Privacy Policy

This notice describes how medical information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can obtain access to this information. Please review it carefully.

Introduction

We are required by law to maintain the privacy of “protected health information.” “Protected health information” includes any personally identifiable information that we obtain from you or others that relates to your physical or mental health, the health care you have received, or payment for your health care.

As required by law, this notice provides you with information about your rights and our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to the privacy of protected health information. This notice also discusses the uses and disclosures we will make of your protected health information. We must comply with the provisions of this notice, although we reserve the right to change the terms of this notice from time to time and to make the revised notice effective for all protected health information we maintain. You can always request a copy of our most current privacy notice from our office.

Permitted Uses and Disclosures

• We can use or disclose your protected health information for purposes of treatment, payment and health care operations.

 

• • Treatment means the provision, coordination or management of your health care, including consultations between health care providers regarding your care and referrals for health care from one health care provider to another. For example, a doctor treating you for a broken leg may need to know if you have diabetes because diabetes may slow the healing process. Therefore, the doctor may review your medical records to assess whether you have potentially complicating conditions like diabetes.

 

• • Payment means activities we undertake to obtain reimbursement for the health care provided to you, including determination of eligibility and coverage and other utilization review activities. For example, prior to providing health care services, we may need to provide to your insurance carrier (or other third party payor) information about your medical condition to determine whether the proposed course of treatment will be covered. When we subsequently bill the carrier or other third party payor for the services rendered to you, we can provide the carrier or other third party payor with information regarding your care if necessary to obtain payment.

 

• • Health Care Operations mean the support functions of our practice related to treatment and payment, such as quality assurance activities, case management, receiving and responding to patient complaints, physician reviews, compliance programs, audits, business planning, development, management and administrative activities. For example, we may use your medical information to evaluate the performance of our staff in caring for you. We may also combine medical information about many patients to decide what services are not needed, and whether certain new treatments are effective.

 

Disclosures Related to Communications With You or Your Family

We may contact you to provide appointment reminders or information about treatment alternatives or other health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you or relate specifically to your medical care through our office. For example, we may leave appointment reminders on your answering machine or with a family member or other person who may answer the telephone at the number that you have given us in order to contact you.

We may disclose your protected health information to your family or friends or any other individual identified by you when they are involved in your care or the payment for your care. We will only disclose the protected health information directly relevant to their involvement in your care or payment. We may also use or disclose your protected health information to notify, or assist in the notification of, a family member, a personal representative, or another person responsible for your care of your location, general condition or death. If you are available, we will give you an opportunity to object to these disclosures, and we will not make these disclosures if you object. If you are not available, we will determine whether a disclosure to your family or friends is in your best interest, and we will disclose only the protected health information that is directly relevant to their involvement in your care.

We will allow your family and friends to act on your behalf to pick up prescriptions, medical supplies, X-rays, and similar forms of protected health information, when we determine, in our professional judgment, that it is in your best interest to make such disclosures.

Other Situations

Organ and Tissue Donation: If you are an organ donor, we may release medical information to organizations that handle organ procurement or organ, eye or tissue transplantation or to an organ donation bank, as necessary to facilitate organ or tissue donation and transplantation.

Military and Veterans. If you are a member of the Armed Forces, we may release medical information about you as required by military command authorities. We may also release medical information about foreign military personnel to the appropriate foreign military authority.

Public Health Risks. We may disclose medical information about you for public health activities. These activities generally include the following:

• To prevent or control disease, injury or disability
• To report births and deaths
• To report victim of abuse, neglect, or domestic violence
• To report reactions to medications
• To notify people of product, recalls, repairs or replacements
• To notify a person who may have been exposed to a disease or may be at risk for contracting or spreading a disease or condition

Health Oversight Activities. We may disclose medical information to federal or state agencies that oversee our activities. These activities are necessary for the government to monitor the health care system, government programs, and compliance with civil rights laws. We may disclose protected health information to persons under the Food and Drug Administration’s jurisdiction to track products or to conduct post-marketing surveillance.

Lawsuits and Disputes. If you are involved in a lawsuit or dispute, we may disclose medical information about you in response to a court or administrative order. We may also disclose medical information about you in response to a subpoena, discovery request or other lawful process by someone else involved in the dispute.

