, which we use for internal purposes such as quality assurance and test validation. Direct identifiers may also be removed from these materials to create de-identified health data. De-identified health data may be used and shared with Tempus researchers and developers, as well as with third parties in or out of the United States, like academic researchers, universities, hospitals, laboratories, and life science, insurance, pharmaceutical, and other companies, all in accordance with applicable laws. These third parties may use the de-identified data for activities such as researching the causes of disease, developing new drugs and therapies, or helping pay for the cost of health care. Tempus and others may use the de-identified data for any business purpose permitted by law. For instance, Tempus may conduct research and product development with de-identified data. There are specific rules under the law about what type of information needs to be removed before information is considered de-identified. Once the information has been de-identified as required by law, it is no longer considered PHI, not covered by this Notice, and we may use and share it for any lawful purpose without further notice or compensation to you.

As required to comply with laws. We may disclose your PHI when required to do so by federal, state, or local law.

Law enforcement activity. We may disclose your PHI to law enforcement officers for law enforcement purposes as permitted by law or in response to a valid subpoena or court order.

Judicial and administrative proceedings. We may disclose your PHI in response to a court or administrative order, a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful process by someone involved in a lawsuit or dispute with or against you.

Public health activities and threats to health and safety. We may disclose your PHI to public health or other legal authorities charged with preventing or controlling disease, receiving report of suspected abuse, neglect, or domestic violence, receiving reports of adverse reactions to medications or devices, notifying people of recalls of products, or otherwise preventing or reducing serious threats to the health and safety of you, others, or the public generally.

Health oversight activities. We may disclose your PHI to an oversight agency for activities authorized by law, including audits, investigations, and inspections necessary for licensure and for the government to monitor the health care system, government programs, and compliance with civil rights laws.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) activities. We may disclose your PHI to the FDA, or persons under the jurisdiction of the FDA, when the PHI is related to adverse events with respect to drugs, foods, supplements, products and product defects, or post marketing surveillance information to enable product recalls, repairs, or replacement.

Military or veteran affairs. We may disclose your PHI as required by military command authorities if you are or were a member of the armed forces.

Specialized government functions. We may disclose your PHI to units of the government with specialized functions such as the U.S. Military or the U.S. Department of State in response to requests authorized by law.

Correctional institutions. We may disclose your PHI to a correctional institution or its agents for your health and the health and safety of other individuals if you are or become an inmate in the correctional institution.

Worker’s compensation. We may disclose your PHI to the extent authorized by and the extent necessary to comply with laws relating to worker’s compensation or other similar programs established by law.

Death. We may disclose your PHI to a coroner, medical examiner, or funeral director to identify a deceased person, determine the cause of death, or otherwise carry out their duties.

Personal Representative. We may disclose your PHI to your personal representative, as established under applicable law, or to an administrator, executor or other authorized individual associated with your estate.

Organ tissue procurement organizations. We may disclose your PHI to organ procurement organizations or other entities engaged in the procurement, banking, or transplantation of organs for tissue donation and transplant.

Other Uses and Disclosures of PHI

We will obtain your written authorization before using or disclosing your PHI for purposes other than those described above, including uses and disclosures of psychotherapy notes or PHI for marketing purposes, and disclosures that would constitute a sale of PHI. You may revoke this authorization in writing at any time. Upon receipt of the written revocation, we will stop using or disclosing your PHI, except to the extent that we have already taken action in reliance on the authorization.

In some circumstances, your health information may be subject to additional state-level restrictions that limit or preclude some uses or disclosures described in this Notice. For example, many states have restrictions on the use or disclosure of certain categories of information like HIV/AIDS treatment, treatment for mental health conditions or developmental disabilities, or alcohol and drug abuse treatment. Similarly, state government health benefit programs may limit the disclosure of beneficiary information for purposes unrelated to the program. Some states have laws that specifically protect the privacy of your genetic information.

Reporting a Problem

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with us directly or with the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services by filing a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights. We will not retaliate against you in any way for filing a complaint.

Contact Information

Please contact us with any questions, comments, or complaints about this Notice, your rights and PHI, our use and disclosure practices, or your authorization choices by email at privacy@tempus.com, by mail at 600 West Chicago Avenue, Suite 510, Chicago, IL 60654, or by calling us at (800) 739-4137.