Interstitial Lung Disease: Al’s Story

The Lung Institute takes patient privacy seriously. The law requires that our healthcare facilities and medical personnel protect the privacy of your medical record and other health information We are also required to notify you of our privacy practices with regard to your Protected Health Information. This Privacy & Security Notice explains how your medical information is protected under HIPAA and HITECH laws and how your information may be used, disclosed, and accessed.

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The Information We Collect: The Lung Institute collects information by various methods including information actively provided by its lead providers, customers and information arising from customer surveys and general feedback. The types of personal information we collect include name, contact information, identification information, credit information and other data types as appropriate. Contact information may be added to database for customer outreach and contact. Credit card information is used for billing purposes only. We may record calls to or from our patient care coordinators/customer service representatives for purposes of accuracy, performance reviews, training and general quality assurance.

How We Use This Information: This information is used to aid in the provision of our various products and services, including customer service, accounting, billing, collections and the marketing of other products services. The Lung Institute may use aggregate or anonymous information for various uses for itself and third parties.

Who We Share This Information With: The Lung Institute does not share personal information with any third parties except as disclosed in this policy. The Lung Institute may provide personal information to the Lung Institute’s subcontractors and professional advisers (which shall be bound by privacy obligations) to assist the Lung Institute’s uses disclosed herein.

Security: Personal information is stored in a combination of paper and electronic files. They are protected by security measures appropriate to the nature of the information.

Accessing Information: Individuals may review their personal information contained in the Lung Institute’s files by contacting the Lung Institute’s privacy officer. If an individual believes that any of their personal information is inaccurate, we will make appropriate corrections.

Cookies: Cookies are used by the Lung Institute for the convenience of our users. Cookies automatically authenticate the user. A user can access the Lung Institute’s website with the cookie feature turned off. However, in doing so they may find themselves challenged for username and password information on multiple occasions. The Lung Institute also uses cookies to track user’s visits and uses that information to improve the user’s experience.

This cookie does not in any way identify you or give us access to your computer. In addition to using cookies as described above, we also may permit certain third party companies like Google Analytics to help us tailor advertising that we think may be of interest to users and to collect and use other data about user activities on our Sites and/or Services (e.g., to allow them to tailor ads on third party services). These companies may deliver ads that might also place cookies and otherwise track user behavior. You may choose to opt out of cookies by clicking here.

Links: The Lung Institute’s website may contain links to information at other websites. When you click on one of these links, you are moving to another website. We encourage you to read the privacy statements of these linked sites as their privacy policy may differ from ours.

Social Media: Lung Institute has multiple social media pages including: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and Pinterest. Lung Institute social media pages are managed by Lung Institute staff members who post news and other items of interest to be consumed by the public. If you have a social media account, you can log in to your account to post comments, and 'like' or ‘follow’ Lung Institute social media pages and individual entries. If once you click on a lung Institute social media page, you comment or click on the 'like' button, your Protected Identifiable Information (PII) will be visible to Lung Institute staff and other social media site visitors. The amount of visible personal information displayed will depend on your own Social Media privacy settings. You can completely avoid displaying any PII by not creating a Social Media account, not posting comments, not clicking on the 'like' or ‘follow’ options, or interacting with Lung Institute Social Media accounts in any way (i.e., private messaging, sharing Lung Institute posts, etc.). Lung Institute staff does not collect, use or disclose any information about visitors who comment, 'like' or ‘follow’ the Lung Institute Social Media sites. However, as a practice, comment moderator policy requires the removal from Lung Institute Social Media pages of any comments that contain spam or are improper, inflammatory, or offensive. The information is then saved on a password-protected shared drive accessible to Lung Institute Managers, System Owners, Communications Staff, Web Teams, and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties.

General: The Lung Institute may amend this policy from time to time. If such amendments affect how the Lung Institute uses or discloses personal information already held by the Lung Institute in a material way, the Lung Institute will obtain consent. Notwithstanding the general terms of this policy, the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information may be made outside of the terms herein to the extent provided for in any applicable privacy or other legislation in effect from time to time. The Lung Institute may disclose personal information to another entity purchasing (including for diligence purposes prior to purchase) the assets of the Lung Institute, provided that entity abides by this or a similar privacy policy.