Law Enforcement. We may release medical information if asked to do so by a law enforcement official:

• In response to a court order, subpoena, warrant, summons or similar process
• To identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person
• About the victim of a crime if, under certain limited circumstances, we are unable to obtain the person’s agreement
• About a death we believe may be the result of a criminal conduct
• About criminal conduct on our premises
• In emergency circumstances to report a crime; the location of the crime or victims or the identity, description or location of the person who committed the crime

Coroners, Medical Examiners and Funeral Directors. We may release medical information to a coroner or medical examiner. This may be necessary, for example, to identify a deceased person or determine the cause of death. We may also release medical information about patients to funeral directors as necessary to carry out their duties.

Inmates. If you are an inmate of a correctional institution or under the custody of a law enforcement official, we may release medical information about you to the correctional institution or law enforcement official. This release would be necessary for the institution to provide you with health care, to protect your health and safety or the health and safety of others, or for the safety and security of the correctional institution.

Serious Threats. As permitted by applicable law and standards of ethical conduct, we may use and disclose protected health information if we, in good faith, believe that the use of disclosure is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of a person or the public.

Disaster Relief. When permitted by law, we may coordinate our uses and disclosures of protected health information with public or private entities authorized by law or by charter to assist in disaster relief efforts.

Your Rights

1. You have the right to request restrictions on our uses and disclosures of protected health information for treatment, payment and health care operations. However, we are not required to agree to your request.
2. You have the right to reasonably request to receive communications of protected health information by alternative means or at alternative locations.
3. Subject to payment of a reasonable copying charge as provided by state law, you have the right to inspect or obtain a copy of the protected health information contained in your medical and billing records and in any other practice records used by us to make decisions about you, except for:
   • • Psychotherapy notes, which are notes recorded by a mental health professional documenting or analyzing the contents of conversation during a private counseling session or a group, joint or family counseling session and that have been separated from the rest of your medical record
     • Information compiled in a reasonable anticipation of, or for use in, a civil, criminal, or administrative action or proceeding
     • Protected health information involving laboratory tests when your access is required by law
     • If you are a prison inmate and obtaining such information would jeopardize your health, safety, security, custody, or rehabilitation or that of other inmates, or the safety of any officer, employee, or other person at the correctional institution or person responsible for transporting you
     • If we obtained or created protected health information as part of a research study for as long as the research is in progress, provided that you agreed to the temporary denial of access when consenting to participate in the research
     • Your protected health information is contained in records kept by a federal agency or contractor when your access is required by law
     • If the protected health information was obtained from someone other than us under a promise of confidentiality and the access requested would be reasonably likely to reveal the source of the information

    

   We may also deny a request for access to protected health information if:

   • A licensed health care professional has determined, in the exercise of professional judgment, that the access requested is reasonably likely to endanger your life or physical safety or that of another person
   • The protected health information makes reference to another person (unless such other person is a health care provider) and a licensed health care professional has determined, in the exercise of professional judgment, that the access requested is reasonably likely to cause substantial harm to such other person
   • The request for access is made by the individual’s personal representative and a licensed health care professional has determined, in the exercise of professional judgment, that the provision of access to such personal representative is reasonably likely to cause substantial harm to you or another person
4. If we deny a request for access for any of the three reasons described above, then you have the right to have our denial reviewed in accordance with the requirements of applicable law.
5. You have the right to request a correction to your protected health information, but we may deny your request for correction, if we determine that the protected health information or record that is the subject of the request:
   • Was not created by us, unless you provide a reasonable basis to believe that the originator of protected health information is no longer available to act on the requested amendment
   • Is not part of your medical or billing records
   • Is not available for inspection as set forth above
   • Is not accurate and complete
6. In any event, any agreed upon correction will be included as an addition to, and not a replacement of, already existing records.
7. You have the right to receive an accounting of disclosures of protected health information made by us to individuals or entities other than to you for the period provided by law, except for disclosures:
   • To carry out treatment, payment and health care operations as provided above
   • To persons involved in your care or for other notification purposes as provided by law
   • For national security or intelligence purposes as provided by law
   • To correctional institutions or law enforcement officials as provided by law
   • That occurred prior to April 14, 2003
   • That are otherwise not required by law to be included in the accounting
8. You have the right to request and receive a paper copy of this notice from us.
9. The above rights may be exercised only by written communication to us. Any revocation or other modification of consent must be in writing delivered to us.

