Behavioral Healthcare Options, Inc. (BHO) is very sensitive to privacy
issues. We respect your right to privacy and feel it is important for you to
know how we handle the information we receive from you via the Internet. In
general, you can visit www.bhoptions.com without revealing any
personal information about yourself. If you choose to provide BHO with
personal information, it may be necessary in some cases for us to provide your
information to our contractors or agents in order to respond to your
inquiry.
Customer Information Practices Statement
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
BHO is a health and well-being company that provides products and
services to help our customers improve health care treatment, delivery, and
financing. In our operations, we often possess personal information that
identifies individuals and other proprietary information about our customers'
operations. Preservation of, and respect for, our customers' trust is critical
to our continued success. Therefore, we will always treat such information:
- Confidentially, according to applicable laws.
- Appropriately, according to the promises we make to our customers.
- Respectfully, according to our concern for the sensitive nature of such
information.
Policies
INFORMATION SECURITY:
We maintain appropriate physical, electronic, and administrative security
standards and procedures to safeguard our data and systems. Our employees are
educated on the importance of our privacy and security policies and must comply
with them. Employees are permitted to access and use only that personal and
proprietary information they need to perform their job duties.
Information Processing:
We try to use only the amount of personal and proprietary information
necessary for research, analytical, or derivative product development purposes
that are consistent with:
- Our core business mission to provide high-quality products and services to
our customers
- Our contractual and legal obligations to customers, data controllers, and
individuals from whom we receive such information
- Applicable law
We have procedures to maintain the integrity and confidentiality of
information while in our care.
- When we receive personal information from customers or other data
controllers, we rely on their obligations to provide individuals with any
required notice and consent for the intended purpose or we obtain additional
consent/authorization as necessary. We process personal information in
accordance with an individual's informed consent, national laws, and
international guidelines governing human subjects protection. Research using
personal information is approved by an institutional review board, ethics
committee, or privacy board where and as required by law.
- When we collect personal information directly from individuals on behalf
of a customer, we will provide such individuals with:
- Notice about the intended use and disclosure of their information
- Choice before using or disclosing their information for any other
purpose
- The ability to access and correct their information where required by
law
De-Identified Data:
We remove, encode, or encrypt individual identifiers from personal
information to the fullest extent possible consistent with its intended use. In
some cases, we receive personal information from customers and data controllers
for the purpose of de-identifying it on their behalf. We anonymize such data
using statistical techniques to create aggregated norms or benchmarks, such as
hospital performance measures or benchmark insurance charges in a regional area.
Clinical Communications: We may partner with customers such as health plans
and health care providers to help them inform patients about treatment options
such as clinical trials. We also may partner with customers to help them provide
information on health-related products and services of potential interest to
their consumers. We will not use personal information for such purposes
unless:
- The activity is permitted by law
- The activity promotes health and well-being
- Individuals are given the opportunity to "opt-out" of the program or to
"opt-in" to the program where required by law or by the customer or data
controller.
In addition:
We will not distribute information or solicitations to consumers enrolled in
government health care programs for purposes other than assisting a customer in
carrying out treatment, payment, or health care operations, unless approved in
advance by the sponsoring government agency and requested by the individual
without any solicitation on our part.
We will not solicit or provide
information to consumers based on their status with or at risk for mental
health, substance abuse, or HIV/AIDS, unless we are acting on behalf of a
customer who has obtained appropriate consent/authorization or is otherwise
legally authorized to make such contact, or when approved by an institutional
review board or privacy board for research purposes in accordance with
applicable law.
Information Disclosure:
We will not disclose personal or proprietary information, which we obtain in
the course of providing products and services to our customers, to any third
party except: (1) as required by law, or (2) consistent with applicable law and
our obligations to the customer, data controller and/or individual from whom we
received the information, as follows:
- We may disclose personal information to a service provider to perform a
specific service on our behalf, but only when consistent with this policy and
subject to a contract that:
- Prohibits them from using the information for any other purpose;
- requires them to conform to our privacy and security obligations; and
- allows for an audit of their compliance.
- We will not share one customer's information with another customer, except
at the customer's direction or as part of de-identified aggregated norms. At
the direction of a customer, such as an employee benefit plan sponsor, we will
disclose the customer's information to its other service providers, from its
service providers back to the customer, or to other entities participating
with the customer in an organized health care arrangement. The other entities
may also be our customers.
- We disclose personal information about clinical investigators and encoded
patient data from clinical research trials to the study sponsor in accordance
with the individual's consent or contract. Personal or proprietary information
may be included in assets transferred as part of a merger or sale of the
company's assets.
Web Site Privacy:
We do not identify visitors to our World Wide Web site unless they choose to
identify themselves, such as to obtain information about products or clinical
trials.
- Our Web site may deposit a small file called a "cookie" on a visitor's
computer hard drive to personalize their experience or track aggregate site
visitation statistics. Visitors may choose to use technologies to block such
"cookies," but in some cases they may not have access to the full
functionality of the Web site.
- We may record a Web site visitor's Internet Protocol (IP) address for
security reasons and to evaluate how our Web site is being used. We do not use
IP addresses to identify individuals.
Our Web site is not designed to attract children; we do not collect or
maintain information from our Web site from individuals that we actually know
are under the age of 13 years.
Certain portions of this Web site are
configured to permit users to post messages, comments, or other content. Any
such content is only the opinion of the poster, is no substitute for your own
research, and should not be relied upon for any purpose. You should not post any
content:
- which is profane, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent,
lewd, harassing, threatening, harmful, invasive of privacy or publicity
rights, abusive, inflammatory, or otherwise objectionable; or
- the transmission of which could violate, or facilitate the violation of,
any applicable law, regulation, or intellectual property rights.
You are solely responsible for the content of any postings you submit
and BHO assumes no responsibility or liability for any content submitted by
you. We may, but are not obligated to, restrict or remove any and all content
from a message that we determine in our sole discretion violates these
guidelines or is otherwise harmful to us, BHO customers, or any third
party. BHO reserves the right to purge the content you provide after 90
days of creation, but you understand that BHO may access, preserve, and
disclose the content if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that
such access, preservation, or disclosure is required by law.
Any content you submit is for non-commercial use only. Any content you submit
will be routed through the Internet and you understand and acknowledge that you
have no expectation of privacy with regard to any content you submit. Never
assume that you are anonymous and cannot be identified by your posts.
If you
do post content or submit material, and unless we indicate otherwise, you
grant BHO and its affiliates a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual,
irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt,
publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such
content throughout the world in any media. You grant BHO and its affiliates
and sublicensees the right to use the name that you submit in connection with
such content, if they choose. You represent and warrant that you own or
otherwise control all of the rights to the content that you post; that the
content is accurate; that use of the content you supply does not violate these
Terms and Conditions and will not cause injury to any person or entity; and that
you will indemnify BHO or its affiliates for all claims resulting from
content you supply.