Effective as of September 2022  

Nephrology Specialists IPA ‎cares about safeguarding your privacy. We have developed this policy statement (“Privacy Policy”) to inform you about how and why we collect your personal information and how we will protect your personal privacy within our website (nephrologyipa.com), and any related products and services we may offer to you, including any website or mobile ‎application, that posts a link to this Privacy Policy, and any interactive features, widgets, plug-‎ins, applications, content, downloads and other services that we may own and control and make ‎available through any websites that we own and control (collectively, the “Website(s)”), regardless ‎of how you access or use them, whether via personal computer, browser, laptop, tablet, mobile ‎phone or other device (each a “Device”).‎  

This policy summarizes Nephrology Specialists IPA’s practices for gathering and disseminating personal information for the Nephrology Specialists IPA Websites.  Personal information is information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a specific individual (e.g., name, address, phone number, email address).

To the extent that we provide you with notice on the Websites of different or additional privacy policies or practices (e.g., at the point of collection), those additional privacy policies or notices shall govern such data collection and use.  

By using or accessing the Websites or by submitting information to Nephrology Specialists IPA, you consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

In addition to reviewing this Privacy Policy, please review our Terms of Use, which governs your use of the Websites. If you do not agree to our Terms of Use and the collection, use, and sharing of your information as detailed in this Privacy Policy, please do not access or otherwise use these Websites or any information or content contained on the Websites.

Nephrology Specialists IPA may change this Privacy Policy at any time.  If we make material changes to this policy, we will post those changes at this location.

By using the Nephrology Specialists IPA Websites, you consent to the collection and use of your information as described in this Privacy Policy.

How does Nephrology Specialists IPA Collect Personal Information?

Nephrology Specialists IPA collects and processes personal information in the following ways:

When individuals visit the Nephrology Specialists IPA Websites, Nephrology Specialists IPA collects and processes information for business purposes as described in this Privacy Policy.

When Nephrology Specialists IPA provides services for a “covered entity” partner (such as a health plan), Nephrology Specialists IPA acts as a “business associate” under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”).  In this capacity, Nephrology Specialists IPA collects, receives, maintains, uses, and discloses Protected Health Information (“PHI”) only as permitted or required by applicable laws and contracts, and our covered entity partner’s privacy notice describes and controls how we collect and process PHI.

What Personal Information Does Nephrology Specialists IPA Collect?

We collect information from you in several ways, including when you choose to share ‎information with us by entering it through our Websites, and by using automated processes.‎ For example, you may need to provide personal information in order to receive customized information or gain access to additional content.  Nephrology Specialists IPA may request and collect contact information, demographic information, transactional information, technical information, and sensory information from virtual visits.  To the extent that Nephrology Specialists IPA receives medical information about you, Nephrology Specialists IPA processes all ‎information subject to applicable law.‎ We also collect information automatically, such as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from all users of our Website, the date and time of access, and potentially the user’s type of computer, browser, or operating system.  

In addition to any information that you choose to submit to us via the Websites, we and our third-‎party service providers may use a variety of technologies that automatically (or passively) store or ‎collect certain information whenever you visit or interact with the Websites (“Usage ‎Information”). This Usage Information may be stored or accessed using a variety of ‎technologies that may be downloaded to your Device whenever you visit or interact with our ‎Websites. To the extent we associate Usage Information with your Personal Information we ‎collect directly from you on the Websites, we will treat it as Personal Information.‎

How Does Nephrology Specialists IPA Use Personal Information?

Contact Information: When permitted by applicable laws and contracts, Nephrology Specialists IPA may use your contact information, such as name, title, employer, mailing address, telephone number, and email address, to contact you regarding our services, provide you with news, updates, and other information, and to send you text messages and emails and contact you if necessary in regards to transactions or services.  Nephrology Specialists IPA does share your contact information with certain business partners in order to provide our services and, when permitted by applicable laws and contracts, for advertising purposes.  For example, we may disclose your information to our communications vendors so that we can send you emails or text messages.  If you do not wish to receive notifications or other information via email, you can choose to opt-out at any time upon receipt of a promotional email.

Demographic Information: When permitted by applicable laws and contracts, Nephrology Specialists IPA may use or share, lease, rent, license, and/or sell aggregated demographic data, which does not identify any particular user with our business partners, suppliers, and for advertising purposes.

Technical Information: Nephrology Specialists IPA uses technical information, such as your IP address or browser type, to help diagnose problems with our servers, analyze website usage trends, track user movements on our Websites, to provide our services, and to manage and monitor our Websites.

Virtual Visits: If you have a virtual visit with a Nephrology Specialists IPA clinician, Nephrology Specialists IPA will receive audio and video images of you and information about your health status.  Nephrology Specialists IPA uses and shares this information as necessary to provide our services (e.g., we will share your results with the “covered entity” and our communications vendors, and our “covered entity” partner’s privacy notice will control how we collect and process your Protected Health Information.