Complaints

If you believe that your privacy rights have been violated, you should immediately contact our Practice or our Privacy Officer. All complaints must be submitted in writing. We will not take action against you for filing a complaint. You also may file a complaint with the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

California Consumer Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy Applies to Our Sites, Trusted Offices, and Applications.

Effective Date: January 1, 2020

The purpose of this Privacy Policy (as updated from time-to-time, this “Privacy Policy”) is to explain Datwyler Orthodontics data collection and privacy practices when you use The Smile Generation® website. (https://www.smilegeneration.com/).

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) provides you with certain additional privacy rights related to the personal information Datwyler Orthodontics (“DO”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) collects about you. Generally, the CCPA provides you with rights to know about the personal information we collect about you and rights to have personal information we collected from you deleted in certain circumstances. Please see below to learn more about your rights under the CCPA and to learn more about Datwyler Orthodontics’ CCPA Privacy Policy and practices.

Request to Know:

You may request and, subject to certain exemptions, we will provide:

1. The categories of personal information we collected about you.
2. The categories of sources of the personal information we collected about you.
3. Our business or commercial purpose for collecting the personal information.
4. The categories of personal information we disclosed about you to a service provider.
5. The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (data portability) in the 12 months preceding your request.

Request to Delete:

You may request that we delete personal information we have collected from you. Subject to exemptions, such as a need to retain the information to service products you have purchased from us, we will delete the personal information we have collected from you.

Beginning January 1, 2020, if you are a California resident and would like to submit a CCPA request, you may:

1. Initiate a request by submiting a CCPA Request Form.

CCPA Privacy Policy for California Residents

Effective Date: January 1, 2020

Last Updated On: January 8, 2020

This CCPA Privacy Policy for California Residents (“CCPA Privacy Policy” or “Policy”) supplements the information contained in Datwyler Orthodontics’ (“DO,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) online privacy notice at https://www.smilegeneration.com/privacy-policy/ and applies solely to consumers who are residents of the State of California (“consumers” or “you”). We adopt this notice to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”). Terms used in this CCPA Privacy Policy, such as personal information, consumers, third party(ies) and service providers, have the same meaning as they are defined in the CCPA.

1.        Summary of CCPA Privacy Policy

Please read this entire Policy carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal information. The following points summarize some of the important details discussed below:

1. Under the CCPA, a California consumer has the right to request that DO disclose what personal information we collect, use, disclose, and sell. Note, however, that DO does NOT sell personal information.
2. Under the CCPA, a California consumer also has the right to request that DO delete the personal information we have collected from the consumer.
3. Not all of your personal information is subject to the CCPA. The CCPA does not apply to personal information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and its implementing regulations, the California Financial Information Privacy Act (CalFIPA), and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994. If you are a DO customer, your personal information may be subject to these other privacy laws and your personal information that PDS maintains may be exempt from the CCPA. Your rights under other applicable privacy laws are described in our online privacy notice, which can be found at: https://www.smilegeneration.com/privacy-policy/.
4. California consumers have the right to not receive discriminatory treatment by DO for the exercise of their privacy rights under the CCPA.

2.      What Is Personal Information?

The CCPA provides personal information rights to California residents. The CCPA defines personal information as information that “identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular” California consumer or household. Personal information does not include publicly available information or consumer information that is deidentified or aggregate consumer information.

3.      What Personal Information Do We Collect About You?

1. We collect or generate personal information about you in a number of ways depending on the product or service and the relationship we have with you.  For example:
2. Your contact information, such as your email, home address, ZIP code, and phone number. Such items are collected when you sign up for our contests or promotions.
3. Your public information, such as comments or reviews that you post on our site. We also collect requests or questions that you publicly post.
4. Your demographic information, such as your postcode, preferences and interests.
5. Other information, such as your location, your IP address, the browser/device/hardware you are using, your GPS location and what pages you visit on our site. Such items are collected when you visit our digital ads.
6. When you communicate with us through the sites, over the phone, via social media or other platforms, we collect the content of the communications, information about the channel in which you contacted us and we may also collect personal information about you indirectly through monitoring or other means, such as recording telephone calls and collecting phone metadata and digital information;
7. When you interact with the sites or our advertisements, we collect digital information using cookies, web beacons, page tags, pixels or similar tools that we and our service providers and other third parties have set; and
8. When you interact with the sites via a social media platform, we collect a copy of the posts and other information, such as account ID or username.

