CaringWire Notice of Privacy Practices

Effective Date: January 6, 2024

When you use our services, you’re trusting us with your information. We understand this is a big responsibility and work hard to protect your information and put you in control.

This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what information we collect, why we collect it, and how you can update, manage, export, and delete your information.

We build a range of services that help millions of people daily to explore and interact with the world in new ways. Our services include:

CaringWire apps, sites, and devices
Platforms like the CaringWire web browser or mobile apps
Products that are integrated into third-party apps and sites

You can use our services in a variety of ways to manage your privacy. For example, you can sign up for a CaringWire Account if you want to create and manage support like communication and documents, or see more relevant resource search results. And you can use many CaringWire services when you’re signed out or without creating an account at all, like searching on CaringWire. Across our services, you can adjust your privacy settings to control what we collect and how your information is used.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us at support@caringwire.com.

BY USING OUR SERVICES, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS NOTICE AND TO OUR COLLECTION, USE, AND DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION, INCLUDING PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE HEALTH INFORMATION (PHI). IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ANY TERM OF THIS NOTICE, DO NOT USE THE SERVICES AND EXIT IMMEDIATELY.

This Notice of Privacy Practices (“Notice”) explains the collection, use, and disclosure practices of services owned and operated by CaringWire LLC (“CaringWire” or “Company”). This Notice constitutes an agreement between you and CaringWire while accessing and using our online or offline Services (the “Services”). Please be advised that the practices described in this Notice apply to information gathered through digital services offered by CaringWire, information that you submit to us offline, and to Personal Information (as described below) that we may collect from third parties.

COLLECTION & USE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Information Collected Directly from You. In general, you can visit our services without disclosing any personal information. Any information you provide to us is voluntary, but please note that some information may be necessary for us to provide you with certain information and referral services, offers and content on our Services. CaringWire may ask you to provide personal information such as your name, email address, phone number and zip code, and other personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) in order to provide you with information and referral services in connection with our Services. CaringWire may also ask you to provide Personal Information about another person for whom you may be seeking care services for and to affirm that you have permission to provide Personal Information for that person.

CaringWire does not collect biometrics or sensitive information relating to health, race, gender, or other special category data unless that information is necessary to provide the service requested by the individual providing the information. CaringWire may periodically supplement the Personal Information we collect from you by obtaining personal or nonpersonal information about you or another person from other businesses, business partners, contractors, and other third parties.

CaringWire uses this Personal Information to provide you with the services you have requested from us and to provide services to Participating Providers. In addition, CaringWire uses Personal Information to send you periodic email and newsletter communications about products and services offered by us or third parties, to operate and improve our Services and Services, to respond to customer inquiries, and to send you surveys and other communications.

Information Collected from Your Use of this Services. CaringWire may collect information about you from your use of our Services using analytics tools or other technologies, like cookies and web beacons. These tools collect information like the pages you view, the links you click, and other actions you take in connection with the Services and our services. CaringWire also may collect certain standard information that your browser sends to every Services you visit, such as your IP address, browser type, language, access times, and referring Services addresses. CaringWire may supplement aggregate information collected from the Services with similar information obtained from companies with whom we have marketing or other business relationships and other third party sources. Any aggregated information that is linked with your Personal Information will be treated as Personal Information under this Notice of Privacy Practices.

CaringWire uses information collected from your use of our Services for our own internal business purposes including improving the performance, functionality, and content of the Services and performing statistical, design, or operational tasks, such as estimating our audience size, measuring aggregate traffic patterns, and understanding demographic trends among our users.

Cookies. Cookies are files that websites send to your computer or other Internet-connected device to uniquely identify your browser or to store information or settings on your device. Our Site may use HTTP cookies, HTML5 cookies, Flash cookies and other types of local storage (such as browser-based or plugin-based local storage, or application-based local storage on a mobile device). You may be able to restrict or disable certain cookies. Please note, however, that without cookies, you may not be able to use all of the features of our Site.

