BecomeHealthyNow.com Privacy Policy

BecomeHealthyNow.com understands how important the privacy of personal information is to our customers. BecomeHealthyNow.com is committed to honoring your privacy, and to offering special protections for any personal health information you choose to share with us. The document you are reading is our privacy policy for our Web sites that are accessible by consumers, and it describes what information we may collect about you, what uses we may make of it, how you can tell us what to do with your information, and what precautions we take against unauthorized access or use of your information.

About this Privacy Policy

Web Sites Covered

This privacy policy applies only to our Web sites that may be used by consumers and that provide health care information and services. Here is a list of those sites:

BecomeHealthyNow.com (www.BecomeHealthyNow.com) is our Web site for patients and allied health care professionals. BecomeHealthyNow.com provides health-related articles, reference tools, medical and clinical information and resources, medical news, medical conference coverage, treatment updates, and accredited continuing education for healthcare professionals. It also has tools intended only for the use of a trained healthcare professional.

BecomeHealthyNow.com is also the name we use to refer to our company. When we refer to ourselves as "we" or "BecomeHealthyNow.com," we mean our entire company, including any company that we control (for example, a subsidiary that we own). We may share information among our subsidiaries that we own or control, but it is always protected under the terms of this privacy policy.

This privacy policy only applies to BecomeHealthyNow.com Web sites. You should read the privacy policy at each Web site that you visit after you leave one of our sites. We are not responsible for how other Web sites treat your privacy, once you leave a BecomeHealthyNow.com site.

As our privacy policies change in significant ways, we will make every effort to notify you of the changes. Minor changes to the policy may occur that will not affect our use of individually identifiable health information. When the privacy policies change in a way that significantly affects the way we handle personal information, we will not use the information we have previously gathered without obtaining consent from the appropriate individual. We will post privacy policy changes on our Web sites in a timely manner.

Information We Collect

In this section of our privacy policy, we discuss the different types of information we may collect about you, and the ways in which we collect them.

Information We Collect from Unregistered Visitors

Visitors to each of our Web sites can access the Web site's home page, and browse some areas of the site, without disclosing any personally identifiable information. We do track information provided to us by your browser, including the Web site you came from (known as the "referring URL"), the type of browser you use, the time and date of access, and other information that does not personally identify you. On most of our sites, you must register with us to use all of the site.

Information We Collect When You Register

Customers registering for services on our Web sites are asked to provide us with identifying information, such as name, gender, contact information, and other identifying information. On our registration screen, we clearly label which information is required for registration, and which information is optional and may be given at your discretion. You will also be given a choice about whether or not you want to receive newsletter information. BecomeHealthyNow.com Web sites will ask for the customer's consent before collecting personally identifiable information.

Information from Outside Sources

We may also collect information about physicians or other healthcare professionals who register on our Web sites from other sources in order to verify their licensure status and identity. In some cases we may ask customers for information after they register, such as credit card information. Where necessary (for example, to process an order for a purchase), our Web sites may contact financial or credit organizations to confirm customer credit card information.

Other Information

Discussion Boards: When you are using a discussion board on our Web sites, you are posting a message and your user name, which is available for all registered users to see. When you are posting publicly, any user of our web site can see your message. You should not post any information you want to keep private to a discussion board or other public forum on our Web sites.
Tools: On some of our Web sites, we offer health assessment tools that ask you to provide self-assessment information. Many of our tools provide you with the option of storing health information you provide over time on our servers. For example, you can use our nutrition tools to track weight and diet over a period of months or even years. We store this information on our computers. Some of our tools do not allow storage of information (for example, our clinical calculators on BecomeHealthyNow.com). We will always make it clear to you when information you provide to us through a tool will be saved.
Member Lookup: When you are registering as a member, you have a choice about whether or not you want other members to be able to look you up and send you messages. If you opt not to be listed, no other members will be able to look you up.
Additional Forms and Emails: We may also ask you to provide additional information after you register if you want to obtain additional services or information or to resolve complaints or concerns.

In addition, we gather information about you that is automatically collected by our Web server, such as your IP address and domain name. BecomeHealthyNow.com will use this information to personalize its offerings and presentations to you, facilitate your movements throughout our site, provide personalized services, and to communicate with you individually.

Health Information and Medical Record Information

In regards medical records, we allow you to enter health information about yourself. For example, when performing a Symptom Survey Analysis or a Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis, this data is considered to be medical records. We will always give you a copy of any test that is performed and we detail all telephone consultations so that a permanent medical record is established.

When you create your own health record with BecomeHealthyNow.com, you have control over who besides yourself may see the record. You have a choice whether or not to give your physician or other healthcare professional the right to see what you have in your record, and you also control who has access to your login and password.

