Privacy Policy
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At Healism.com, we understand that sharing your personal information online takes a great deal of trust. We take online privacy with extreme caution, and we strive to ensure the security and confidentiality of your personal information as detailed in the privacy policy below. By visiting our site at www.healism.com ("HMT"), you are implicitly acknowledging and accepting the practices described herein. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, HMT refers to our website and/or our corporate identity.
This Privacy Policy applies to the HMT website only. Since the HMT site contains links to other sites ("External Links") not protected under this privacy policy, once you click on a link, whether through an advertisement, content link, or any other means, you are no longer protected under this privacy policy. HMT is not responsible for the privacy practices of the other sites to which we link, so we encourage you to read and understand the privacy terms of every website you visit through an External Link from HMT. Additionally, if and only if you give your explicit and direct consent, HMT may share information among sites with which we partner, but we will never do so without your permission.
While you may use some of the features of the HMT site without registering, many of the specific services and tools on our website require registration. If you use our Web site without registering, the only information we collect will be Non-Personal Information through the use of Cookies and/or Advertising Trackers. If you choose to register with HMT, we require you to submit Personally Identifiable Information, and you are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the Personally Identifiable Information and Personal Health Information you submit to HMT. Inaccurate information will affect the information you receive when using our site as well as our ability to contact you as described in this Privacy Policy; if, for instance, your email address is not current, we may be completely unable to contact you.
We reserve the right to make non-material changes to the Privacy Policy that do no affect your Personally Identifiable Information or Personal Health Information, in which case HMT is under no obligation to notify you of such changes. We will inform you if we make a significant change to this Privacy Policy (i.e. a change that expands the permissible uses or disclosures of Personally Identifiable Information or Personal Health Information) by either sending a notice to the email address you provided to us or by placing a prominent notice on HMT. Your continued use of HMT indicates your acceptance of these changes. If you do not accept any of the terms of this Privacy Policy, you may choose to discontinue your use of HMT. Please exit the site immediately if you do not agree to any of the terms of this Privacy Policy.
NON-PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM YOU
Even if you do not register with HMT, we reserve the right to collect Non-Personal Information (Cookies and Advertising Trackers) when you use our web site. Such information is collected for all users but does not personally identify you by name.
a. Cookies
When you use HMT, we may use Cookies, anonymous identification numbers, in any one or more of the following ways: (1) to generate dynamically the content we display for you, (2) to monitor how many users open our emails, (3) to monitor how man users explore which pages of HMT, (4) to monitor how many users click on which advertisements and to generate dynamically advertisements that are most relevant to you, (5) to facilitate the login process, (6) to aid with navigation of the site, and (7) to serve as session timers. You can always choose not to receive a cookie file by enabling your Web browser to reject cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie. Please note that if you refuse to accept cookies from HMT, you may be unable to access many of the specific tools offered on our site, even though you can still use our site effectively and productively. In short, Cookies help us to deliver the content to you that is most relevant to your queries.We do not connect Non-Personal Information from Cookies to Personally Identifiable Information without your permission, and we do not use Cookies to collect or store personal health information about you.
b. Advertising Trackers
We also may use Advertising Trackers (such as Web Beacons, single-pixel/one-by-one/1 x 1 GIFs, clear GIFs, clear pixels, or web bugs) to collect Non-Personal Information about your use of our Web site, the Web sites of selected sponsors and advertisers, and your use of special promotions or newsletters. The information collected by Advertising Trackers can be used in any one or more of the following ways: (1) to allow us to determine accurately how many people are using HMT as well as selected sponsors' and advertisers' sites, (2) to determine how many people open our emails, and (3) to determine the purposes for which these actions are being taken. Our Advertising Trackers are not used to track your activity outside of the HMT domain or those of our sponsors'. We will never link Non-Personal Information from Advertising Trackers to Personally Identifiable Information without your permission and do not use Web Beacons to collect or store personal health information about you.