We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a list of dental offices for relevant referrals. Once you have selected a new dentist, we will share your information with your dentist.

For more information, see below for a list of the categories of personal information, along with some descriptions and examples that we may collect through each of the processes described above:

1. Personal Identifiers: This includes first and last name, previous name, address, telephone number, unique personal identifier, and signature;
2. Device and Online Identifiers and Related Information: This includes online identifiers, Internet Protocol (IP) address, email address, account user name, mobile/ wireless number, social media profile, unique device identifier and serial number, and other device information;
3. Demographic Information: This includes date of birth and household income data;
4. Financial Information: This includes credit report information, credit scores, transaction information (both about your accounts with us and any accounts you link to a Product), financial account information used to validate your identity, account information about externally linked accounts, account login credentials, household income data, and other financial information;
5. Government Identifiers: This includes social security number, national identification number, other government-issued identification number, driver’s or operator’s license number, passport number, and copies of government IDs;
6. Protected Classification Characteristics: This includes age, national origin, citizenship, nationality, marital status, sex, and veteran or military status; please note that we do not collect information regarding gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation unless you provide it to us in connection with our products or services;
7. Purchase History: This includes customer purchase history or tendencies;
8. Biometric Information:  This refers to genetic, physiological, behavioral, and biological characteristics or activity patterns used to extract a template or other identifier or identifying information, such as: fingerprints, faceprints, and voiceprints, iris or retina scans, keystroke, gait, or other physical patters, as sleep, health, or exercise data;
9. Internet, Application, and Network Activity: This includes text messages or emails sent to us, clickstream/online website tracking information, and data related to user activity (e.g., browser visits and cookies or other similar technologies);
10. Location Data: We may receive information about your location and your mobile device, including a unique identifier for your device; in addition, in some instances, location information can be derived from your IP address or through your wi-fi connection;
11. Sensory Data: This includes audio data, such as a recording of your voice when you call us;
12. Professional or Employment-Related Information: This includes occupation, title, employer, and employment history; and
13. Inferences About You: This includes a profile reflecting a person’s preferences, characteristics, predispositions, behavior, attitudes and creditworthiness profile.

Although you don’t have to supply any of the personal information we request, we may not be able to provide products or services to you or you may not be able to interact with our sites if you do not.

4.      How Do We Use Your Personal Information?

We use your personal information for the following business purposes:

1. To keep an internal record for our reporting and analysis purposes.
2. To provide you with relevant content, materials, offers, programs and to administer your participation in our contests or sweepstakes.
3. To respond to your requests or questions that you may provide via our social sites.
4. To improve our sites, products, services and other marketing purposes.
5. To protect our company, other patients and our assets and sites and for other security measures.
6. To remain in communication with you with any products or services you requested.
7. From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by email, phone or mail.
8. We may provide your information to our third-party service providers for marketing or promotional purposes.
9. To target ads to you based on your past online activity.
10. We will never sell your information.
11. Customer information retention is indefinite and is shared with select third-party service providers and supported dentists.
12. Supporting our internal business operations, including assessing and managing risk and fulfilling our legal and regulatory requirements.
13. Complying with contractual obligations, relevant industry standards, and our policies.
14. Notifying you about changes to the sites, products and policies.
15. Performing analytics concerning your use of the products and sites, including your responses to our emails and the pages and advertisements you view.
16. Mitigating fraud and enhancing the security of the sites and our online services.
17. Managing institutional risk.
18. Operating, evaluating and improving our business (including developing new products and services; improving existing products and services; and performing accounting, auditing and other internal functions).
19. Authenticating your identity, including when scheduling appointments and financial application processes through the sites as well as afterwards;

Any information collected is disclosed to you here and is used as permitted or required by law. We also abide by the set of rules prescribed to us by Google AdWords: https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/143465.

We may also use your personal information for any other purpose that we disclose at the time you provide, or when we collect, your information and other purposes permitted by applicable law. We may also use data that we collect on an aggregate or anonymous basis for various business purposes, where permissible under applicable laws and regulations.

