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Disclaimer, Policies & Ownership
Disclaimer top
The information on this web site is for informational purposes only,
and is not intended to provide medical or other professional advice. If
you suspect you may have a health problem, you should contact your health
care provider for specific advice suitable to your situation.
Although CoxHealth makes reasonable efforts to provide accurate
and complete information, we cannot guarantee the accuracy, completeness
or usefulness of any information or materials contained on this web site.
Visitors to this web site assume the risk of using any information or
materials contained herein.
CoxHealth provides links to other web sites solely for the convenience
of the visitors to our web site. CoxHealth takes no responsibility
for the content or information contained on any other site, and does not
recommend, endorse or approve any materials, products or services which
may be available or advertised on any other site.
Visitors to our web site are advised that CoxHealth can not
guarantee the confidentiality and security of electronic mail submitted
via the Internet.
CoxHealth reserves all rights to the information on this web
site, including the right of distribution. Information on this web
site may be protected under copyright laws.
As a user of this site, you take on certain risks and responsibilities.
You also have the right to know how we protect your privacy and ensure
your confidentiality and what you should expect from us. This site and
HEALTHvision have partnered together to create this web site. This site
and HEALTHvision are responsible for the editorial content, products and
services offered on this site and HEALTHvision maintains the site on our
behalf.
Your role, responsibilities, and risks
top
- You need to be an informed user of this site. Please read all our
policies in full so you know how our site works and how you interact
with the site.
- Pay special attention to your risks as a user. Web site users open
themselves up to certain risks, such as data collection.
- Understand how we collect data and how it is used. It is our goal
to protect your personal information from misuse. We do, however, offer
programs that collect data for special reasons, such as research, scientific
studies, and statistics, in which case you may be interested in participating.
- Be aware that use of this site, its services, programs, and the health
information on it cannot replace nor is it intended to serve as a health
care provider-patient relationship. You must always consult with a professional
for diagnosis and treatment for specific health problems.
What you should expect from us top
- We will strive to maintain your privacy, confidentiality, and security
at all times.
- It is our goal to ensure your trust and confidence by providing you
with as much information as we can about data collection procedures
and information when needed.
- We will not intentionally use your data without your permission, unless
for purposes of maintaining the site or for reviewing the site's use.
- We will make every effort to notify you accordingly of all data collection
practices.
- It is our intention to clearly inform you when your risks or privacy
may change during the course of using this site.
- We will make every attempt to tell you when our privacy policy is
no longer in effect and another one is, such as when you use an integrated
program that is being operated on another web site with a different
privacy policy.
- It is our goal to make you aware when you leave our site for another,
either by telling you in writing or by another technical mechanism.
- We want you to know that this system operates on a secure server and
your personal and professional information and health-related personal
information is encrypted before it is transmitted. Encryption is a form
of scrambling and de-scrambling that ensures that no unauthorized person
can see your information.
- We will separate health information content from advertising and sponsorship
programs so you can distinguish between the two.
- Where health professionals may interact with consumers, we will make
every effort to tell you if this establishes a patient-provider relationship
and make available the credentials and qualifications of professionals.
- We will not accept or show you health information content, advertising,
sponsored programs, or services that we know to contain false or misleading
information or that promote ineffective or dangerous products.
Our Security Measures top
We want your personal information to remain as secure as possible; our
business depends on it. We use encryption practices to help insure the
integrity and privacy of the personal information and/or health-related
personal information you provide to us. As an added security precaution,
all personal information and/or health-related personal information are
kept on servers with firewalls that meet or exceed industry standards
to prevent intruders from gaining access. Although we make every reasonable
effort to protect personal information and health-related personal information
from loss, misuse, or alteration by third parties, you should be aware
that there is always some risk involved in transmitting information via
the Internet and that hackers or thieves do find ways to thwart security
systems.
Changes in our Privacy Policy top
It is our goal to use personal information and health-related personal
information in the manner described in the privacy policy that is in effect
when your information is collected. We do, however, reserve the right
to change the terms of this privacy policy at any time and will post revisions
to our site. If at any point, personal information or health-related information
is to be used differently from those practices stated in the privacy policy
in effect when your data was colleted, we will notify you. You will be
given the choice to opt-in to any additional uses or disclosures of your
personal information.
About the Information We Collect top
We understand that the personal information and health-related personal
information you provide during your visit to our site is highly sensitive
and you may have concerns about sharing such information with us. It is
our goal to protect your privacy and we strive to develop practices and
policies to safeguard your personal and health-related personal information.
At different places on our site, you may be asked to volunteer your name,
e-mail, address and telephone number. We refer to this type of information
as "personal information" because it can be used to identify
or contact you. When this information is combined with any information
on your health or medical status, we refer to this information as "health-related
personal information." We often collect information on site use that
has nothing to do with you as an individual, only as an anonymous user
of the site. We call this information "aggregate information."