Our cookies, tokens and similar technologies (collectively, "Tracking Technologies") also are used for administering the Site, including without limitation, for authentication, to remember Users’ settings, to customize the content and layout of the Site for Users, to contact you about the Site, and to improve our internal operations, the content of our Site and our services. Users may be able to control the use of, or reject or disable, some Tracking Technologies at the individual browser level. If you reject or disable Tracking Technologies, you may still use our Site, but your ability to use some features or areas of our Site may be limited. We use Tracking Technologies to identify your device and keep track of your Internet session with our Site. Using these Tracking Technologies, we may automatically end your session on our Site after a period of inactivity (as determined by us in our sole discretion). We also use Tracking Technologies that allow us to recognize your device when you return to the Site within a certain period of time (as determined by us in our sole discretion) and automatically log you back into your account with us. UNLESS YOU AFFIRMATIVELY LOG OUT of your account PRIOR TO YOUR SESSION ENDING (whether by you or by us), YOU WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY LOGGED BACK IN THE NEXT TIME YOU OR ANY USER OF YOUR DEVICE VISITS OUR SITE within the period of time determined by us. If you do not wish to be automatically logged back in when you (or someone using your device) next initiate a session with our Site (using the same device that is being used for your current session), you should log out of your account (i) prior to ending your session, or (ii) if you will be inactive on our Site for more than a few minutes.

Web logs. In conjunction with the gathering of data through cookies, Web servers may log records such as your device type, operating system type, device advertising identifier, browser type, domain, and other system settings, as well as the language your system uses and the country and time zone where your device is located. The Web server logs also may record the address of the Web page that referred you to our Site, the IP address (and associated city and state or province for the IP address) of the device you use to connect to the Internet, and data about your interaction with our Site, such as which pages you visit.

Pixels and Web Beacons. Some pages of our Services and our e-mails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit CaringWire, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email, and for other related Services statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain Services content and verifying system and server integrity).

Online Analytics. We may use third-party web analytics services on our Site, such as those of Google Analytics. These service providers use the sort of technology described in this “Information that is Automatically Collected” section to help us analyze how Users use the Site, including by noting the third-party Web site from which Users arrive. The information (including your IP address) collected by the technology will be disclosed to or collected directly by these service providers, who use the information to evaluate your use of the Site.

Mobile Application Technologies. Our mobile applications may also collect information specific to use of your mobile device, such as unique device identifier and, with your consent, precise geolocation information, motion coprocessor data (e.g. recording information such as steps, distance, and elevation), accelerometer data (showing whether you're stationary or moving), and gyroscope data. We may also use third-party analytics, such as those of Google Analytics.

Collection of Information Across Personal Devices and Applications. Sometimes, we (or our service providers) may use the information we collect—for instance, log-in credentials, IP addresses, hashed email addresses, and unique mobile device identifiers—to locate or try to locate the same unique users across multiple browsers or devices (such as smartphones, tablets, or computers), or work with providers that do this, in order to better tailor content, features, and advertising (for CaringWire on other sites), and provide you with a seamless experience across the devices you use to access our services.‍

Information Obtained by or on Behalf of Your Healthcare Provider. Information obtained by or on behalf of your healthcare provider is considered protected health information, as defined below, and the additional provisions of Section III shall apply.

DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

CaringWire will only disclose, sell, or share your name, email address, or other information:

To Participating Providers. CaringWire may disclose, sell, or share Personal Information to one or more Participating Providers in order to provide you with the services you’ve requested. The Participating Providers may contact you directly by email, telephone, regular mail, in-person visits, or other means. CaringWire does not control how these Participating Providers use or disclose your Personal Information.

To Other Third Party Providers. CaringWire may disclose, sell or share Personal Information to one or more third parties with which we have contracted to provide services to CaringWire or to offer the services you have requested from CaringWire. CaringWire may also disclose Personal Information to one or more third parties who are interested in providing services or products to you. CaringWire does not control how these third parties use or disclose your Personal Information.

To Affiliates. CaringWire may disclose some or all of your Personal Information to subsidiaries, joint ventures, or other companies under common control with us, in which case we will require them to honor this Notice.

