Dental Now is required by law to maintain the privacy of your Protected Health Information (PHI), to provide you with this Notice of our legal duties and privacy practices, and to abide by the terms of the Notice currently in effect.
"Protected Health Information" means information about you — including demographic data — that may reasonably identify you and that relates to your past, present, or future physical health, the provision of healthcare, or payment for healthcare services.
We may use and disclose your PHI to facilitate dental appointments. When you submit a booking request, your name, contact information, visit reason, insurance information, and requested time slot are transmitted to the dental provider you selected for the purpose of scheduling and providing dental care.
We may use PHI to verify insurance eligibility on your behalf through our Business Associate, Stedi, Inc. Insurance verification transmits only the minimum necessary information (subscriber ID, date of birth, and provider NPI) to determine coverage eligibility. We do not store insurance verification results beyond the immediate session display. If we introduce additional payment features in the future, we may use PHI to process billing in compliance with HIPAA Payment provisions.
We may use and disclose PHI for our own healthcare operations, including quality assessment, improving the platform, training, legal compliance, and fraud detection. These uses will always be limited to the minimum necessary.
When a student requests a shadowing session with a dental provider through the platform, limited information is shared between the student and provider to facilitate scheduling (names, contact information, and requested dates). Shadowing session records — including provider-confirmed hours — are maintained in the student's profile. Students may opt in to share a public portfolio containing their name, school, and confirmed hours; this public portfolio does not contain any patient PHI.
We may send push notifications to your mobile device regarding appointment status changes, shadowing request updates, and recall reminders. Push notification tokens are stored in your profile and transmitted to Expo (our push notification delivery service) under a data processing agreement. Push notification content is limited to appointment status and does not include detailed PHI. You may disable push notifications at any time through your device settings.
Except as described in this Notice, we will not use or disclose your PHI without your written authorization. This includes:
You may revoke any written authorization at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer. Revocation does not affect disclosures already made in reliance on that authorization.
We may use or disclose your PHI without your authorization in the following circumstances, as permitted or required by law:
You have the right to inspect and receive a copy of PHI that we maintain about you in a Designated Record Set. We will provide this within 30 days of your written request. We may charge a reasonable cost-based fee for copies.
If you believe PHI we hold is inaccurate or incomplete, you may request an amendment. We may deny your request if the information was not created by us, is not part of our records, or is accurate and complete. If denied, you may submit a statement of disagreement.
You may request a list of disclosures of your PHI made for purposes other than treatment, payment, or operations in the six years prior to your request. The first accounting in any 12-month period is free; subsequent requests may incur a reasonable fee.
You may request that we restrict certain uses or disclosures of your PHI. We are not required to agree to all restrictions, but if we do agree, we will honor the restriction except in an emergency. If you paid out-of-pocket for services, you may request that we not share that information with your health plan.
You may request that we communicate with you by alternative means or at an alternative location (e.g., a different email address or mailing address). We will accommodate reasonable requests.
You may request a paper copy of this Notice at any time, even if you agreed to receive it electronically.
We may send you recall reminder emails for upcoming or overdue dental appointments. These communications contain limited information (your name and a general reminder) and do not include detailed PHI. Each recall email includes an unsubscribe link, allowing you to opt out of future reminder emails at any time in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act. Opting out of recall emails does not affect transactional notifications about confirmed appointments.
When using or disclosing PHI or requesting PHI from another covered entity, Dental Now will make reasonable efforts to limit PHI to the minimum necessary to accomplish the intended purpose of the use, disclosure, or request.
We reserve the right to change this Notice at any time. We reserve the right to make the revised or changed Notice effective for PHI we already hold as well as any information we receive in the future. We will post the current Notice prominently in the app and at dentalnow.io/hipaa. You are entitled to a copy of the Notice currently in effect.
If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with us or with the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. You will not be retaliated against for filing a complaint.
For our full data privacy practices, see the Privacy Policy.