How Does Nephrology Specialists IPA Share Personal Information?

We may share the information that we collect from you, including Personal Information, with third parties for a variety of purposes. For example, we may share information with service providers who assist us in our business operations or with our partners in order to provide you with various products and services. We may also share information where required by law or to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, subpoena, government request, or other legal process. We may also share information with third parties, including law enforcement, to protect the Websites and to enforce our Terms of Use. We also reserve the right to share the information that we collect with our subsidiaries and affiliates and with any subsequent owner in the event of a merger, consolidation, sale of our assets, or other change in our business, including during any due diligence process.  We do not share information about individuals where not otherwise permitted by law.  

(a) Co-Branded Areas.   

We may provide certain parts of our Websites in association with third parties, such as promotional partners or affiliates. These “co-branded areas” will identify the third party. If you choose to use these co-branded areas, we may share your information with the identified third party, and that third party may also collect information from you, in addition to the information that we collect, as described above. You should review the privacy policies of those identified third parties to understand how they collect and use information.

(b) Links to Third-Party Web sites. 

Our Websites may include links to third-party websites or other online services (e.g., via banner advertisements). We are not responsible for these other sites and services, and they may collect and use information about you. You should review the privacy policies for such third parties before using their sites or services to understand how they collect and use information.

(c) Third-Party Tracking and Do Not Track.

Third parties may use tracking technologies in connection with our Websites, which may include the collection of information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites. This Privacy Policy does not apply to these third-party technologies because we may not control them, and we are not responsible for them. Do Not Track is a technology that enables users to opt out of tracking by websites they do not visit. Currently, we do not monitor or take any action with respect to Do Not Track technology.  

Analytics Services and Targeted Ads 

We use third-party analytics services. These services may track details about your online activities over time and across different websites. These services help us to improve our Websites and the products and services that we offer you. These services may also allow us and others to provide you with targeted advertisements or other content that you may be interested in based on your online activities.  If you would like to learn more about targeted ads that may be based on your online activities, and the choices that you may exercise for certain sites and advertisers, you may wish to visit the Network Advertising Initiative or the Digital Advertising Alliance.

Use of Cookies and other Tracking Technologies

Nephrology Specialists IPA may use cookies and other Tracking Technologies on our Websites to personalize and customize the website visitor experience.  A few of the Tracking Technologies include, without limitation, the following (and subsequent technology and methods later developed):

Cookies. A cookie is a data file placed on a Device when it is used to visit our Websites. A Flash cookie (or locally shared object) is a data file placed on a Device via the Adobe Flash plug-in that may be built-in to or downloaded by you to your Device. HTML5 cookies can be programmed through HTML5 local storage.

Web Beacons. Small graphic images or other web programming code called web beacons (also known as “1×1 GIFs” or “clear GIFs”) may be included in our Websites’ pages and messages. Web beacons may be invisible to you, but any electronic image or other web programming code inserted into a page or e-mail can act as a web beacon. Web beacons or similar technologies may be used for a number of purposes, including, without limitation, to count visitors to the Websites, to monitor how users navigate the Websites, to count how many e-mails that were sent were actually opened or to count how many particular articles or links were actually viewed.

Embedded Scripts. An embedded script is programming code that is designed to collect information about your interactions with the Websites, such as the links you click on. The code is temporarily downloaded onto your Device from our web server or a third-party service provider is active only while you are connected to the Websites, and is deactivated or deleted thereafter.

Browser Fingerprinting. Collection and analysis of information from your Device, such as, without limitation, your operating system, plug-ins, system fonts and other data, for purposes of identification.

ETag, or Entity Tag. A feature of the cache in browsers. It is an opaque identifier assigned by a web server to a specific version of a resource found at a URL. If the resource content at that URL ever changes, a new and different ETag is assigned. Used in this manner ETags are a form of Device Identifier. ETag tracking may generate unique tracking values even where the consumer blocks HTTP, Flash, and/or HTML5 cookies.

Recognition Technologies. Technologies, including application of statistical probability to data sets, which attempt to recognize or make assumptions about users and devices (e.g., that a user of multiple devices in the same user).

We use Tracking Technologies for record-keeping purposes, which our Websites transfer to your web browser for storage on your computer hard drive.  Tracking Technologies are used for a variety of purposes, including:

Strictly Necessary. We may use cookies or other Tracking Technologies that we consider are strictly necessary to allow you to use and access our Websites, including cookies required to prevent fraudulent activity and improve security.

Performance Related. We may use cookies or other Tracking Technologies that are useful in order to assess the performance of the Websites, including as part of our analytic practices or otherwise to improve the content, products, or services offered through the Websites.