In addition, third-party sponsors or advertisers on HMT may use Advertising Trackers in any one or more of the following ways: (1) to measure the effectiveness of their ads, (2) to analyze, modify, and personalize advertising content on HMT, and (3) to provide ads about goods and services we hope will be of interest to you. In some instances, information collection may be facilitated by momentarily directing your browser to the Web site of a third party advertiser or other third party acting on behalf of the sponsor, partner, or advertiser before silently re-directing your browser to its selected destination (e.g., back to HMT to show the advertisement, or perhaps to a third party website); this re-direction process will occur without being immediately apparent to most users. These companies may also collect Non-Personal Information about you, and we do not control the use or management of the non-personal information they gather about you. Since this information is collected by third party advertisers, we do not have access to or control over the Advertising Trackers they may use, and the information practices of these other web sites are not covered by this Privacy Policy. For example, the "Sponsored Links" furnished by Google may collect non-personal information sent by your browser to Google when you click on a sponsored link or submit a query, and this information may be used by Google as described in its privacy policy. Please review the specific privacy policies of the web sites you visit from External Links on HMT for more information about how they collect and handle information about you.
c. Computer and Connection
We also reserve the right to determine what type of computer and web browser you are using, what web site referred you, and what your connection speed is. This information is collected purely to enhance your experience on our web site.
PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM YOU
We receive and store any information you enter on HMT or give us in any other way, whether by email, postal mail, phone, or any other means--including information that can personally identify you ("Personal Information"), such as your first and last name, telephone number, postal and email addresses, health questions, health topics of interest, and any other information you may give us. When you register as a member of HMT and/or when you update your member profile, we will have access to any personal information you submit to us. We use the Personally Identifiable Information that you provide to respond to your questions, provide you the specific services you select, send you emails about our web site, and inform you of significant changes to this Privacy Policy. You can always decide not to provide information to us, but in order to register with our site some information about you is required; additionally, the Personal Information you provide to us allows us to provide you with a customized user experience, to show you products and services that will be of the greatest interest to you, and answer your questions more effectively. At this time, we do not collect any financial information such as credit card information; if any External Link you click asks you for such information, it is NOT affiliated with HMT and is protected by the privacy policy of that web site only.
a. Emails You Send to HMT
When you send us information by email, we may use that information to appropriately address your specific health concerns. For instance, if you send us a question regarding a medical procedure, hospital, doctor, cost, or any other medical tourism concern, we may refer your question to appropriate hospitals, doctors, and/or other medical facilities or professionals for a suitable answer, although we make no guarantee that we will do so. By emailing us, you are explicitly giving us permission to use your personally identifiable information to our discretion in finding a response to your inquiry. Additionally, this Privacy Policy does not apply to content, business information, ideas, concepts, or inventions that you send to HMT by email. If you want to keep any such information private or proprietary, do not send them in an email to HMT. We try to answer every email within 24 business hours, but are not always able to do so.
b. Public Forums
HMT features public forums (also known as message boards) in which users with similar interests or medical conditions can share knowledge or ask questions of one another. Any information that you share in these forums, including personal information about your particular health questions and concerns, can be accessed by anyone visiting our site; the public forum does NOT constitute a private, secure venue for discussion. Before disclosing any personal information about you or your health conditions in our public forum, think carefully about the public accessibility of such information. What you have posted may be seen or collected by third parties and may be used by others in various manners that we are unable to control or predict, including to contact you for unauthorized purposes. As with any public forum on any site, this information may also appear in third-party search engines, including but not limited to Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com, and AOL.
