What this policy covers — and what it does not

This policy explains what Ponte Vedra Spine and Pain Center collects through this website, why, and what we do with it.

It is not our HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices. Protected health information created in the course of your care — your chart, your imaging, your treatment records — is governed by that separate notice, which we provide at your first visit and which is available from the office on request. If the two documents ever appear to conflict about medical information, the Notice of Privacy Practices governs.

Information you type into a form or a chat on this website is not part of your medical record until our staff enters it into our systems.

What we collect

Information you give us. When you request an appointment, send a message, ask a question through the assistant on this site, or call a number listed here, we collect what you provide: your name, phone number, email address, the area you are travelling from, how you heard about us, and whatever you choose to tell us about your symptoms.

Insurance information, if you use the coverage check. If you choose to check your benefits before booking, we collect your insurer, member ID and date of birth and send them to our clearinghouse to run a real-time eligibility enquiry with your plan. We use that information for the enquiry and to attach the result — active or inactive, estimated copay, remaining deductible, network status — to your request. We do not store your member ID on this website.

Information collected automatically. Like any website, our servers log technical data such as IP address, browser and device type, the page requested and the time, to keep the site running and secure. Cloudflare protects the site against abuse, and our appointment form uses Cloudflare Turnstile to tell people from bots.

Analytics, only with your permission. If you choose “Allow analytics,” Google Analytics measures which pages are visited, how visitors arrived, and whether a visit ended in an appointment request or a tap on our phone number. It never receives anything you type into a form or the chat, and we send it the page address without any search terms. If you do not allow it, Google Analytics is not loaded at all. We do not use advertising pixels on this site.

Please do not send us detailed medical information, images, or documents through this website or by ordinary email. Neither is a secure channel. Call the office instead.

How we use it

To respond to you and schedule your visit
To verify your insurance benefits when you ask us to
To answer your questions through the assistant on this site
If you allow analytics, to understand which parts of the site are useful, so we can improve them
To meet our legal, professional and regulatory obligations

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.

Who we share it with

We share information only with service providers who help us operate this practice and this website — our website host and security provider (Cloudflare), our email provider, the clearinghouse that runs eligibility checks, the AI and voice providers behind the assistant on this site, and, only if you allow analytics, Google. Each is bound by contract to use the information only to provide that service to us, and where they handle protected health information, under a HIPAA business associate agreement.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it, to protect the safety of a person, or in connection with the sale or transfer of the practice.

The assistant on this site

This website offers an AI assistant that can answer questions about our services, our hours and what to expect, and can pass a request to our team. It is clearly identified as a virtual assistant. It is not a clinician and does not give medical advice.

Chat messages are processed by an AI service provider so the assistant can reply. If you speak with the assistant by voice, in your browser or by phone, the call is recorded and transcribed, and you are told this when the call begins; our front-desk team uses the recording and transcript to follow up with you.

Conversations are stored so our team can follow up on your request and so we can improve the assistant. Please do not enter Social Security numbers, full payment card numbers, or detailed clinical history into the chat. If you have a medical emergency, call 911.

Cookies and your privacy choices

The only cookie this site sets before you choose records your privacy choice itself. Google Analytics cookies are set only after you select “Allow analytics.” You can change your answer at any time with the Your Privacy Choices link at the bottom of every page; if you withdraw it, the analytics cookies are deleted.

We honour Global Privacy Control: if your browser sends it, we treat it as a “no” without asking. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings.

Your choices and rights

You can ask us what personal information we hold about you from this website, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Florida residents, and residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws, may have additional rights including the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information — which we do not do — and to be treated equally when you use these rights. You can withdraw analytics consent at any time with the Your Privacy Choices link.

Rights over your medical record — access, amendment, an accounting of disclosures, restrictions — are set out in our Notice of Privacy Practices and are exercised through the office.

To make a request, call (904) 750-3787 or write to us at the address below. We will verify your identity before acting on it.

How long we keep it

Appointment requests, messages, chat conversations and call recordings are kept as long as we need them to follow up with you and for our records, and then deleted. Once information becomes part of your medical record, it is kept for the periods Florida law and our Notice of Privacy Practices require. Server logs are kept for a short period for security.

Security, children, and other sites

We use administrative, technical and physical safeguards appropriate to the information we hold. No method of transmission over the internet is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

This website is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information through it.

This site links to other websites we do not control. Their privacy practices are their own.

Changes and how to reach us

If we change this policy we will post the revised version here and update the date at the top. Material changes will be flagged on the page.

Questions about this policy, or about how your information is handled:

Ponte Vedra Spine and Pain Center
380 Town Plaza Ave, Suite 420, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 32081
Phone (904) 750-3787
Email [email protected]

Privacy policy.