For Our Internal Analyses and Operations. CaringWire may disclose Personal Information to third party vendors for our own internal statistical, design or operational purposes, such as estimating our audience size, measuring aggregate traffic patterns, and understanding demographic trends among our users. The use and disclosure of your Personal Information by these third parties is restricted to the performance of such tasks and is subject to confidentiality.

For Legal and Other Compliance. CaringWire may disclose Personal Information when we believe it is appropriate to: (a) comply with the law; (b) enforce or apply this Notice or our other policies or agreements; (c) protect our or CaringWire’s users’ rights, property, or safety; (d) protect CaringWire’s users from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful use of our Services; or (e) if we reasonably believe that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure of communications or justifies disclosure of records without delay.

As Part of Business Transfers. CaringWire may disclose Personal Information as part of any merger, acquisition, debt financing, sale of company assets, or other business transaction.

As Aggregated Information. CaringWire may share or sell aggregated, anonymous information to our advertisers, business partners, and other third parties that includes or is based on information about you. CaringWire takes technical and organizational measures to anonymize your information and to combine it with other users’ information, so that it does not directly identify you. This information may be used by third parties for marketing, promotional, or statistical purposes. CaringWire does not limit the third parties’ use of the aggregated information.

DISCLOSURES OF PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) requires that all protected health information and other individually identifiable health information used or disclosed by us in any form, including electronically, on behalf of a Covered Entity are kept properly confidential.

Protected Health Information. “Protected health information” or “PHI” is information about you, including Personal Information, that is (1) created or received by a healthcare provider, health plan, public health authority, employer, life insurer, school or university, or healthcare clearinghouse; (2) that may identify you or could reasonably be used to identify you and that relates to your past, present or future physical or mental health or condition and related health care services; and (3) transmitted or maintained in any form or medium, including electronically.

Disclosures for Treatment, Payment, or Healthcare Operations. CaringWire also may ask Participating Providers to disclose your PHI to us. CaringWire uses this PHI to provide you with the information and referral services you have requested from us and to provide services to Participating Providers pursuant to our agreements with them. Your Protected Health Information may be used and disclosed to your provider and others that are involved in your care and treatment to provide health care services to you, to pay your health care bills, to support the operation of the practice, and any other use required by law.

Treatment: Your PHI may be used or disclosed to provide, coordinate, or manage your health care and any related services. This includes the coordination or management of your health care with a third party.
Payment: Your PHI will be used, as needed, to obtain payment for health care services. For example, obtaining approval for a hospital stay may require that your relevant PHI be disclosed to the health plan to obtain approval for the hospital admission.
Healthcare Operations: Your PHI may be used or disclosed, as needed, to support the business activities of your provider’s practice. These activities include, but are not limited to, quality assessment activities, employee review activities, and conducting or arranging for other business activities. Your PHI may be used or disclosed, as needed, to support the business activities of CaringWire or your providers. We may use or disclose your PHI, as necessary, to contact you to remind you of your appointment. We may call your home and leave a message (either on an answering machine or with the person answering the phone) to remind you of an upcoming appointment, the need to schedule a new appointment or to call our office. If you would prefer that we call or contact you at another telephone number or location, please let us know.
Your PHI may be used or disclosed, as needed, in the following situations without your authorization. These situations include: as Required By Law, Public Health issues required by law, Communicable Diseases: Health Oversight: Abuse or Neglect: Food and Drug Administration requirements: Legal Proceedings: Law Enforcement: Coroners, Funeral Directors, and Organ Donation: Research: Criminal Activity: Military Activity and National Security: Workers’ Compensation: Inmates: Required Uses and Disclosures: Under the law, we must make disclosures to you and when required by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate or determine our compliance with the requirements of HIPAA.
Other permitted and required uses and disclosures will be made only with your consent, authorization or opportunity to object unless required by law.

YOUR RIGHTS.