We are required to identify the categories of personal information we share with third parties for operational purposes. We disclose the following categories of personal information for operational purposes: personal identifiers; device and online identifiers and related information; demographic information; financial information; government identifiers; protected classification characteristics; purchase history; internet, application, and network activity; location data; sensory (audio data); professional or employment-related information; and inferences about you.

5.      What Is The Source Of The Personal Information We Collect About You?

1. When you sign up for things automatically like a contest or a promotion or when you register to any of our sites.
2. Through tracking tools, such as cookies, tags and other technologies.
3. Our partners, such as Smile Generation Financial, Smile Generation Dental Plan, and our trusted dental offices will provide us with information that you voluntarily give them. We may also use information associated with your social media account, e.g., your name, username, email address, gender, profile picture, etc. We may also collect information about your friends or family if you share any of our social content using web tools.
4. Any information that you provide to a third party with whom we have a contractual relationship, e.g., social media, digital display media (banner ads), and any other advertising partners.

6.      Who Do We Share Your Personal Information With?

We share personal information as set forth below:

1. Our third-party service providers, including Google, show our ads on sites across the internet.
2. Please be aware that third-parties may use cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to collect or receive information from our website and use that information to provide measurement services and target ads.
3. Additionally, please be aware that Facebook may also use cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to collect or receive information from our website and use that information to provide measurement services and target ads.

7.      Does DO Sell Personal Information?

California law requires that we describe certain disclosures of personal information where we receive valuable consideration. California law treats such disclosures as “sales” even if no money is exchanged.

We do not sell information to third parties as defined under California law, and we have not done so for the 12-month period preceding the last revision date of this CCPA Privacy Policy.

8.      What Are My CCPA Rights to Know About My Personal Information?

You have the right to know certain information about our collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information for the 12 months preceding the date of your request. You also have the right to request that we provide you with specific pieces of your personal information. These rights are subject to certain exceptions.

Upon receipt of your request, and after we verify your identity, we may provide you with information about the following:

1. The categories of personal information we collected about you.
2. The categories of sources of the personal information we collected about you.
3. Our business or commercial purpose for collecting the personal information.
4. The categories of personal information we disclosed about you to a service provider.
5. The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (data portability).

If responding to all or part of your request would conflict with federal or state law, or your personal information is subject to an exemption under the CCPA, we will inform you of that fact. We will respond to the portion of your request that is not in conflict with applicable laws or exempt under the CCPA.

9.      What are My CCPA Rights to Have my Personal Information Deleted?

You have the right to request that DO delete personal information we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions and exemptions. Absent an exception or exemption, upon receipt of your request, and after we verify your identity, we will delete and will request that our service providers delete your personal information.

10.   How Do I Exercise My CCPA Rights?

Beginning January 1, 2020, if you are a California resident and would like to submit a CCPA request, you may:

1. Initiate a request by submittting a CCPA Request Form.
2. Call our dedicated toll-free CCPA telephone number: 888-508-2033

Only you, or a person you authorize to act on your behalf may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child. To authorize another person to make a verifiable request on your behalf, you must provide that person with written permission clearly describing their authority to make a request on your behalf. That individual must also be able to verify their identity with us and provide us with their authority to act on your behalf. An individual to whom you have provided Power of Attorney pursuant to Sections 4000 – 4465 of the California Probate Code may also make a request on your behalf.

11.   How Will you Verify My Identity If I Make a CCPA Request?

In order to verify your identity, we will collect your:

1. Name
2. Date of Birth
3. Email
4. Telephone Number
5. Address

We will use this information to verify your identity using reasonable methods in order to process your rights request. These methods may include matching information you provided to us with information already maintained by us or through the use of a third party identify verification service.

We will use the information you provide to verify your identity and to respond to your rights request and for no other purpose.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we are not able to verify your identity or authority to make the request or confirm the personal information relates to you.

You are not required to have an account with us to make a verifiable request.

12.   What Are My CCPA Non-Discrimination Rights?

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights, which means we will not:

1. Deny you goods or services.
2. Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
3. Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
4. Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

13.   How Do I Contact Do with Questions About the CCPA Privacy Policy?

Fill out a CCPA request. If you have additional questions, please email us at: info@datwylerorthodontics.com.