Protected Health Information.
Because we are a business associate of certain health insurers and group health plans, we are subject to many of the privacy and security requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA"). SIMPLE HEALTH protects your Protected Health Information as required by HIPAA and SIMPLE HEALTH will not disclose Protected Health Information that you provide via the Website (e.g. information provided on an application or in connection with a policy or a claim) unless one or more of the following conditions are met:
- We receive your prior written authorization. Answers to questions about your medical history and physical condition are required by our insurance carrier partners and will be released to the insurer so that they may underwrite your insurance application. SIMPLE HEALTH will not give or sell such information about you to any other company, individual, or group without your prior authorization.
- We verify that the prospective recipient is you or your authorized representative.
- We are required by law to disclose the information.
- The disclosure is permitted under HIPAA.
Information and Personally Identifiable Information
SIMPLE HEALTH only uses Information, including Personally Identifiable Information, as allowed by law and as described herein. SIMPLE HEALTH protects your Personally Identifiable Information by: not disclosing Personally Identifiable Information about you to anyone except as permitted by law; restricting access to your Personally Identifiable Information to authorized individuals who need to know this information in order to provide services and/or products to you; not allowing employees to share your Personally Identifiable Information outside SIMPLE HEALTH except as authorized by you or for a specific business purpose.The law permits us to share certain Information with (i) our affiliates, (ii) non-affiliate insurance companies, group health plans and insurance service providers, and (iii) companies that perform marketing services for us (including, without limitation, licensed insurance agents and/or brokers). We will share such Information only as permitted by law, and this Information may or may not include Personally Identifiable Information and/or Protected Health Information, and may or may not be directly related to our transaction with you.
SIMPLE HEALTH will use Information about you to help us better serve your insurance needs or to suggest SIMPLE HEALTH services or insurance materials that may be of interest to you.
We may share your Information, which may or may not include Protected Health Information, as permitted by law, among insurance companies, including for routine business administration. As permitted by law, we may share Information, which may or may not include Protected Health Information, with non-affiliated companies such as firms that perform services on our behalf, including the administration and marketing of our products. We require these companies to meet strict privacy standards. We may enter into alliances, partnerships or other business arrangements with third parties who may be given access to Personally Identifiable Information including your name, address, telephone number and e-mail for the purpose of providing you information regarding products and services that we think will be of interest to you. In connection with alliances, partnerships or arrangements, we may also provide certain information to third parties if we have determined that the information will be used in a responsible manner by a responsible third party. We also use third parties to facilitate our business, including, but not limited to, sending e-mail and processing credit card payments.
In connection with these offerings and business operations, our partners and other third parties may have access to your Personally Identifiable Information for use in connection with such business activities. If you choose to send us an e-mail, we will do our best to respond to your request in a timely manner. We may use return e-mail addresses you provide to send e-mails and to answer the e-mail we receive. We may forward your request on to third parties in situations where we cannot answer your question, and may also respond to your e-mail with offers or correspondence which we believe may be relevant to you. If you choose to give us Personally Identifiable Information such as your zip code, e-mail, contact information, etc., we may share this information with third parties to help answer your questions or fulfill your request. We reserve the right to use such data provided to us for any legally permissible purpose. We may use our e-mail lists for sending newsletters and other SIMPLE HEALTH outbound communications, such as product information.
We also reserve the right to use your Personally Identifiable Information to send you e-mails regarding system downtime and/or changes to this Privacy Policy or the Terms and Conditions of Use and you are not permitted to opt out of receiving these e-mail messages. Our management team uses non-personally identifiable information to improve the user experience for all Website visitors. We may analyze site usage statistics to do things such as update our content, alter our navigation, or otherwise customize our site to better serve our visitors. Though we will make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose Personally Identifiable Information when required by law, or if we have a good-faith belief that the action is necessary to comply with a pending judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on SIMPLE HEALTH or to protect our rights or the rights of others, to fight fraud, identity theft, to ensure the integrity and operation of our organization and systems, or to protect the rights, property or safety of SIMPLE HEALTH, its employees, members or others.
You do not need to call, or do anything as a result of this Privacy Policy. It is meant to advise how we safeguard your Information, including your Personally Identifiable Information and your Protected Health Information. The Personally Identifiable Information and Protected Health Information you submit to us through the Website may be processed by us in the country where it was collected as well as other countries (including the United States) where laws regarding the processing of such information may be less stringent than the laws in your country.
Categories of Information That We Collect
Certain of the materials and information provided by SIMPLE HEALTH on the Website is available without SIMPLE HEALTH collecting any Personally Identifiable Information from you. However, SIMPLE HEALTH does collect Personally Identifiable Information and/or Protected Health Information that you provide voluntarily during the course of using the Website. In the normal course of business we may collect the following types of information: information you provide on applications and other forms (including your name and address), which may include Personally Identifiable Information and/or Protected Health Information, including Information you might provide in connection with requesting a quote; data about your transactions with us (such as types of products you have purchased and your account status); and information gathered on our Website through online forms, site visit data and online information-collecting devices such as "cookies" and as further described herein.
