Privacy Policy

Updated as of Dec. 14, 2020

We are committed to the care and improvement of human life. Part of that commitment includes protecting your Personal Information (defined below). We maintain information confidentiality and comply with applicable regulatory requirements.

 

This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) covers our online privacy practices with respect to use and/or disclosure of information we may collect from you when you access or use our website (“Website”), Portals (as defined below), and any other websites or applications we may provide that link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, our “Services”). The Services are provided by the Website owner identified on the Website homepage (“we,” “us,” or “our”). This Privacy Policy does not apply to information collected through other means, such as by telephone or in person or by other third parties that are not part of our Services. Please review our privacy practices and contact us at privacy@hcahealthcare.com if you have questions.

Information Collected through the Website

Our Website may include pages that permit you the opportunity to provide us with Personal Information about yourself. As used in this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” means any information that may be used, either alone or in combination with other information, to personally identify an individual as defined by applicable state laws as noted below.

 

We collect certain information, including Personal Information, from and about our Website users in three ways:

  • directly from you;
  • directly from our web server logs; or
  • cookies and web beacons.

Information Provided by You

We and our service providers collect Personal Information through online forms to provide certain features of the Services to you. For example, if applying for a job through the Website, we may request you to fill out a form with information such as your name, e-mail address, phone number, and work experience. If you do not provide the information required to submit the forms, we may not be able to provide you with related features and services.

 

In some cases, you may have the opportunity to enter into our secure forms any content that you choose. You are responsible for such content and we reserve the right to use such content as part of our Services.

Web Server Logs

When you access or use our Services, we may track information to administer our Services and analyze its usage. Examples of information we may track include, without limitation:

  • Your Internet protocol address;
  • The kind of browser or computer you use;
  • Number of links you click within our Services;
  • State or country from which you accessed our Services;
  • Date and time of your visit;
  • Name of your Internet service provider;
  • Third-party websites you linked to from our Services; and
  • Pages or information you viewed on our Services;

We use this information to analyze and improve our Services, monitor traffic and usage patterns for information security purposes, and to help make our Services more useful.

Cookies and Web Beacons

A “cookie” is a small text file that may be transferred to your computer’s hard drive to personalize our services for you and collect information regarding usage of our Services. Each computer is assigned a different cookie that contains a random, unique identifier. Our Services may use two different types of cookies: a “session” cookie, which is required to track a user session, for example, and which expires shortly after the session ends, and a “persistent” cookie, used to track unique visits to the Portal (defined below), as well as how the user arrived at the Portal (for example, through an email link or from a referral link), and the type of user (patient, provider, consumer, etc.). So that users are not counted twice, this cookie can “persist” anywhere from six months to two years.

 

Your browser software can be set to warn you of cookies or reject all cookies. 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, this may disable some of the functionality of our Services and you may not be able to use certain services.

 

Cookies, to the best of our knowledge, cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. For example, if you personalize a web page, or navigate within a website, a cookie helps the website to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of delivering relevant content and eases website navigation by providing and saving your preferences and login information as well as providing personalized functionality.

 

We use Google Analytics on our Site to help us analyze the traffic on our Site. For more information on Google Analytics’ processing of Personal Information, please see http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. By using a browser plugin provided by Google, you can opt out of Google Analytics.

 

Some of the features of our Services (such as social media widgets that allow you to share content) may use cookies or other methods to gather information regarding your use of the Services, and may combine the information in these cookies with any of Personal Information about you that they may have. The use of such information by a third party depends on the privacy policy of that third party.

 

A “web beacon,” “clear GIF,” “web bug,” or “pixel tag” is a tiny graphic file with a unique identifier that is similar in function to a cookie, but would allow us to count the number of users that have visited certain pages or screens of our websites, and to help determine the effectiveness of promotional or advertising campaigns. When used in HTML-formatted email messages, web beacons can tell the sender whether and when the email has been opened. In contrast to cookies, which may be stored on your computer’s hard drive, web beacons are typically embedded invisibly on pages or screens. We may use web beacons in providing the Services. 

 

We reserve the right to share aggregated site statistics monitored by cookies and web beacons with our affiliates and partner companies. We treat the information of everyone who comes to our Services in accordance with this Privacy Policy and their Do Not Track settings.

Geolocation Data

We do not collect precise information (e.g., GPS data; latitude and longitude) concerning the location from which you access the Services, but we collect information on your region or postal code to help us gather information useful for improving the relevance of our content and securing our Services.