Use of Cookies

Cookies are a technology used by the BecomeHealthyNow.com Web sites to identify a user as the user moves through the Web site. Your browser allows us to place some information on your computer's hard drive that identifies the computer you are using. We use cookies to personalize our Web sites and to track your usage across all of our Web sites.

Your Web browser can be set to allow you to control whether you will accept cookies, reject cookies, or to notify you each time a cookie is sent to you. If your browser is set to reject cookies, Web sites that are cookie enabled will not recognize you when you return to the Web site, and some Web site functionality may be lost. The Help section of your browser will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting cookies.

Although cookies do not normally contain personally identifiable information, if you are a registered user we may associate your registration information with cookies our Web site places on your computer's hard drive. Associating a cookie with your registration data allows us to offer increased personalization and functionality. For example, you can elect to have our Web sites "remember" your user name and password and bypass the sign-in process on each visit to the site. Without cookies, this functionality would not be possible.

Some of our business partners may use cookies on our site (for example, advertisers.) We have told them that we do not want them to use cookie information to track our customer's activities once they leave our sites. However, because of the way advertisements are served on our Web sites, we do not have total control over how advertisers use cookies on our Web site. If you become aware that a BecomeHealthyNow.com advertiser is placing an unwanted cookie on your hard drive, please contact our privacy officer to assist us in resolving the problem.

Children's Privacy

BecomeHealthyNow.com's Web sites are designed and intended for use by adults, and are not intended for, nor designed to be used by children under the age of 18. Minors under the age of 18 may register for our Web sites that collect or present personal healthcare information only with the prior written consent of their parent or legal guardian, and then only under the direct supervision of that parent or guardian. The parent or guardian is responsible for providing supervision to ensure the minor's authentication information is kept secure and the credibility of the health record is maintained. We do not collect personally identifiable information from any person we know is a child under the age of 13.

Uses We Make of Information

In this section of our privacy policy, we identify the ways we may use information about you that we have collected.

Aggregate Data

We create aggregate data about visitors to our Web sites for product development and improvement activities. We also use it for market analysis. We may provide information from our Web sites in aggregate form, with identifying information removed, to third parties. For example, we may tell a health care partner what percentage of our registered users reside in a particular geographical area. When aggregated health information is provided, we pool it from many individual records and strip it of any data that could be used to identify an individual before it is used. Any third party that receives aggregated health care data must agree not to attempt to re-identify the people it belongs to. For example, we may provide information to a potential advertiser of a product that would appeal to a diabetes patient about what percentage of our users have diabetes. Depending on our agreement with the third parties, we may or may not charge for this information.

Marketing and Advertising

We may target our advertising or marketing depending on information we have about you. For example, a user we know is a woman may receive advertising for products targeted at women that a male user will not see, or a user that we know is a healthcare professional who treats diabetes may receive advertising for new diabetes therapies (although in neither case will the advertiser have access to any individually identifiable information about you).

We may also personalize our Web site based on your interests. For example, you may see different articles in different places on our Web site based on information you have shared with us, or information we have gained by observing your previous behavior, or information we may have gained from your interactions with a third party that shares information with us. We use information for our own internal marketing, research, and related purposes.

Third Parties

In addition to aggregate information (discussed previously), we may share some kinds of information with third parties as described below.

Other Companies: We have strategic relationships with other companies who offer products and services on our Web site. When you are interacting with those companies, different rules and privacy policies may apply. For example, if you order a book from a bookstore on one of our sites, you will be asked to provide identifying information and credit card information to the company that runs the bookstore. We do not control the collection or use of information you provide under those circumstances, but we do require that those companies clearly state their policies so you can decide whether to give them any information.
Companies and People Who Work for Us: Because we are expanding to become a large company, we contract with other companies and individuals to help us provide services. For example, we may host some of our Web sites on another company's computers, hire technical consultants to maintain our Web-based health tools, or work with companies to remove repetitive information from customer lists, analyze data, provide marketing assistance, and provide customer service. In addition, if you are a healthcare professional, we may validate your licensure status and other information against available databases that list licensed health care professionals. In order to perform their jobs, these other companies may have limited access to some of the personal information we maintain about our users. We require all such companies to comply with the terms of our privacy policies, to limit their access to any personal information to the minimum necessary to perform their obligations, and not to use the information they may access for purposes other than fulfilling their responsibilities to us. We use our best efforts to limit the use of other companies in areas where personally identifiable healthcare information may be involved.
Promotional Offers: Sometimes we send offers to selected groups of customers on behalf of other businesses. When we do this, we do not give that business your name and address. We provide a variety of mechanisms for you to tell us you do not want to receive such promotional offers. For example, we may provide an opt-in box for consumers to receive an email from another business, and we make clear that by opting in you are submitting your data to a third party. You can elect to not receive promotional material from us by updating your member profile.
Business Transfers: If we transfer a business unit (such as a subsidiary) or an asset (such as a Web site) to another company, we will require them to honor the applicable terms of this privacy policy.
Legal Requirements: We may release account and other personal information when we believe release is required to comply with law. We may release personal health information, including information from a medical record, , if, in our judgment after review by an attorney, the release is compelled by law or regulation, or if the release is necessary to prevent the death or serious injury of an individual.
Medical Records: BecomeHealthyNow.com will only use identifiable health information from a medical record for reasons agreed to by the consumer/patient, and the healthcare provider. We will not disclose identifiable health information from patients' medical records to an unrelated third party unless that disclosure is authorized by the caregiver for medical purposes, for treatment of the patient, or payment of claims, or if the patient authorizes it.