When you choose to request a quote for, or request more information about, health insurance or ancillary products, you may provide Information about yourself, including your name, address, age, birthdate, gender, amount of coverage requested, phone number, e-mail address, and other items. This Information is shared with relevant third-parties necessary to fulfill your request. We may share this Information with insurance agencies, insurance brokers, and insurance companies. We do not share this Information with outside parties except to the extent necessary to complete your request such as submitting your application to insurer(s). To the extent that Protected Health Information is provided, such information will be used only as permitted by HIPAA.
Occasionally, SIMPLE HEALTH may conduct marketing surveys or research to help us evaluate products, services, and the changing needs of our customers. SIMPLE HEALTH will only provide such third parties with non-personally identifiable information in connection with such marketing surveys or marketing research.
Cookies, Web Beacons, Clear Gifs, and IP Addresses
SIMPLE HEALTH may also use a feature of your browser called a "cookie." Your cookie automatically identifies your computer - but not you - to our servers when you visit the Website and allows us to correlate your computer with certain usage patterns which are stored in our log files. We may use cookies to gather general, aggregate statistics about the overall popularity and usage of the Website. SIMPLE HEALTH may also use more temporary cookies, often referred to as session cookies, to keep a user logged into the system and aid in the exchange of information between pages without loss of data. Such a cookie, however, is only stored for the current browsing session and is deleted once the browser is closed. Search for Cookies under your Web browser's Help menu for more information on cookie management features available to you. If your browser is set to reject all cookies, the Website may not function properly.
SIMPLE HEALTH may also collect information through the use of clear gifs (also called Web Beacons and Web Bugs) in selected e-mail messages we send to you. These are tiny graphic files, not visible to the human eye, that are included in HTML-based e-mails and used to let us know which e-mails we send are opened. Clear gifs may also see or read cookies on your computer. When authorized by SIMPLE HEALTH, third parties specializing in monitoring aggregate statistical use of the Website with whom we contract, may use cookies, our web log files, web beacons, and other monitoring technologies to compile anonymous aggregate data.
Additionally, we may use IP address information to count and track aggregate visits to the Website, to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer the Website. SIMPLE HEALTH does not link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable, so while a particular user's session can be tracked, the user remains completely anonymous.
Third-party Access and Use
Occasionally, we hire third-party service providers to help provide or improve the services we offer you. Sometimes it is necessary for these providers to have access to the Personally Identifiable Information and/or Personal Health Information we collect about you. In those cases, we take reasonable steps to ensure that these providers do not use or otherwise disclose any Personally Identifiable Information we collect about you except for the purpose of fulfilling their service obligations to us.
We may share aggregate information about Website users with certain third parties. This information shows user activity as a whole rather than on an individual basis; such aggregate information cannot be used to individually identify you. We may use such aggregated information we collect about Website users to continue to improve our service for you
As permitted by law, we may disclose Information, which may or may not include Protected Health Information, to a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution or other sale or transfer of some or all of SIMPLE HEALTH's assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding, in which such information is among the assets transferred. The acquiring entity will be subject to this Privacy Policy and to the law in its use of your Information, including any possible use of your Personally Identifiable Information and Protected Health Information, to the extent that any such information is transferred.
Accuracy of Your Information
We strive to maintain the accuracy of Information, including Personal Health Information and Protected Health Information, that is in our possession about you. In order to help us maintain accuracy, you have the right to reasonably access your Information, including Protected Health Information. If you believe any Information in our possession, including any Protected Health Information, is inaccurate, a request can be made to amend or delete such information that you believe to be erroneous. If we concur with the request, we will amend or delete the information in question.
Certain users of the Website may review and make changes to some of the Personally Identifiable Information that we collect and maintain online by simply logging in to the Website by inputting their username and password where indicated and following the instructions provided.
You can also correct factual errors in your Personally Identifiable Information by sending us a request that clearly shows the error that is to be corrected. Please contact us with such requests at: 1-954-874-9602; cs-simple@simplehealthplans.com. To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections. In addition, you may be prompted at certain times on the Website to update and correct your Personally Identifiable Information with us. It is your responsibility to keep the information that you provide to us current and accurate.
Other Websites and Links
The Website contains links to other websites that are not operated by SIMPLE HEALTH. Please note that when you click on a link to one of these sites, you are exiting the Website to go to another site. SIMPLE HEALTH is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of these websites. We suggest that you read the privacy policies of these sites, as their practices and policies may differ from ours.
Our Commitment To Data Security
To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of Personally Identifiable Information and Protected Health Information, we have put in place reasonable physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the Personally Identifiable Information we collect online and we make good faith efforts to store your Personally Identifiable Information in a secure operating environment. We comply with HIPAA security requirements with respect to safeguarding and securing your Protected Health Information. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be absolutely secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your Personally Identifiable Information and Protected Health Information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. If SIMPLE HEALTH provides you with a user name and password to access portions of the Website, SIMPLE HEALTH disclaims any responsibility for a breach of privacy as a result of your willingly or inadvertently disclosing your user name and password to others. SIMPLE HEALTH further disclaims any responsibility for a breach of privacy as a result of your willingly or inadvertently disclosing your policy number(s) and social security number, which may in some instances be used to access Personally Identifiable Information or Protected Health Information on the Website. If someone calls you, explains the call is on behalf of SIMPLE HEALTH and asks for your policy number or social security number, you should beware.