Privacy Notice
PRIVACY NOTICE AND POLICY
Effective Date: June 21, 2022
This Notice and Policy (“Notice”) is provided by Health Advocates, LLC (“HA”) and Leibovic Law Group (“LLG”) (“HA” and “LLG” are collectively referred to as “us” or “we”), applies to all users of our websites https://www.healthadvocates.com; https://californiadisabilitybenefits.com; and http://www.socialsecurityprofessional.com (“Websites”) and of our social media accounts.
We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy Notice carefully as it contains important information on who we are, how and why we access, collect, process, store, use and share your Personal Information (as defined below). It also explains your rights in relation to your Personal Information and how to contact us or supervisory authority in the event you have a complaint.
Federal and State laws, known as privacy laws, give individuals certain rights to access or limit the use of their Personal Information. The applicable privacy laws require us to tell you how we collect, use, share, and protect your Personal Information and what rights do you have with respect to limiting our use of such information. This Privacy Policy describes the manner in which we collect, use, maintain, and share information from visitors to our websites and from our customers, potential customers, employees, employment candidates, vendors and visitors. Because the applicable laws may differ based on where you reside, special rules may apply to you.
Please read this Privacy Policy notice carefully to understand what we do, what privacy rights you have and how to exercise your privacy rights.
CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
This Privacy Policy may be changed, modified, supplemented, or updated at any time. While we will endeavor to notify you of any changes to our Privacy Policy through our websites or direct communications as may be authorized by you, we encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.
NO SALE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We do not sell your Personal Information and have not sold your Personal Information to any third party.
INFORMATION WE MAY COLLECT AND DISCLOSE ABOUT YOU
We may access, collect, process, store, use, share and be responsible for some or all of the following personal information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household (“Personal Information”):
Categories | Specific pieces of Personal Information that may be collected |
A. Identifiers. | Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual, such as their name, alias, postal address, email address, IP address, telephone number, online identifier, user ID, account name, Social Security Number, driver’s license number or other similar identifiers. |
C. Protected classification characteristics | As defined under state or federal law, this category may include information about your age, race, color, national origin, citizenship, religion, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, sex (including gender, gender identity, pregnancy or childbirth or related medical conditions), veteran or military status. |
D. Internet or similar network or application activity. | Browsing history, search history, information on a consumer’s interaction with a website, application, or advertisement.
With respect to our employees using company-issued computers and other devices, we may collect the contents of our employee’s emails or text messages. |
This Personal Information is required to provide services to you. If you do not provide Personal Information we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.
HOW YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION IS COLLECTED
We collect the majority of your Personal Information directly from you through our Website and, under certain circumstances, via email or by telephone. With respect to employees or job applicants, we may collect Personal Information from you in person as well as by telephone, text or email.
For example, we collect Personal Information:
- Directly from our customers, our employees or job applicants. When we provide services to individuals who wish to apply for Federal Supplemental Security Insurance (“SSI”) benefits and Social Security Disability Insurance (“SSDI”) benefits, our customers, or someone authorized by our customers, provide us with their medical and other records to support their applications.
- From representatives or family members of our customers.
- From health care providers (for example hospitals), who are interested in identifying a third-party source of financial responsibility for medical services already obtained by their patients.
- From county social services agencies or other community resources. For example, a county social services agency may refer a customer to us.
- From visitors to our Websites. Our Websites may automatically collect information about your interaction with them and your preferences (i.e., cookies, etc.).
- Directly from a third-party, including with your consent, as required and appropriate.
PURPOSES OF COLLECTION
We provide healthcare revenue recovery and healthcare benefits services to our customers and collect Personal Information in furtherance of these services to you. Information is collected for the following purposes:
- To assist you with applications and hearings in connection with Federal Supplemental Security Insurance (“SSI”) benefits and Social Security Disability Insurance (“SSDI”) benefits;
- To identify third-party source of financial responsibility for medical services already obtained by our healthcare provider client’s patients;
- To fulfill or meet any other reason for which the information is provided;
- To provide you with information or services that you request from us;
- To provide you with email alerts, text message and other notices concerning our services or news that may be of interest to you;
- To host, store and otherwise process information needed for business continuity and disaster recovery.
- To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, and to protect us, our employees, clients, and the public against theft, legal liability, fraud, or abuse;
- To improve Our Websites and present their contents to you;
- For testing, research, analysis and development of service offerings;
- As necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property or safety of us, our clients or others, including system and network administration and security, infrastructure monitoring, identity and credential management, verification and authentication, and access control; monitoring and other controls needed to safeguard the security and integrity of transactions and/or recordation of information;
- To respond to law enforcement requests, subpoenas, including to law enforcement agencies and courts in the United States and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations;
- As described to you when collecting your Personal Information or as otherwise set forth in the CCPA; and
- To evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which Personal Information held by us is among the assets transferred.
We will not collect additional categories of Personal Information or use the Personal Information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.
SHARING YOUR INFORMATION
We may disclose or share some, or all, of the Personal Information we collect about you to third parties such as government agencies that process your application, health care providers who provide support documentation, technology providers who aid us in processing and protecting your Personal Information, and healthcare providers and government and nonprofit agencies that have referred you to us in order to help you to obtain other social services and for their own statistics.
For example, we may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on us, (b) protect and defend our rights or property or our customers or users, or (c) under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of our users, customers, or the general public.
When a user signs up for our services, we will share names, or other contact information that is necessary for the third party to provide services. We may aggregate data we acquire about our users. If we aggregate such data and provide it to external parties, our users’ Personal Information will not be attached to or included in such aggregated data. Also, in the event that all or a portion of our assets are acquired by or merged with a third-party entity, we reserve the right, in any of these circumstances, to transfer or assign the information that we have collected from users, including Personal Information and user data in connection with such merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control.
