Aahana Medical Aesthetics is required by law to maintain the privacy of your protected health information, to give you this notice of our legal duties and privacy practices, and to follow the terms of the notice currently in effect.

Protected health information means information that identifies you and relates to your health, your care, or payment for your care.

How we may use and disclose your information

For treatment

We use your health information to provide and coordinate your care. For example, your physician reviews your medical history and medication list before deciding whether a treatment is appropriate, and records what was performed so that future treatment is planned correctly. We may share information with other providers involved in your care.

For payment

We use and disclose your health information to obtain payment for the services you receive. For example, we may provide information to your health plan to determine coverage or to obtain prior authorization for a medication.

For health care operations

We use your health information to run the practice and maintain quality of care. For example, reviewing outcomes to improve protocols, training, and administrative functions such as scheduling and record keeping.

Other uses and disclosures permitted or required by law

We may use or disclose your health information without your authorization in the following circumstances.

  • As required by law, where a federal, state or local law requires disclosure.
  • Public health activities, including reporting disease, adverse events relating to drugs or devices, and product recalls.
  • Victims of abuse, neglect or domestic violence, where reporting is required or authorized.
  • Health oversight, such as audits, investigations, inspections and licensure activity by agencies that oversee the health care system.
  • Judicial and administrative proceedings, in response to a court order, subpoena or other lawful process.
  • Law enforcement, in the limited circumstances the law permits.
  • Coroners, medical examiners and funeral directors.
  • Organ and tissue donation.
  • Research, where an institutional review board has approved a protocol with privacy protections in place.
  • To avert a serious threat to your health or safety or to that of another person.
  • Military, veterans, national security and protective services, in the specific circumstances the law describes.
  • Workers' compensation, as authorized by law.

Uses that require your written authorization

The following always require your written authorization.

  • Most uses and disclosures of psychotherapy notes, where we maintain any.
  • Uses and disclosures for marketing purposes.
  • Any disclosure that constitutes a sale of your health information.
  • Photographs used for any purpose beyond your own clinical record, including before and after images shown publicly or used in any promotional material. Consent to be photographed for your record is separate from consent to have that photograph shown to anyone else, and either can be refused without affecting your care.

Any other use or disclosure not described in this notice will be made only with your written authorization. You may revoke an authorization in writing at any time, which stops any further use or disclosure under it, though it cannot undo what has already been done in reliance on it.

Your rights

To request restrictions

You may ask us to restrict how we use or disclose your health information for treatment, payment or health care operations. We are not required to agree to most such requests.

There is one restriction we must honor. If you pay for a service in full, out of pocket, you may instruct us not to disclose information about that service to your health plan, and we will comply. Given how much of the care here is paid directly, this right is worth knowing about.

To confidential communications

You may ask us to contact you in a particular way or at a particular place, such as only by email, only at a certain number, or not by voicemail. We will accommodate reasonable requests and will not ask you why.

To inspect and copy

You may inspect and obtain a copy of your health information, including an electronic copy where we maintain it electronically. We may charge a reasonable, cost-based fee. In limited circumstances we may deny a request, and where the law allows you may have that denial reviewed.

To request an amendment

If you believe information in your record is incorrect or incomplete, you may ask us to amend it. We may deny the request in certain circumstances, and if we do we will tell you why in writing and you may submit a statement of disagreement to be kept with your record.

To an accounting of disclosures

You may request a list of certain disclosures we have made of your health information. This does not include disclosures for treatment, payment or health care operations, or those you authorized.

To a paper copy of this notice

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

To be notified of a breach

You will be notified if a breach occurs that may have compromised the privacy or security of your information.

Your rights under California law

California's Confidentiality of Medical Information Act gives you additional protections, and in some respects is stricter than federal law. Where state and federal law differ, we follow whichever gives you greater protection.

Our duties

  • We are required by law to maintain the privacy of your health information.
  • We are required to give you notice of our legal duties and privacy practices.
  • We are required to follow the terms of the notice currently in effect.
  • We reserve the right to change this notice and to make the revised notice apply to information we already hold as well as to information we receive in future. If we make a material change, the revised notice will be posted here and made available at the practice.

Complaints

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may complain to us, to the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, or to the California Attorney General.

To complain to us, contact the Privacy Officer using the details below. To complain to the federal government, write to the Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Avenue SW, Washington DC 20201, or file online at hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/complaints.

You will not be retaliated against for filing a complaint. It will not affect your care here in any way.

Contact

Privacy Officer
Dr. Shankar Mundluru, MD MBA
Aahana Medical Aesthetics
2175 3rd Street, Unit C1
San Francisco, CA 94107
817 726 6366
hello@aahanaskin.com

This notice is effective 7 September 2026.