c. Newsletters and Emails to You
When you register and/or at various times as you access HMT, you will be given the option of receiving either one-time or recurring newsletters or emails from HMT and/or directly from third parties, such as hospitals, medical facilities, and other medical tourism companies with which we are affiliated. In order to receive these newsletters or emails from HMT, we will request and record your contact information, including such information as your name, email address, mailing address, and other personal information. You can unsubscribe from any of our recurring newsletters or emails by simply clicking on the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of any email. In some cases, if you click a link or an advertisement on our site or in an email, your browser may momentarily direct to the website of a third party which, acting on behalf of HMT, counts your response to the email or newsletter before redirecting your browser to the desired destination; most of the time, this redirection process will not be apparent to you. When you use any of the email links on HMT, HMT will email the article or other content you select to the email address you designate, identifying your email address as the sender. Furthermore, while HMT will use the email address you provide to send the particular email you request, we will not subscribe that email address to any recurring email or newsletter from us.
d. Composite Data
HMT may combine, in a non-personally-identifiable format, any information you provide to us in order to create Composite Data that may be disclosed or sold to third parties. Composite Data does not contain any personal information that could be used to contact or identify you, but rather the type of information you may have requested in the past. For example, HMT may use the information we gather from you to create a composite profile of all the users who have selected to receive information about a certain type of medical procedure in a certain country ("35% of medical tourists in Thailand are females between the ages of 40 and 50"). These third party web sites may use this information to understand the needs of our users as an aggregate whole in order to design appropriate programs and activities on their site. HMT will not disclose your personal information to any third party without your prior permission, except as otherwise permitted by this Privacy Policy.
HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION
HMT may use other information about you (1) to provide you with the products and services you request, (2) to communicate with you in general, (3) to respond to your questions and comments, (4) to measure interest in and improve our products, services, and web site, (5) to notify you about special offers and products or services that may be of interest to you, (6) to otherwise customize your experience with HMT, (7) to enforce our Terms and Conditions; and (8) as otherwise described to you at the point of collection.
Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy or as specifically agreed to by you, HMT will not disclose any information about you unless you specifically direct us to do so on our website. HMT may share information about you with one or more of the following organizations, according to the preference you select on our information form:
a. Hospitals, medical facilities, dental offices, and other medical service providers ("Medical Service Providers"): organizations from which you express an interest in receiving information. When you fill out and submit a form on our website that asks for any personal information, submit only the information that you might want us to share with these third party Medical Service Providers. We will process your information and filter it according to the specific procedure and/or destination(s) you specify on our form, and use that to identify the Medical Service Providers who can most appropriately answer your questions or concerns. HMT does not provide medical services, yet we are affiliated with thousands of Medical Service Providers throughout the world and can connect you with the Medical Service Providers most appropriate to your needs. Any information you disclose to these third-party Medical Service Providers is not protected by our Terms and Conditions or by this Privacy Policy, and we do not endorse and we are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third party organizations.
b. Travel agents, airlines, hotels, spas, resorts, and other medical tourism guides and agents ("Medical Tourism Companies"): organizations which can help you to coordinate your medical tourism trip to the destination(s) of your choice. Any information you disclose to these third-party Medical Service Providers is not protected by our Terms and Conditions or by this Privacy Policy, and we do not endorse and we are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third party organizations.
HMT provides links to sites run by third party websites that may pay us commissions based on sales of products or services generated through HMT. An example of this would be the “Medical Tourism Links,” advertisements provided from Google or our other advertising partners on many of our pages. There may also be links to other third party organizations within our content, in banner advertisements, or placed beside the names or logos of sponsors. If you click on one of these links, any personal information you provide on those third party websites is not governed by this Privacy Policy, and we strongly encourage you to review the privacy policies of those websites before submitting any personal information.
HMT also may share your information:
c. Legal Compulsion: In response to legal proceedings, such as subpoenas, court orders, or search warrants; to establish or exercise our legal rights; to defend against legal claims; or as otherwise required by law. In such cases we reserve the right to raise or waive any legal objection or right available to us.
d. Investigations: When it is appropriate to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal or suspected illegal activities; to defend or assert the rights, property, or safety of our organization, our customers, or others; and in connection with our Terms and Conditions. Should we be legally compelled to disclose your personal information to a third party, we will attempt to notify you about such an action unless doing so would violate the law or court order.
e. Corporate Transactions: In connection with a corporate transaction--such as a merger, divestiture, or asset sale--or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy.