Managing and Updating Information. To access, review, update and/or delete certain Information, you may contact us at support@caringwire.com, and you may update and/or delete certain Information by logging into the Site and updating your account. We will respond to your request within a reasonable and lawful timeframe under the circumstances of your request. Please remember, however, if we have already disclosed some of this Information to third parties, we cannot access that Information any longer and cannot force the deletion or modification of any such Information by the parties to whom we have made those disclosures. Additionally, if you modify certain Information on our Site that we received from a third party, we reserve the right, but are not obligated, to share the updated information back to that third party. As a result, you will need to provide updated information to those third parties if you want to be sure they have your updates.

Certain Information is necessary in order for us to provide the Site and our related Services; therefore, if you delete such necessary Information you will not be able to use the Site or receive our Services. If you wish to have your account deactivated, you may contact us at support@caringwire.com. After we receive your request, within a reasonable timeframe under the circumstances of your request, we will deactivate your account; provided, however, that: 1) CaringWire (and our third-party vendors acting on our behalf), our CaringWire Partners, and any other applicable third parties may continue to use and share for any purpose de-identified data and aggregated or combined data developed using your Information that has been de-identified and 2) CaringWire may continue to use Information in your deactivated account for compliance with applicable regulations. Also, please note that even though you may deactivate your account or request the deletion of your Information, we may be required (by law or otherwise, such as to prevent fraud, resolve disputes, or troubleshoot problems) to retain this information, in which case we will comply with your deletion request only after we have fulfilled such requirements. We may also keep a copy of your Information to protect our legal rights, such as in connection with your use of the Site or your agreement to our Terms of Service, as permitted or required by applicable law.

You have the right to inspect and copy your Personal Information; however, you may not inspect or copy the following records; psychotherapy notes; information compiled in reasonable anticipation of, or use in, a civil, criminal, or administrative action or proceeding, and PHI that is subject to law that prohibits access to PHI.
You have the right to request a restriction of your Personal Information. This means you may ask us not to use or disclose any part of your Personal Information for the purposes of treatment, payment or healthcare operations. You may also request that any part of your Personal Information not be disclosed to family members or friends who may be involved in your care or for notification purposes described in this Notice of Privacy Practices. Your request must state the specific restriction and to whom you want the restriction to apply. CaringWire is not required to agree to a restriction you may request. If we or your provider believes it is in your best interest to permit use and disclosure of your Personal Information, your Personal Information will not be restricted. You then have the right to use another healthcare professional or service.
You have the right to request to receive confidential communications from us by alternative means or at an alternative location.
You have the right to obtain a paper copy of this Notice from us, upon request, even if you have agreed to accept this Notice alternatively (i.e. electronically).
You may have the right to have your provider amend your PHI. If your provider denies your request for amendment, you have the right to file a statement of disagreement and the provider may prepare a rebuttal to your statement and will provide you with a copy of any such rebuttal.
You have the right to receive an accounting of certain disclosures we have made, if any, of your Personal Health Information.
We reserve the right to change the terms of this Notice and will inform you of any changes. You then have the right to object or withdraw as provided in this Notice.

California Do-Not-Track Disclosure Requirements (for California Users). We are committed to providing you with meaningful choices about the information collected on our Site for third-party purposes. However, we do not recognize or respond to browser-initiated Do Not Track signals, as the Internet industry is currently still working on Do Not Track standards, implementations, and solutions.

Your California Privacy Rights (for California Users). California law permits customers of CaringWire who are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please write us:

Attn: CaringWire Support

8065 Crossgate Ct

Dublin, OH 43017

Children; Special California Notice. The Site and Services are not directed to children under the age of 18, and children under the age of 18 years of age are not eligible to use them. Protecting the privacy of children is very important to us. Through the Site and Services, we do not collect Information from people we actually know are under 18 years of age, and no part of the Site or Services is designed to attract people under 18 years of age. If we later learn that an individual has provided us with their information through the Site or Services and they are under 18 years of age, we will take steps to remove that User's Information from our databases and to prevent the User from utilizing the Site or Services.

