Welcome to the DeCare Dental Web site. We appreciate your interest in us and hope to make your online experience enjoyable and secure. Your privacy is very important to us and we will make every reasonable effort to safeguard any information we collect.
If you have questions regarding this policy or if you would like to review or change any of your information we have on file, please contact Member Services by dialing the number on the back of your ID card.
This privacy statement is effective January 1, 2020, and was most recently reviewed in May 2022. This privacy statement is subject to change. We encourage you to review it from time to time.
Personal Information (Including Social Security Number) Privacy Protection Policy
Various privacy laws and regulations can differ slightly on how they refer to your information. Throughout the notices on this page, information about you may be referred to as “Personally Identifiable Information” (“PII”), “Protected Health Information” (“PHI”), or as “Personal Information” (“PI”). DeCare Dental is committed to protecting all of your information in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is information about an individual which can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity (such as their name, Social Security number, biometric records, etc.) by itself or when combined with other personal or identifying information which is linkable to a specific individual, such as date and place of birth, mother’s name, etc. PII includes Protected Health Information or PHI, but it can also include other types of information about you, that are not related directly to healthcare.
Protected Health Information (PHI) is information specifically about an individual’s healthcare that identifies the individual or with respect to which there is a reasonable basis to believe the information can be used to identify the individual.
Examples of PHI can include any of the following: name, medical/dental record information, address, Social Security number or equivalent identifiers, birth date, sex and age, sexual orientation, alternative gender identity, and/or race, ethnicity.
Personal Information (PI) is a term used by many state privacy protection laws, and (depending on the state) may or may not include PII and/or PHI. Therefore, these three terms may be used interchangeably in parts of this Privacy Protection Policy.
We are committed to safeguarding the PII, PHI, and/or PI we receive from our customers and members through the use of physical, technical, and administrative safeguards.
Our policies prohibit the unlawful disclosure of PII, PHI, and/or PI. We share it externally only where federal and state law allows or requires it. Internally, it is our policy to limit the access, use and disclosure of this information to be in line with the job duties of our associates, as well as applicable law.
If you have questions about this, please contact Member Services by dialing the number that is located on the back of your ID card.
HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Notice of Privacy Practices.
Our Notice of Privacy Practices explains how your health information may be used and/or disclosed and how to access this information in accordance with HIPAA, an important federal privacy law. The notice reflects our obligations under Federal and individual State regulations. By law, we are required to send our fully-insured health plan members a notice with those details.
These notices generally do not apply if you are part of an administrative services only (ASO) group health plan. To see which type of health plan you have, and whether this applies to you, check with the person or team that handles your health plan at your employer.
Contacting the Privacy Office
Contact us if you have a privacy question or need to report a privacy issue. Call the Member Services number on the back of your ID card or write or fax us at:
DeCare Dental, Attn: Privacy Officer DeCare Dental, P.O. Box 29, Minneapolis, MN 55440-0029. Fax #: 651-768-1309.
Privacy Authorization Forms
DeCare Dental is committed to complying with HIPAA. HIPAA allows us to use and disclose identifiable healthcare and demographic information called Protected Health Information (PHI) for Treatment, Payment and Health care operations (TPO) purposes. Beyond TPO, you have the right to permit the release of your PHI by completing a Member Authorization Form to grant permission for others to see your PHI.
If you would like your PHI disclosed with someone outside of DeCare Dental, fill out the Member Authorization form and send it to DeCare Dental at the address located on the back of your DeCare Dental ID card. If you have questions, please contact Member Services. The telephone number is on the back of your ID card.
If you do not have a DeCare Dental identification card, please contact us at 1-800-371-6561.
The above links can only be viewed using Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don’t have Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download a free copy by clicking here.
Contacting You
We, including our affiliates or vendors, may call or text you using an automated telephone dialing system and/or a prerecorded message. But we only do this in accordance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The calls may be to let you know about treatment options or other health-related benefits and services. If you do not want to be contacted by phone, just let the caller know and we will not reach out this way in the future.
Web Privacy Statement
Your privacy is very important to us and we will make every reasonable effort to safeguard any information we collect.
What information will we collect?
Information may be collected in the following ways on this website and application:
- If we provide user account access, you may elect to establish an account so that you can gain additional access to online service applications, health tools, health information, subscriptions or other services where it is important for us to know who you are in order to best meet your needs. Providing personal information is always voluntary.
- We may use “cookies” to help us improve this website and application by tracking your navigation habits and to store some of your preferences. A cookie is a small file created by a website or application to store information on your computer. Cookies do not allow websites to gain access to other information on your computer. Once a cookie is saved on your computer, generally only the website or application that created the cookie can read it.