Third Party Advertising

We may allow third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you access or use our Services. These companies use non-personally identifiable information regarding your access and use of our Services and other websites, such as pages viewed, date and time of your visit, and number of times you have viewed an ad (but not your name, address, or other personal information), to serve ads to you on our Services and other websites that may be of interest to you. In the course of serving advertisements to our Services, our third-party advertiser may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. In addition, we or other third-party advertisers, may use web beacons to help manage our online advertising. This allows us or a third party advertiser to learn which banner ads bring users to our Services.

Information Collected through the Portal

As a Service to its customers, we may also provide Portals to offer some customers secure, private access to their own records at our facilities, as well as certain internet-based services which may include, among other things, assistance in finding a doctor, assistance in scheduling appointments, the ability to register for classes and pre-register for procedures, the ability to make payment for medical services rendered, and access to health and patient education materials and secure messaging (“Portal”).

 

The Portal can provide you with access to some of your medical records. When you seek access to those records on the Portal, we need to confirm your identity, so we ask you for information such as your name and email or physical address and other information such as your date of birth (which we may also use to make sure you are eligible to use the Portal in accordance with the Terms) and the answers to “secret questions” to which only you know the answers. This information may be used to help administer your user account and in managing your account. We may need to ask you for the information again when you sign in from a new device.

 

We may ask for information about your location and medical needs to assist with finding a physician and may collect and pass on information (which may include, where relevant, health information such as your patient history) to assist you in scheduling appointments, pre-registering for procedures, and registering for classes.

The Purposes for Which We Use Personal Information

If you submit or we collect Personal Information through our Services, then such Personal Information may be used in the following ways: (i) to provide, analyze, administer, and improve our Services; (ii) to contact you in connection with our Services and appointments, events or offerings that you may have registered for; (iii) to identify and authenticate your access to the parts of our Portal or other password-protected Services that you are authorized to access; (iv) to send you surveys; (v) for recruiting and human resources administration purposes; (vi) to protect our rights or our property and to ensure the technical functionality and security of our Services; and (vii) as required to meet our legal and regulatory obligations.

 

If you are a visitor from the European Economic Area, our legal basis for collecting and using the information described in this Privacy Policy will depend on the information concerned and the context in which we collect it. We collect information from you:

  • where we need it to perform our contract with you (i.e., our Terms);
  • where the processing is in our legitimate interests such as securing and improving our Services, for example (provided that these aren’t overridden by your interests or rights).;
  • where the processing is for the provision of healthcare or the management of healthcare services (e.g., health information collected from you or made accessible to you through the Portal in accordance with legal requirements governing the confidentiality of such information); or
  • if we otherwise have your consent.

If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your information, please contact us using the contact details provided under the “Contact Us” section below or email us at info@bridgemedicalcenters.com.

How We Disclose Personal Information

We do not sell, lease, rent or otherwise disclose the Personal Information collected from our Site to third parties unless otherwise stated below or with your consent.

  • Our Third-Party Providers. We transfer Personal Information to third-party service providers to perform tasks on our behalf and to assist us in providing our Services. For example, we may use third-party service providers for security, website analytics, and payment processing. We use commercially reasonable efforts to only engage or interact with third-party service providers and partners that post a privacy policy governing their processing of Personal Information, and require our service providers to maintain confidentiality and comply with applicable laws in the processing of Personal Information. A list of our current third party service providers is available here.
  • In the Event of Merger, Sale, Divestitures or Change of Control. We may transfer or assign Personal Information to a third party entity that acquires or is merged with us as part of a merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control.
  • Other Disclosures. We may disclose Personal Information about you if we have a good faith belief that disclosure of such information is helpful or reasonably necessary to: (i) comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request; (ii) enforce our terms of use, including investigations of potential violations thereof; (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud or security issues; or (iv) protect against harm to our or third parties’ rights, property or safety.

 

In addition to the uses and disclosures of information outlined above, if you use the Portal, your information may also be used and disclosed as follows:

  • Authorized Representatives. If another individual is managing your account on your behalf (for example, a mother managing the account of her son), as authorized by you or as a personal representative under applicable law, that person can view all Personal Information about you in the Portal.
  • Healthcare Providers. Your healthcare providers may have access to Personal Information for administrative and healthcare services. We may also use Personal Information to respond to and fulfill your orders and requests.
  • Partners. We may share Personal Information with marketing, treatment or health care operations support partners, who are also required to protect the confidentiality of your information, that will enable them to send you targeted messages or serve you targeted advertising, which will occur with your authorization or otherwise in compliance with HIPAA (defined below) and other applicable laws.