We intend to use the personal information, health-related personal information,
and aggregate information only for the purposes for which it was provided.
Some personal information and health-related personal information is
needed to use this site, and we ask that you provide it with the knowledge
that it will be used to enhance your experience. This information is kept
confidential. We do offer special data collection programs that you can
"opt-in" to use, in some cases to receive e-mail on health topics
or to participate in a new service. For opt-in programs we provide you,
when applicable, with detailed information on:
- Who is collecting the data;
- What data are collected;
- Why and how the data are transferred to a third party;
- How the data are being used;
- How long the data are being collected;
- Who has access to the data;
- What revenue that is generated from data use in relation to advertisers
and sponsors; and
- How to opt-out of data collection.
Where this Information Is Collected top
We collect information about you at several places throughout the site.
You will be informed on how this information is colleted at that time.
You will also have the ability to opt-in to information collection when
you enter the site or use a service. Most information is collected in
the following instances:
Registration - In order to have access
to all of the services and content available on our site, you are required
to complete a registration form that requests certain information, such
as name, telephone number and e-mail address. In addition, you are asked
during registration to tell us about health topics that you are interested
in. We offer specialized registration for certain programs, events, and
classes that may request some or all of the above information.
We may use your registration information to send you an e-mail confirming
your registration with our site, to respond to questions from you, or
to notify you if there is a problem with any order for goods or services
that you placed. We may also, from time to time, send e-mails, with your
permission, on special promotions or newsletters we think may be of interest
to you.
Interactive Services/Tools -
Some of the interactive tools on our site ask you for personal information
and health-related personal information. Specifically, our health risk
assessment tools may ask for information on your personal and/or family
medical history including height, weight, blood pressure, history of certain
conditions and/or diseases and medication history. Our health care professional
directory may ask you for information on your insurance plan and geographic
location in order to identify listed professionals in your area. The health
risk assessment tools use the personal health information you provide
to generate a personal health record to help you manage your health. Your
personal health record is kept strictly confidential and can only be accessed
by using your password and login ID. We will make every effort not to
use or disclose your personal health record to any one without your express
consent. In some cases, you can permit your physician, pharmacist or other
health care-related professional to have access to your personal health
record.
Through our partner, HEALTHvision, WellMed, Inc. is contracted to provide
the health risk assessment tools on this site. When you select to use
a tool, you will in fact be working on WellMed's site and it will collect
your data and return the results directly to you via our servers. In all
instances where a WellMed tool is used, you will have access to WellMed's
privacy policy and information on how the tool works and when it was last
evaluated.
Chat Rooms/Bulletin Boards - As a service
to our users, we may feature chat rooms/bulletin boards where users with
similar medical conditions can share information and support one another.
In addition, we may also offer online discussions on a variety of topics
moderated by medical experts. You should be aware that any information
shared in a chat room/bulletin board is public information and you should
think carefully before disclosing any personal and/or health-related personal
information in any chat room/bulletin board.
Online Shopping - When this service
is offered on this site and you purchase nonprescription products and
services from us, such as ordering flowers for delivery to a local hospital,
we will request that you provide your name, e-mail address, credit card
number and expiration date, phone number and billing and shipping addresses.
If you order prescription drugs or medical equipment, we will ask for
all of the information above, as well as the information that you would
ordinarily provide to your pharmacist, including your prescribing doctor's
name, your residential address, your gender and birth date, any drug allergies
and existing medical conditions. If applicable, we will also ask for your
health insurance information including the name, address and telephone
number of your insurer and your member identification number (which may
be your social security number). We may also ask for additional information
about your current prescriptions and medical history. This information
will help us provide you with the necessary information to make the safest
and most effective use of your prescription medication or equipment.
This information will be kept in the strictest confidence. We will make
every effort to maintain the privacy and security of this information
at all times.
Our Site Uses Cookies top
In addition to collecting information that you submit to us, we also
rely on "cookies." A cookie is a numeric code that a web site
transfers to your hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Every computer
is assigned a different cookie, but our cookie does not contain or collect
your name or other personal identifying information. When you revisit
our site, the cookie allows us to recognize you, your interests, and your
preferences. We also use cookies to help track the level of interest in
different features on our site and to compile data that can help us improve
our content.
Your browser software can be set to reject all cookies, including cookies
from our site. Most browsers offer instructions on how to reset the browser
to reject cookies in the Help section of the toolbar. If you reject our
cookie, certain functions and conveniences of the site may not work properly.
You do not have to accept our cookie in order to productively use our
site. If you accept our cookie, we will never link the cookie to personal
information and/or health-related personal information you provide to
us. We will not allow other sites or third parties to use our cookies.