- An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a number that automatically identifies the computer or mobile device that you are using to access the Internet. The IP address enables our server to send you the site pages that you want to visit or the data you want to view. The IP address may disclose the server owned by your Internet Service Provider. We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to support our administration of this website and application.
One of the service providers we may use to track and analyze usage of our website and mobile applications is Google Analytics, a third party analytics company. Google Analytics uses our cookie and log information (described below), in combination with personally identifying information we may provide, such as name and e-mail address, to assist us in tracking the decare.com website and mobile application usage in order to improve them and our products and services offerings. Google Analytics acts as our agent, and is authorized to use the information we share exclusively to provide this service to DeCare Dental. For further information, including how to opt out, contact webmaster@decare.com.
How will information be used?
Any personal information that you provide is used for the purpose for which you provide it. For example, if you use location services to find a provider near your current location, your location is used only to facilitate that function. Or if you provide us with an email address, we will only use it in a manner consistent with your consent for us to do so.
We may also gather quantitative user information, such as the number of users and the pages or data accessed, in order to perform administrative, technical, hosting or other functions that help us manage our website and application and deliver new functionality to you. We do not sell, license, transmit or disclose personal information that you provide to us to third parties except with the following exceptions:
- Upon your authorization;
- When such disclosure is necessary to allow us and our contractors or agents to carry out treatment, payment or health care operations; or
- When required or permitted by law.
Third parties
We may work with third party service providers who may place third party persistent cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies to collect anonymous information about the use of our website and applications. They are not permitted to collect any personal information, and this information will be solely used for web usage analysis for a better understanding of how you use our website or application, and/or to customize our content and advertising.
What if I do not want information about me to be collected?
Providing personal information through this website or application is optional. Personally identifiable information will not be collected from you without your knowledge and approval. You will be told when your failure to provide information might affect your ability to enroll in or use a product or service.
If you do not wish to have your activity on our website or application tracked, you can opt-out at any time here to discontinue first party cookie tracking of your web activity.
You also have the choice to opt-out of third party cookies, web beacons or similar technologies. If you do not want third party service providers to collect your anonymous information for marketing purposes, visit the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) website to perform the opt out.
Additionally, you can direct your Internet browser to notify you and seek approval whenever a cookie is being sent to your hard drive. You may also delete a cookie manually from your computer, tablet, or smartphone through your Internet browser settings or other programs. You can also set your browser to refuse all cookies. Please note that some parts of this website or application may not function properly or be available to you if you refuse to accept a cookie or choose to disable the acceptance of cookies.
“Do Not Track” Signals
We do not respond to web browser “do not track” signals. As such, your navigation of our website and Application may be tracked as part of the gathering of quantitative user information described above. If you arrive at our website or Application by way of a link from a third-party application that does respond to “do not track” requests, the recognition of any “do not track” request you have initiated will end as soon as you reach our website or application.
Use of email and fax
We may provide email and fax links to further facilitate communication for our members and their designees and caregivers. Information collected through email may be shared with our Member Services department, other associates, or third parties that perform services on our behalf. Unless otherwise noted, email through our website or application is not a completely secure and confidential means of communication. Non-encrypted email may be accessed and viewed by other Internet users without your knowledge and permission while in transit to us.
Also, if you request that we email or fax information about you to someone using the email and fax capabilities in this website or application, that email or fax may not be completely secure. Please verify email addresses and fax numbers carefully before submitting such a request.
Linking to Other Sites
From time to time we will provide links to websites or applications not owned or controlled by us. We do this because we think this information might be of interest or use to you. A link to a third party website or application does not constitute or imply endorsement by us. We cannot guarantee the quality or accuracy of information presented on third party websites or applications. While we do our best to ensure your privacy, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies of third party websites or applications. We encourage you to review the privacy practices of any website or application you visit.
Health Information Exchanges
We may share your information with health information exchanges (HIE), which allow doctors, hospitals and payers to view/share your health information quickly and easily for treatment, payment or health care operations. These exchanges can improve the speed, quality, safety and cost of your care. Doctors, health insurers and others using an exchange like this are required to follow the privacy and security standards set by state and federal laws.
In California, we are taking part in the health information exchange called Manifest MedEx. Only participating doctors treating members have access to health records. Members are automatically enrolled. Members who want to opt out of having health information in Manifest MedEx should go to https://www.manifestmedex.org/opt-out.
Consumer Privacy Protection Information
There are many sources for information on privacy. These government websites feature frequently updated information on privacy policies and statutes.