HOW YOU CAN ACCESS YOUR INFORMATION
You can access your personal information by logging into our website using the username and password you provided. You also can add or update information on this page. As discussed above, you can choose not to provide us with any information, although it may be helpful to make travel arrangements or to take advantage of certain features on our website. For instance, when you register as a member on HMT, you will be given the option of receiving email messages from HMT about special offers. As a registered HMT member, you can modify your choice at any time. Even if you registered as an HMT member, you will still be given the opportunity to unsubscribe from commercial messages in any such email we send. Please note that we reserve the right to send you other communications, including service announcements, administrative messages, and surveys relating either to your HMT account, without offering you the opportunity to opt out of receiving them.
If you have a complaint or problem, please contact us using our contact us form. We make every attempt to respond to emails within 48 hours, but we are not always able to do so. If you would like to remove your personal information entirely from our database, please email us accordingly. To verify your identity before removing your information, we require you to send a signed statement including your name, email address, mailing address, and birth year to the address or fax number we provide to you after you make such a request. After we receive your letter, we will make every attempt to remove your personal information within one (1) week after which you will no longer be actively associated with our website. Nonetheless, it may be impossible for us to remove every instance of information associated with you from all of our records, including log files and history digests, though the information exists for our internal purposes only and will not be shared with other parties. We will notify you after we remove your personal information.
If you chose to have us share your information with a third party Medical Service Provider or Medical Tourism Company, you will have to contact them directly in order to remove your information from their databases. We do not maintain control over the databases of the organizations with which we partner, and thus we cannot reasonably control the removal of your personal information from the databases of those organizations.
HOW WE PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION
We want you to feel confident about using HMT to plan and your medical tourism trip, so we are deeply committed to protecting the information we collect. While no website can guarantee complete security, we have implemented appropriate administrative, technical, and physical security procedures to help protect the personal information you provide to us. Only a small handful of authorized employees are permitted to access your personal information, and these individuals may do so solely for business functions as outlined in this Privacy Policy, our Terms and Conditions, or as we deem reasonably appropriate. In addition, we employ firewalls and intrusion detection systems to help prevent unauthorized parties from gaining access to your information by hacking into our system, and our server is located at a secure facility that cannot be accessed except by authorized personnel.
In order to access your information, we require you to use a unique username and password, and we strongly encourage you to use a separate avatar or nickname when using our public forums to post questions. We will never ask you for credit card information or any other financial data, though the third parties with which we partner may require such information from you.
There is always a risk that an unauthorized third party may gain access to your information by bypassing our security measures or by intercepting the transmission of your information over the Internet. For example, a spyware program that you may have inadvertently installed on your computer may be logging your keystrokes and sending the information to an unauthorized third party.
CHILDREN'S PRIVACY
HMT does not cater to children under the age of 13, and we are deeply committed to protecting the privacy of children. Should a child whom we know to be under the age of 13 send personal information to us, we will use that information only to respond directly to that child to inform him or her that we must have parental consent before receiving his or her personal information. Neither HMT nor any of its affiliates nor services are designed or intended to attract children under the age of 13. Should a person under the age of 13 require medical tourism information, we encourage that child's parent or legal guardian to establish an account for the minor, and it becomes that parent's responsibility to monitor the use of such an account. The parent or guardian is also responsible for maintaining the accuracy of any information so submitted. Furthermore, any information that HMT or any of our affiliates provides is directed at the parent or guardian, whom we hold responsible for interpreting and using that information. We take no responsibility for a child who knowingly falsifies his or her information in order to obtain information from us or from any of our partner websites.
HOW YOU CAN CONTACT US
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, your medical travel plans, or any other concerns, email us using our contact us form.
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