How We Use Your Personal Information top
We continually seek new ways to maintain your trust as a user and improve
our offerings. To provide new and better services, we tend to monitor
user traffic patterns and try to analyze what our users like and do not
like about our current offerings so we can design better services for
you. We may also use certain information for testing purposes, site development
and planning, and during the normal course of maintaining the site. When
you use our site, you automatically allow us to collect this information.
In these cases, researchers, business analysts, system designers, and
others may have access to the data we collect.
We do not intend to use or disclose any personal information or health-related
personal information you provide on our site to an unrelated third party
without your express permission, except as explained in this section.
You should know that there are circumstances when, in the ordinary course
of business, we will share some information about you with a related third
party.
- We have relationships with different vendors and suppliers that ship
products ordered on our site directly to our customers. In these cases,
we provide to the vendor the information necessary to fulfill your order,
such as the items ordered, your name, and shipping address. We require
these partners to adhere to our privacy policy and have discussed with
them that they are not to use our customer information for any other
purpose.
- If you have insurance coverage for your prescriptions, your insurance
company or prescription benefit manager may have access to information
about your orders so they can process your benefits or assist you with
your prescription orders, if necessary. This information is shared in
accordance with the terms of your health plan and the information remains
confidential.
- We may also share aggregate statistical information on our users,
sales, traffic patterns and site usage with our business partners and
sponsors. There is nothing in this information that could be used to
identify or contact you.
- We may, from time to time, contract with vendors to provide specific
services, such as data analysis, data storage, e-mail processing, customer
service, sweepstakes or special promotions. We ask vendors to adhere
to our confidentiality standards and do not permit a vendor to use our
customer information for any other purpose. In many of these instances,
you will be given the opportunity to opt-in to this collection of information
and can opt-out at any time.
- We may share registration data with business partners that maintain
a co-branded service or content, only with your affirmative consent.
For more information on co-branded sites, read the information below
on our relationships with third parties.
- In certain limited circumstances, we may be legally compelled to release
your personal information in response to a court order, subpoena, search
warrant, law or regulation. In the event that we are compelled to disclose
personal information and/or health-related personal information to a
third party, we will notify you unless doing so would violate the law
or court order. We also reserve the right to cooperate with law enforcement
authorities in investigating and prosecuting users that violate our
rules or engage in behavior that is harmful (or illegal) to other users.
Our Relationship with Third Parties top
We have business relationships with third-party vendors that deliver
services and content. We ask that all business partners disclose their
confidentiality practices and procedures and agree to abide by our privacy
policy. We make diligent efforts to ensure that third-party vendors are
above board; however, we are separate organizations and as such we are
not privy to the details of their operations and not responsible for their
actions.
We work with several types of third-party vendors, including those that
provide products and services that we integrate to our site, sponsors
that provide us revenue through logo and link placement on our site, advertising
companies that serve up advertisement programs for the site, and organizations
that maintain this site. We request that third-party vendors supply us
with information on their security procedures, and we evaluate them periodically
to ensure that they are using data in the agreed upon way.
You should know that our relationship with some third party vendors provide
us with revenues based on the number of users who view an advertisement
or use a sponsored or co-branded program. These revenues are based on
the use of a site and not on you as an individual. In some cases we also
receive revenue from the use of external services, such as buying flowers
online or other such services, and may get a commission on specific purchases
made online. In addition, we may allow third-party vendors to buy aggregate
data collected on our site but that data cannot be used to identify you.
There are three types of relationships that differ from our standard
business partner relationship in which we license content or a product
for integration. These exceptions are:
Sponsored or Co-branded Sites -
We allow other companies to make services and/or content available to
you, sometimes on a sponsored or co-branded basis. To access the services
on a sponsored or co-branded site, you may have to complete an online
registration form in addition to the registration you completed for us.
Whenever you provide registration information on sponsored or co-branded
sites, data can be collected. You should read the individual privacy policies
of sponsored or co-branded sites. Reading the policies will help you make
an informed decision on whether or not you want to use the site.
External Links - We feature external
links to other web sites that we believe you might find useful; however,
we do not endorse these sites. We are not responsible for the privacy
practices of these external sites. We will make every effort to notify
you when you are leaving our site and we encourage you to read the privacy
policy of each site you visit that may collect information or ask you
to disclose personal information and/or health-related personal information.
Advertising Servers - We may
have relationships with third-party advertising servers to display advertisements
on our site. If you click on an advertisement while on our site you will
be taken to another site where your risk and privacy change. These third
party ad servers may use cookies to collect non-personal information on
your preferences and interests via the advertisement you decide to view.
