Privacy Notice

Brethren Benefit Trust has always been mindful of the importance of protecting the privacy of our plan members. BBT has never made personal information public, and only uses personal information as necessary to process insurance claims or otherwise provide service to its plan members. We continue to hold that value as an essential element of our responsibility as a trusted service provider. Your personal information will continue to be protected.

This notice will provide you with information about our privacy policy as it relates to personal health information (PHI). It is intended to inform you about the kinds of personal information we may possess or collect about you and how it will be used. Any time this policy is amended or revised, an updated notice will be sent to you.

The kinds of PHI we may possess or collect about you includes the following:

  1. Medical diagnoses or symptoms
  2. Medical services provided to you
  3. Place of service
  4. Dates services were provided
  5. Charges made by medical providers
  6. Medical charts or notes
  7. Physicians’ evaluations and prognoses

Except as required by law or for health oversight activities or to avert a serious threat to the health or safety of a person or the public, this personal health information will not be disclosed to any outside party unless it is necessary to process a claim or otherwise serve you as a member of our insurance plan(s).

Other personal information we may possess or collect about you could include:

  1. Home and work address
  2. Social Security number
  3. Date of birth
  4. Dependent information
  5. Date of employment or termination of employment

This information may be disclosed to outside people or organizations as a part of your enrollment, elections, eligibility, underwriting, billing, claims processing, or to otherwise provide appropriate service to you as a plan member.

Other important aspects of our policy to protect your privacy include:

  1. We require outside business associates to protect your privacy.
  2. We have developed physical and electronic safeguards to prevent unauthorized access to your PHI.
  3. We restrict access to your PHI from individuals or employees who do not have a legitimate business reason to possess it.
  4. We will take disciplinary action against employees who violate our policy.

If you have any reason to believe we have disclosed your PHI inappropriately, you have the right to file a complaint. Your complaint should be in writing and cite the circumstances of the inappropriate disclosure. Address your complaint to:

Director of Insurance Plans
1505 Dundee Avenue
Elgin, IL 60120

Your complaint will be investigated and a letter of response will be sent to you within 10 business days.

Enclosed with this notice is a Release of Information form. Although we rarely disclose PHI to any outside person or organization, and only do so as a necessary part of claim processing or servicing a plan member, we may from time to time be required to disclose or discuss PHI with an outside party. This form gives us permission to do so as we deem appropriate. Please sign and return this form to us. If you choose not to return the authorization, it could possibly result in a delay in the processing of a claim or disputed claim at some time in the future.

Thank you for your participation in our plan and your continued trust in our organization.