Privacy Policy


Last modified: September 27, 2011

This Privacy Policy applies to all of the websites offered by SpineCare Consultants, LLC (“SpineCare Consultants”).

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us through our website or write to us at:

Northstar Healthcare Inc.
Legal Department
4120 Southwest Freeway, Suite 150
Houston TX 77027

Collection and Use of Personal Information

Personal information is data that can be used to uniquely identify or contact a single person.

You may be asked to provide your personal information anytime you are in contact with SpineCare Consultants. SpineCare Consultants and its affiliates may share this personal information with each other and use it consistent with this Privacy Policy. They may also combine it with other information to provide and improve our services, content, and advertising.

Here are some examples of the types of personal information SpineCare Consultants may collect and how we may use it.

Collection

  • When you submit an online information request or participate in an online survey, we may collect a variety of information, including your name, mailing address, phone number, email address, contact preferences.

Use

  • By submitting your personal information, Microsurgery Institute may directly contact you by email, phone or via U.S. mail regarding our services. Please see our Terms of Service for full details.
  • The personal information we collect allows us to keep you posted on SpineCare Consultants latest announcements, service offerings, and upcoming events. It also helps us to improve our services, content, and advertising. If you don’t want to be on our mailing list, you can opt out anytime by contacting SpineCare Consultants Management Company, Northstar Healthcare Inc. at 713.355.8641.
  • We also use personal information to help us develop, deliver, and improve our services, content, and advertising.
  • From time to time, we may use your personal information to send important notices, such as communications about changes to our terms, conditions, and policies. Because this information is important to your interaction with SpineCare Consultants, you may not opt out of receiving these communications.
  • We may also use personal information for internal purposes such as auditing, data analysis, research, compliance with government regulations and inquiries, to improve SpineCare Consultants products, services, and customer communications.

Collection and Use of Non-Personal Information

We also collect non-personal information − data in a form that does not permit direct association with any specific individual. We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose. The following are some examples of non-personal information that we collect and how we may use it:

  • We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone where a SpineCare Consultants service is offered so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.
  • We also may collect information regarding user activities on our website and other services. This information is aggregated and used to help us provide more useful information to our patients and to understand which parts of our website and services are of most interest. Aggregated data is considered non-personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.
  • If we do combine non-personal information with personal information the combined information will be treated as personal information for as long as it remains combined.

Cookies and Other Technologies

SpineCare Consultants website, online services, interactive applications, email messages, and advertisements may use “cookies” and other technologies such as pixel tags and web beacons. These technologies help us better understand user behavior, tell us which parts of our website people have visited, and facilitate and measure the effectiveness of advertisements and web searches. We treat information collected by cookies and other technologies as non-personal information. However, to the extent that Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or similar identifiers are considered personal information by local law, we also treat these identifiers as personal information. Similarly, to the extent that non-personal information is combined with personal information, we treat the combined information as personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.

As is true of most websites, we gather some information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, browser type and language, Internet service provider (ISP), referring and exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data.

We use this information to understand and analyze trends, to administer the site, to learn about user behavior on the site, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. SpineCare Consultants may use this information in our marketing and advertising services.

In some of our email messages, we use a “click-through URL” linked to content on the SpineCare Consultants website. When customers click one of these URLs, they pass through a separate web server before arriving at the destination page on our website. We track this click-through data to help us determine interest in particular topics and measure the effectiveness of our customer communications. If you prefer not to be tracked in this way, you should not click text or graphic links in the email messages.

Pixel tags enable us to send email messages in a format customers can read, and they tell us whether mail has been opened. We may use this information to reduce or eliminate messages sent to customers.

Disclosure to Third Parties

At times SpineCare Consultants may make certain personal information available to strategic partners that work with SpineCare Consultants to provide products and services, or that help SpineCare Consultants market to customers.

Service Providers

SpineCare Consultants shares personal information with companies who provide services such as information processing, extending credit, fulfilling customer orders, delivering products to you, managing and enhancing customer data, providing customer service, assessing your interest in our products and services, and conducting customer research or satisfaction surveys.

Others

It may be necessary − by law, legal process, litigation, and/or requests from public and governmental authorities within or outside your country of residence − for SpineCare Consultants to disclose your personal information. We may also disclose information about you if we determine that for purposes of national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public importance, disclosure is necessary or appropriate.

We may also disclose information about you if we determine that disclosure is reasonably necessary to enforce our terms and conditions or protect our operations or users. Additionally, in the event of a reorganization, merger, or sale we may transfer any and all personal information we collect to the relevant third party.

Protection of Personal Information

SpineCare Consultants takes precautions — including administrative, technical, and physical measures — to safeguard your personal information against loss, theft, and misuse, as well as against unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction.

SpineCare Consultants online services use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption on all web pages where personal information is collected. Doing so protects the confidentiality of your personal information while it’s transmitted over the Internet.

When you use some SpineCare Consultants products, services, or applications or post on a SpineCare Consultants forum, chat room, or social networking service, the personal information you share is visible to other users and can be read, collected, or used by them. You are responsible for the personal information you choose to submit in these instances. For example, if you list your name and email address in a forum posting, that information is public. Please take care when using these features.

Integrity and Retention of Personal Information

We will retain your personal information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

Access to Personal Information

You can help ensure that your contact information and preferences are accurate, complete, and up to date by contacting SpineCare Consultants management company, Northstar Healthcare Inc. at 713.355.8641. For other personal information, we make good faith efforts to provide you with access so you can request that we correct the data if it is inaccurate or delete the data if SpineCare Consultants is not required to retain it by law or for legitimate business purposes. We may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive, require disproportionate technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, are extremely impractical, or for which access is not otherwise required by local law.

Children

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have collected the personal information of a child under 13 we will take steps to delete the information as soon as possible.

Third-Party Sites and Services

SpineCare Consultants websites, products, applications, and services may contain links to third-party websites, products, and services. Our products and services may also use or offer products or services from third parties − for example, a third-party iPhone app. Information collected by third parties, which may include such things as location data or contact details, is governed by their privacy practices. We encourage you to learn about the privacy practices of those third parties.

International Users

SpineCare Consultants abides by the “safe harbor” framework set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information collected by organizations in the European Economic Area and Switzerland.