We do not give them access to non-personal information that we might collect
on our site unless they agree not to use that information in combination
with information they already possess to identify our users. We do not
intentionally share with third party ad servers any personal or health-related
personal information that you share with us.
You should know that we might allow advertising to be coordinated with
health information content on our site. This happens through linking up
identification codes with an ad and a health topic. In no way is your
use of this site and the health information you view directly connected
with advertising.
Our Children's Policy top
Our site may feature information and services of interest to children
13 and under. Contact information, such as name, e-mail address, and demographic
information including their age and ethnicity, may be requested. We do
not disclose personal or health-related personal information about our
13 or under users. We may, however, use information to create aggregate
data that may be shared with third parties.
Parents and guardians of minors who permit their children to use our
site should be aware that any information volunteered by a child in a
chat room, bulletin board, moderated online discussion or other public
forum on our site could be used by other persons participating or observing
activities on the site to contact the child via e-mail or in some other
manner. We do not have control over the actions of these third parties
and are not responsible for any contacts that may occur. When it is brought
to our attention that a 13 or under user has volunteered personal information
on a chat room or other public forum on our site, we will delete such
information from our active databases in accordance to our deletion policy.
To obtain more information on a child's use of this site, parents or
guardians can contact us in writing using the address in our Contact Us
link.
Your Privacy Choices top
You have the choice on this site to opt-in to information collected about
you in most circumstances, the exceptions being the instances when data
are used for site maintenance and so on. If you opt-in to data collection
we make every effort to give you detailed information on the program or
service you select. To opt-out of data collection, make any changes or
updates, or request that information be deleted, you have several choices.
Opt-out top
When you register with our site, you are given the option of receiving
e-mail with information that we think you might find useful including
promotions, announcements of new services and products, and newsletters
on particular health topics. You may also participate in our personalized
e-mail reminder system that allows you to send an e-mail reminding you
of certain health-related activities such as a doctor's visit or to schedule
tests. If you decide, at any time, that you no longer wish to receive
these e-mails you may opt-out by deselecting the checkbox on your personal
information page.
Change/Update Personal Information top
You may change or update your personal information and/or health-related
personal information at any time using the following options:
- Go to your personal information page and change the information there.
- You can contact us in writing using the address in our Contact Us
link
Remove or Delete Personal Information
- You may remove previously provided personal and/or health-related personal
information at any time using the following options:
- You can contact us in writing using the address in our Contact Us
link
Users should be aware that it is not always technically possible to remove
or delete the information you provide to us. We back-up our systems to
protect information from inadvertent loss, and that means a copy of your
personal information may exist in a non-erasable form that may be difficult
or impossible for us to locate. Nevertheless, upon receiving your request
we will try to remove or delete all personal information and/or health-related
personal information stored in the databases that we use for research
and daily business activities. We will not intentionally disclose any
personal information stored in a non-erasable format after receiving your
request for removal, except as required by law.
There are certain restrictions on your ability to correct, update or
remove the health information you enter into a personal health record.
If your doctor or other health care professional has access to your personal
health record, and they add information to that record, your personal
record could be considered an official medical record for legal purposes.
In this case, information cannot be deleted or removed, only updated or
annotated.
Hi-Ethics top
HEALTHvision is a founding member of Hi-Ethics,
Health Internet Ethics, which provides the Internet user with the consumer
protection they deserve and Web sites with a set of rules
that can be accountably implemented to protect the user and the user's
privacy. These principles are supported by the
Hi-Ethics coalition of U.S.-based health Web sites, the IHC
(Internet Healthcare Coalition), HON,(Health
on the net Foundation) and the AMA (American
Medical Association).
Editorial Policy top
Our Editorial Policy
outlines the evaluation process all health information content goes through.
We want you to rely on us as a trustworthy, quality resource of health
information. Medical experts have reviewed the content on this site for
clinical accuracy. You'll have information on who wrote an article and
when it was written and updated.
Site Ownership top
We have disclosed the ownership
and financial contributors to this site for your evaluation. We feel
that you have the right to know who owns this site and what entities provide
us with funding or significant contributions.
Site Partners top
We have disclosed the ownership
and financial contributors to this site for your evaluation. We feel
that you have the right to know who owns this site and what entities provide
us with funding or significant contributions.
Top of page
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Disclaimer, Policies & Ownership
Notice of Privacy
Statement for CoxHealth
Web Site Disclaimer
Privacy Policy for web services
Your role, responsibilities, and risks
What you should expect from us
Our Security Measures
Changes in our Privacy Policy
About the Information We Collect
Where this Information Is Collected
Our Site Uses Cookies
How We Use Your Personal Information
Our Relationship with Third Parties
Our Children's Policy
Your Privacy Choices
Opt-out
Change/Update Personal Information
Hi-Ethics
Editorial Policy
Site Ownership
Site Partners
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