When we share information with third parties, we ask that they agree in writing to abide by BecomeHealthyNow.com's privacy policies.

If we discover that a third party inadvertently disclosed personal information about any of our customers, we will take immediate action to prevent further occurrences.

Other than the cases described above, BecomeHealthyNow.com will not release personally identifiable information to a third party without the customer's consent. Also, if we ask your consent to release personal healthcare information to a third party, we will use our best efforts to clearly define and limit the scope of your consent.

Protection of Information

In this section of our privacy policy, we discuss the security measures we take to protect information that we have collected about you.

General Policies

We have implemented technology and security policies, rules. and other measures to protect the personal data that we have under our control from unauthorized access, improper use, alteration, unlawful or accidental destruction, and accidental loss. We also protect your information by requiring that all our employees and others who have access to or are associated with the processing of your data respect your confidentiality.

Where we allow you or your healthcare provider to access an actual medical recorded created by your provider, we require that the browser used support a high level of encryption to reduce security risks.

BecomeHealthyNow.com uses security methods to determine the identity of its registered users, so that appropriate rights and restrictions can be enforced for that user. Reliable verification of user identity is called authentication. BecomeHealthyNow.com uses both passwords and usernames to authenticate users. Users are responsible for maintaining their own passwords.

Storage of Health Information

Personally identifiable health information you share with us, or that we obtain through our relationship with other health care professionals, is stored on our database servers at BecomeHealthyNow.com data centers or hosted by third parties who have entered into agreements with us that require them to observe our Privacy Policy. We have a firewall to prevent individuals from accessing information without authorization. Data centers are physically secure and protected from unauthorized access by unauthorized persons. Physical access to the servers requires individual authorization and authentication.

Information in our data centers is backed up routinely, in order to aid in the recovery of information in the event of accidental damage of information or due to a natural disaster. The backup media is stored in a physically secure storage facility.

Access to Information and Choices

In this section of our privacy policy, we tell you how to obtain and correct information we have about you, and how to choose what types of information you may share with us.

Correction of Information We Have About You

If you believe that non-medical registration information collected by our Web site(s) is in error, you may edit your personal profile any time that you like. You can directly edit your user profile on our BecomeHealthyNow.com site, and you can ask for your any customized data to be deleted. Requests for deletion of your record may result in your removal from the registry, but we may keep certain demographic information about you for product improvement purposes. You may contact Web Customer Support and ask for the changes that you would like to make.

For information that is entered about you by your health care provider (for example, your physician) into your on-line health record, you will need to contact that provider, and request the corrections that you would like. If your provider agrees with the suggested change, it is made in your medical record maintained by your provider. It is up to your provider to then make that change in your on-line health record. Entries you make yourself into your on-line health record may, of course, be corrected and updated by you.

Obtaining a Copy of Information that We've Collected About You

You can get a copy of your on-line About My Health medical record information, as well as a copy of your information you entered into any of our health tools by printing a copy of the information from your Web browser.

BecomeHealthyNow.com Employees

BecomeHealthyNow.com employees are required to keep customer information private, as a condition of their employment with the company. Only selected, authorized BecomeHealthyNow.com employees are permitted to access your health information.

Employees are required to attend a confidentiality/privacy training class, and to sign a confidentiality agreement. All employees and contractors must abide by our privacy policy, and those who violate that policy are subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of their employment and legal action.

Privacy Questions or Concerns about One of Our Web Sites

For privacy questions or concerns about one of BecomeHealthyNow.com's Web sites, please contact us here.

The foregoing Web Policy Statement is effective as of the date displayed below. BecomeHealthyNow may change this Statement from time to time. This Statement is not intended to and does not create any contractual or other legal rights in or on behalf of any party.

Revision date: This policy was last updated on August 19, 2007.