FunctionalityRelated. We may use cookies or other Tracking Technologies that are required to offer you enhanced functionality when accessing our Websites, including identifying you when you signin to our Websites or keeping track of our specified preferences, including in terms of the presentation of content on our Websites.

TargetingRelated. We may use Tracking Technologies to deliver content relevant to your interests on our Websites and third-party sites based on how you interact with our content. This includes using Tracking Technologies to understand the usefulness to you of the content that has been delivered to you.

Cookies help Nephrology Specialists IPA understand and monitor the usage of our Websites.  We may also use cookies to retrieve information that will help us determine which Nephrology Specialists IPA services are most relevant to you.  We will not use cookies to record passwords, credit card, or other financial information.  Many consider the use of cookies to be an industry standard, and your web browser is likely set to accept cookies.  You can delete any cookies on your hard drive by following the instructions provided by your web browser.  You can also configure your browser to refuse cookies, but please be aware that some areas of our Websites may not function properly if you choose to do so.

Information Security

Nephrology Specialists IPA is committed to making sure that your personal identifying information remains private and secure and is not subject to misuse or manipulation.  We have put industry standard security measures in place on this Website to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of information under our control.  For example, we use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for our registration and ordering functions, and ‎we utilize a PCI-certified service provider to process credit card payments. We also expect our ‎service providers to protect information in the same manner.‎ However, the confidentiality of any information transmitted via the internet cannot be guaranteed, and you should carefully consider whether you want to submit sensitive information via the internet.  Additionally, emails that you send to use may not be secure, and we suggest that you do not send any confidential information to us via email.  If you do choose to send confidential information to Nephrology Specialists IPA via unsecured email, you accept the risk that a third party may intercept your information.  We urge you to take every precaution necessary to protect your personal identifying information online.

Social Security Protection Policy Statement‎ 

Nephrology Specialists IPA seeks to protect the confidentiality of social security numbers (SSNs) by maintaining physical, ‎electronic, and procedural safeguards. We limit access to SSNs to help protect against their loss, ‎misuse or unlawful disclosure. We do not disclose SSNs to third parties except where required or ‎permitted by law.

Users Outside of the United States

Our Websites are operated in the United States and intended for users located in the United States. The privacy and data protection laws in the United States differ from those of other countries. If you are located outside of the United States, please be aware that the information that we collect will be transferred to and processed, stored, and used in the United States and that by using our Websites, you consent to such transfers and processing.

Correcting, Deleting, and Updating Information

If you wish to correct, delete, or update the information you provide to Nephrology Specialists IPA via this Website (e.g., name, address, phone number, email address), you may do so at any time by contacting webmaster@nephrologyipa.com.  You may also contact this address if you no longer wish to receive Nephrology Specialists IPA services or to be included in Nephrology Specialists IPA’s database.  If you do make such a request or change, we may request you confirm or verify any changes to your record.  Please note that Nephrology Specialists IPA requires certain necessary information to provide certain products and services, and the deletion of such necessary information may prevent us from providing a particular service or use of parts of our Websites.

Please note that we reserve the right to send you certain communications relating to your account or use of our services and Websites, such as administrative and service announcements, and these transactional account messages may be unaffected if you choose to opt out from receiving our marketing communications. If you have any questions about the Privacy Policy or practices described in it, please contact us at: support@nephrologyipa.com.

California Privacy Rights

If you are a resident of California, you have additional rights under California law.  We may, from time to time, elect to share certain information about ‎you collected by us on the Websites ‎with third-parties for those third-parties’ direct marketing purposes.  California Civil Code ‎Section 1798.83 permits California residents who have supplied personal ‎information, as defined ‎in the statute, to us to, under certain circumstances, request and obtain ‎certain information ‎regarding our disclosure, if any, of personal information to third-parties for their ‎direct marketing purposes. If this ‎applies, you may obtain the categories of personal information ‎shared and the names and addresses of all third-‎parties that received personal information for their ‎direct marketing purposes during the immediately prior calendar ‎year or to ‎request to opt out of such future sharing.  ‎To make such a request, please provide sufficient ‎information for us to determine if this applies to ‎you, attest to the fact that you are a California ‎resident, and provide a current California address for ‎our response.  You may make this request in ‎writing at: support@nephrologyipa.com.

Children and Website Usage

Nephrology Specialists IPA cares about the safety of children and encourages parents and guardians to monitor their children’s internet use.  Our Websites are intended for general audiences, and we do not knowingly seek or ‎collect personal information from children under the age of eighteen (18). In accordance with the ‎Child Online Privacy Protection Act, in the event that we learn that we have collected personal ‎information from a minor without verification of parental consent, we will ‎delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any personal ‎information from or about a minor, please contact us at support@nephrologyipa.com.

Questions and Comments

If you have any questions or comments about Nephrology Specialists IPA’s Privacy Policy, you may contact us via email at support@nephrologyipa.com.