Information Security

No website can guarantee security, but we maintain industry-accepted physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect your personal information collected via our Services in compliance with applicable law. Please see the Terms of Use available via the Website homepage (“Terms”) for more specific information about information security and your responsibilities.

What Can I Do to Protect My Privacy?

Where you use a Portal or other Service that is secured with a username and password, you are also responsible for taking steps to protect the privacy of Personal Information about you. In order to protect your privacy, you should:

  • Never share your username or password;
  • Always sign out when you are finished using the Portal;
  • Use only secure web browsers;
  • Employ common anti-virus and anti-malware tools on your system to keep it safe;
  • Use a strong password with a combination of letters and numbers;
  • Change your password often; and
  • Notify us immediately if you believe your login and/or password have been compromised at info@brdigemedicalcenters.com.

 

If you share your Portal username and password with another person, this will allow that person to see your confidential medical record information. We have no responsibility concerning any breach of your confidential medical record information due to your sharing or losing your user name or password.

Retention of Information

We will retain Personal Information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it has been collected as described in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required by law (e.g., laws mandating retention of medical records for a certain period of time).

 

Where practical, we dispose of certain categories of information, including Personal Information, on a regular schedule. For example, we dispose of web server logs after 90 days, information submitted through secure forms after 6 months, access and activity logs relating to the Portal after 1 year, and information collected for analytics purposes on the Website (e.g., information on pages visited on the Website) after 2 years.

Third Party Websites and Payments

If you use the Portal to link to another third party website, you may decide to disclose personal information at that website. In contacting that third party website, or in providing information on that website, that third party may obtain personal information about you. This Privacy Policy does not apply when you leave the Portal and go to a third party website from the Portal. We encourage you to be aware when you leave the Portal and to read the privacy statements of each third party website that collects personally identifiable information.

 

Any payments you may make for services you have found on the Portal (such as enrolling in a class) are made exclusively through a third-party website the separate privacy policy of which applies, and not through the Portal. We are not responsible for any fees, charges, or actions provided by such a third party website.

User Communications

  • Email communications that you send to us via the email links on our Services may be shared with a customer service representative, employee, medical expert or agent that is most able to address your inquiry. We make reasonable efforts to respond in a timely fashion once communications are received. Once we have responded to your communication, it is discarded or archived, depending on the nature of the inquiry and all applicable laws, rules and regulations.
  • The email functionality on our Services does not provide a completely secure and confidential means of communication. It is possible that your email communication may be accessed or viewed by another Internet user while in transit to us. If you wish to keep your communication private, do not use our email.

Your Rights

Personal Information

If you are a Portal user, you may access and amend personal demographic information when logged into the Portal. If you would like to access, amend, erase, export, object to, restrict the processing, or other Personal Information collected via our Services or any other request as described below by state law, you may submit a request to info@bridgemedicalcenters.com or write to us at:

Bridge Medical Center
Attention: Privacy Requests
351 Sparta Avenue
Suite 201
Sparta, NJ 07871-1160

 

We will promptly review all such requests in accordance with applicable laws.

HIPAA Policies

If you are one of our patients, your personal information in our possession is protected health information (“PHI”) protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, as amended (‘HIPAA’), and the applicable provisions of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. In addition to this Privacy Policy, the HIPAA Notices of Privacy Practices of those Provider facilities apply to your PHI.

 

In collecting Personal Information, our Services may also collect PHI. Just as we strive to protect Personal Information we are committed to protecting your PHI. If there is a breach of your PHI, we are required by law to notify you. Your PHI will only be disclosed to you or your personal representative, unless otherwise required or permitted by state or federal law. In all circumstances, unless otherwise required by law, we will obtain your written authorization before using or disclosing your PHI. This protection extends to PHI that is oral, written, or electronic.

Children’s Privacy

We will never ask for or knowingly collect Personal Information from children through the Services or Portal. If you are a child, you are not permitted to use the Portal and should immediately exit our Portal. Parents of un-emancipated minors may set up accounts for themselves to access their children’s medical records only as permitted pursuant to the Terms governing the Portal. If you think that we have collected personal information from a child through this Portal, please contact us at info@bridgemedicalcenters.com and we will dispose of the information as required by applicable law.

Policy Changes

We reserve the right to change the terms of this Privacy Policy at any time by posting those changes in revisions to this Privacy Policy, so that you are always aware of our processes related to collection, use and disclosure of information. We urge you to check here for any updates to this Privacy Policy from time to time. Unless otherwise indicated, any changes to this Privacy Policy will apply immediately upon posting to the Website.