Privacy Policy

The following sets forth Patient Talk’s Privacy Policy, which is intended to foster the maximum degree of candid discussion for users of the Site, while assuring that all those in the ever changing healthcare ecosystem can be confident that their autonomy, their dignity and their privacy will at all times not only respected but protected.   Here we explain how Patient Talk treats your personal information.

How Patient Talk Uses Your Personal Information

This policy covers how Patient Talk treats personal information that Patient Talk collects and receives. Personal information is information about you that is individually identifiable, such as your name, address, email address, or phone number, and that is not otherwise publicly available.

Information Collection And Use

General

Like virtually every website, Patient Talk collects certain information about you when you visit the Patient Talk Site.  We collect data about the fact a certain device located at a specific Internet address has visited Patient Talk.   We do this to help us constantly improve Patient Talk.

We have the ability to collect data not merely on how many people visit our site, but also how they spent their time there: what appears to interest them both least and most.  We can determine that with a fairly high degree of accuracy by simply collecting and then assessing data on usage.  For example, if a large number of visitors choose to spend a long time watching a certain patient’s interview, then that suggests what that person is saying is of significant interest to Patient Talk visitors.  And, of course, the opposite would be true as well.

It is very important that our Patient Talk visitors understand that our being able to know this kind of information does not tell us anything at all about the identity of our visitors.  We only learn that a visitor interacted with Patient Talk in a certain way.  We learn nothing at all about who that visitor was.

We are confident that as people use the Site they will become increasingly comfortable with us, and many will respond positively when we offer them for them to register with us by providing for information such as their name, email address, birth date, gender, zip code, occupation, industry, and personal interests. When a person registers with Patient Talk as a member of our community they will no longer be anonymous.  Patient Talk will not provide any such information to any third party without first obtaining the Patient Talk community members consent to do so, except by operation of law.

Patient Talk may offer informational, commercial and business opportunities to those who indicate to us their interest in them.  In those instances, Patient Talk will collect information about your transactions with us and with some of our business partners, including information about your use of financial such products and services.

Patient Talk automatically receives and records information from your computer and browser, including your IP address, Patient Talk cookie information, software and hardware attributes, and the places at the Site that you visit.

Patient Talk uses such information for the following general purposes: to customize the advertising and content you see, fulfill your requests for products and services, improve our services, contact you, conduct research, and provide anonymous reporting for internal and external clients.

Children

With parental permission, a child under age 13 might have a Patient Talk family account. Visit children’s privacy & family accounts to learn more about children’s privacy on Patient Talk.

Information sharing and disclosure

Patient Talk does not rent, sell, or share personal information about you with other people or with non-affiliated companies except to provide products or services you’ve requested, when we have your permission, or under the following circumstances:

We provide the information to trusted partners who work on behalf of or with Patient Talk under confidentiality agreements. These companies may use your personal information to help Patient Talk communicate with you about offers from Patient Talk and our marketing partners. However, these companies do not have any independent right to share this information.

We provide the information to trusted partners who work on behalf of or with Patient Talk under confidentiality agreements. These companies may use your personal information to help Patient Talk communicate with you about offers from Patient Talk and our marketing partners. However, these companies do not have any independent right to share this information.

When we have a parent’s permission to share the information if the user is a child under age 13.

We respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process (such as law enforcement requests), or to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims.

We believe it is necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of Patient Talk’s terms of use, or as otherwise required by law.

We transfer information about you if Patient Talk is acquired by or merged with another company. In this event, Patient Talk will notify you before information about you is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Patient Talk displays targeted advertisements that are based on personal information. Advertisers (including ad serving companies) may assume that people who interact with, view, or click targeted ads meet the targeting criteria—for example, women ages 18-24 from a particular geographic area.

Patient Talk does not provide personal information to the advertiser when when you interact with or view a targeted ad. However, by interacting with or viewing an ad you are consenting to the possibility that the advertiser will make the assumption that you meet the targeting criteria used to display the ad.

Patient Talk advertisers include financial service providers (such as banks, insurance agents, stock brokers and mortgage lenders) and non-financial companies (such as stores, airlines, and software companies).

Patient Talk works with vendors, partners, advertisers, and other service providers in different industries and categories of business.

Cookies and similar technologies

Patient Talk may set and access Patient Talk cookies on your computer. We may also set and access device identifiers that could include IP address, user agent information (browser version, OS type and version), and device provided identifiers. Once you log into Patient Talk on your device, Patient Talk may recognize your device to provide you with a personalized experience, independent of your device settings.

Learn more

Patient Talk lets other companies that show advertisements on some of our pages set and access their cookies on your computer. Other companies’ use of their cookies and device identifiers is subject to their own privacy policies, not this one. Advertisers or other companies do not have access to Patient Talk’s cookies.  Patient Talk uses web beacons to access Patient Talk cookies inside and outside our network of web sites and in connection with Patient Talk products and services.

Your ability to edit and delete your account information and preferences

You can edit your Patient Talk account information, including your marketing preferences, at any time. You can also modify information you have provided to Patient Talk through the Patient Talk products or services you may use.  New categories of marketing communications might be added to the marketing preferences page from time to time. Users who visit this page can opt out of receiving future marketing communications from these new categories or they can unsubscribe by following instructions contained in the messages they receive.  We reserve the right to send you certain communications relating to the Patient Talk service, such as service announcements, administrative messages and a Patient Talk newsletter, that are considered part of your Patient Talk account, without offering you the opportunity to opt out of receiving them.  You can delete your Patient Talk account by visiting our account deletion page. Please click here to read about information that might possibly remain in our archived records after your account has been deleted.

Confidentiality and security

We limit access to personal information about you to employees who we believe reasonably need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or in order to do their jobs. We have physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal regulations to protect personal information about you.

Changes to this privacy policy

Patient Talk may update this policy. We will notify you about significant changes in the way we treat personal information by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your Patient Talk account or by placing a prominent notice on our site.

Question and suggestions

If you have questions, suggestions, or wish to make any complaint to us, please complete one of the feedback forms furnished below or you can contact us at:

Patient Talk
Customer care – Privacy Policy Issues
376 23rd Street
Santa Monica, CA 90402

If you feel that your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, please click here for information on consumer agencies that may be able to provide you with additional assistance.