If you are a California resident under the age of 18 and are a registered User of our Site, you may request that we remove from our Site any content you post to our Site that can be accessed by any other User (whether registered or not). Please note that any content that is removed from our Site may still remain on our servers and in our systems. To request removal of content under this provision, please send an email to support@caringwire.com and provide us with a description of the content and the location of the content on our Site, and any other information we may require in order to consider your request. Please note that removal of content under this provision does not ensure complete or comprehensive removal of the content or information posted on the Site by you.

LINKS TO THIRD PARTIES

This privacy statement applies only to information collected by this Services. CaringWire may provide links to third-party Services from our Services as a service to our users, but we do not control nor are we responsible for the privacy and data collection, use, and disclosure practices of third party Services. When you click on links that take you to external Services, you will be subject to their privacy policies and practices and not ours. CaringWire encourages you to review and understand the privacy policies of such Services before providing them with any information.

SECURITY

CaringWire takes precautions to protect your information. CaringWire uses reasonable security measures, including encryption and scrambling, to store and maintain Personal Information to protect it from loss, misuse, alteration, or destruction by any unauthorized party while it is under our control. Access to the Personal Information we collect is restricted to employees who are trained in the proper handling of Personal Information. Please note, however, that no transmission of data over the Internet is 100% secure. All Internet users should take care with how they handle and disclose their personal information.

THIRD-PARTY ADVERTISING

Third-party advertisers or ad networks may use cookies or other technologies on our Services for various purposes, including measuring the effectiveness of their ads and analyzing and personalizing ads or other content delivered to you. CaringWire does not control the privacy, data collection, use, and disclosure practices of such Services, and the privacy policies of such Services may differ from the Services’s. Therefore, we encourage you to review and understand the privacy policies of such Services before providing them with any information.

OPT-OUT OF CARINGWIRE COMMUNICATIONS

CaringWire may periodically send you other communications that promote the use of our services. When you receive a communication from us, you may indicate a preference to stop receiving further communications by following the opt-out instructions included in the communication.
If you wish to opt-out of communications with Participating Providers, you must contact them directly as CaringWire does not control communications from Participating Providers.

CONTROLLING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Retention of Personal Data. Personal data will be retained only for so long as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, considering criteria such as applicable rules on statute of limitations and at least the duration of your use of our Site and Services. Information may persist in copies made for backup and business continuity purposes for additional time.

You have the right to submit a complaint or to object to the collection and use of your information by CaringWire at any time or to require CaringWire to review, transmit, change, or delete your information that we have collected and retained. CaringWire will fulfill your request to exercise any of these rights within 30 days of receiving a complete request, with the exception of information that is needed to complete the transaction for which the Personal Information was collected, to provide the information and referral services you have requested from us, or that is reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you and Participating Providers. You can exercise these rights by contacting CaringWire at:

Attn: CaringWire Support

8065 Crossgate Ct

Dublin, OH 43017

You may also complain to the Secretary of Health and Human Services if you believe your privacy rights have been violated by us. You may file a complaint with us by notifying our privacy officer of your complaint at our office and main telephone number. We will not retaliate against you for filing a complaint.

QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS

If you have any questions about this Notice or the privacy practices of our Services, please contact us at support@caringwire.com.

GOVERNING LAW

CaringWire owns and maintains the Services in the State of Ohio, United States. CaringWire attempts to comply with local data protection and consumer rights laws to the extent they may apply to our services. If you are uncertain whether this Notice conflicts with the applicable local privacy laws where you are located, you should not submit your Personal Information to the Services.

CHANGES IN THIS NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES

As our Services continue to develop, we may add new services and features to our Services. From time to time, we may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our information practices. If we make changes to this Privacy Policy, they will be reflected in an updated Privacy Policy that will be posted on the Site, and all changes will be effective upon such posting or upon any later date specified by us in writing. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices. You can determine when this Privacy Policy was last revised by referring to the "Effective Date" legend at the top of this Privacy Policy. By continuing to use the Site or any services following the effective date of any updated Privacy Policy, you are agreeing to be bound by the terms and conditions of such updated Privacy Policy.