In the preceding twelve (12) months, we have or may have disclosed some or all of the above-listed categories of Personal Information to one or more of these third parties as authorized by you or permitted by law.
COOKIES AND OTHER TECHNOLOGIES
Cookies are small text files placed on your device to store data that can be recalled by a web server in the domain that placed the cookie. We may use cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies (such as scripts and tags) on our online services. In some cases, we link the information gathered by cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies to a user’s Personal Information. We also use cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies to help our online services function properly, to collect information about how users interact and use our online services, and to ensure the security of our network and related networks.
You have a variety of tools to control the data collected by cookies and similar technologies. For example, you can use controls in your internet browser to limit how the websites you visit are able to use cookies, alert you about the cookies and to withdraw your consent by clearing or blocking cookies.
We classify cookies in the following categories:
- Necessary cookies: These cookies are necessary for the functions of Our Websites and cannot be switched off as otherwise our Websites will not work for you.
- Analytics cookies: These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources in order to measure and improve the performance of our Websites, see which of the pages of Our Websites receive the most and the least traffic and how visitors to Our Websites are interacting with Our Websites. If you disable or block these cookies, we will not know when you have visited Our Websites. These cookies may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages, such as Google Analytics.
- Functional cookies: These cookies allow enhanced functionality and personalization of Our Websites. These cookies may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages, such as Google Analytics. If you disable or block these cookies, some portions of Our Websites may not function properly.
- Advertising cookies: These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners and may be used by them to build a profile of our interests and show you relevant advertisements on other sites. They are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you disable or block these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
You have a variety of tools to control the data collected by cookies and similar technologies. For example, you can use controls in your internet browser to limit how the websites you visit are able to use cookies, alert you about the cookies and to withdraw your consent by clearing or blocking cookies.
LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES
Our Websites may contain links to other sites (“Third Party Websites”). These links are provided solely for the convenience of our customers. We do not necessarily endorse, sanction or verify the accuracy of the information contained on Third Party Websites. Once you access a Third-Party Website through a link on our Website, you are no longer covered by the privacy Notice of Our Website. Concerns regarding a Third-Party Website should be directed to the Third-Party Website itself. We bear no responsibility for any action associated with any Third-Party Website.
POLICIES FOR CHILDREN
Our Websites are not directed to individuals under the age of 13, nor do they contain information which would be potentially harmful to minors in any way. However, we advise all visitors to Our Websites under the age of 13 not to disclose or provide any Personal Information. In the event that we discover that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Information to us, we will delete the child’s Personal Information in accordance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998. Please see the Federal Trade Commission’s website for this act.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, pursuant to 47 U.S.C. Section 230 (d), as amended, we hereby notify you that parental control protections are commercially available to assist you in limiting access to material that is harmful to minors. More information on the availability of such software can be found through publicly available sources. You may wish to contact your Internet Service Provider for more information.
We collect Personal Information on minors, when provided by their parents or legal guardians, or by institutions or government entities that have provided services to the minors, for the purposes of requesting services from us for the benefit of such minors.
HOW LONG YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WILL BE KEPT
Consistent with our legal obligations, we will keep your Personal Information for six (6) years from the closure of your account or case, unless our legal or contractual obligations required us to retain your Personal Information for a longer period. Thereafter, we will keep your Personal Information for as long as is necessary:
- To respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;
- To provide services to you as contracted for by you or by institutions or government entities;
- To show that we treated you fairly; or
- To keep records required by law.
We will not retain your Personal Information for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this Notice. Different retention periods apply for different types of Personal Information. When it is no longer necessary to retain your Personal Information, we will delete or anonymize it.
KEEPING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION SECURE
We have implemented reasonable technical, physical and administrative security measures to prevent Personal Information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorized way. These measures offer appropriate reasonable security level, taking into account the state of the technology, the implementation costs and also the nature, the scale, the context and the processing purposes. We limit access to your Personal Information to those who have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorized manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality. The measures are also intended to prevent unnecessary collection and further processing of Personal Information. The Personal Information is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of persons who have special access rights to such systems, and are required to keep the information confidential. We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
PLEASE KEEP YOUR DEVICES AND PASSWORDS SECURE
Please keep your devices secure and do not share devices, logins or passwords to such devices with others as there is a risk that they make access Personal Information that you stored on your device or that you request be transmitted to you from us to your device. If you receive login information, including passwords, to an encrypted account or application, please do not share this information with others. PLEASE SECURE YOUR INFORMATION AND DO NOT DISCLOSE YOUR PASSWORDS AND ANY SENSITIVE INFORMATION TO ANYONE ELSE. If you believe that your Personal Information was compromised while requesting or receiving services from us, please notify us at info@healthadvocates.com.
NON-DISCRIMINATION
We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your privacy rights. In that regard, we will not take the following actions in response to your exercising of your privacy rights, unless permitted by the applicable laws:
- Deny you goods or services.
- Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
- Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
- Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.
CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY NOTICE
We reserve the right to amend this Notice at our discretion and at any time. When we make changes to this Notice, we will notify you by email, through a notice on Our Websites or in another appropriate manner based on how we interact with you. We will provide you with any such updated notice prior to or before any new Personal Information is collected from you. You will also be able to determine the date that our current Notice has become effective, by viewing the Effective Date at the top of this document.
YOUR AGREEMENT TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
By using our online services, you are agreeing to our practices described in this Privacy Policy, which includes the collection and use of your Personal Information. Your continued use of our online services following the posting of changes to this Privacy Policy will be deemed your acceptance of those changes.
CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or comments about this Notice, the ways in which we collect and use your Personal Information, your choices and rights regarding such use, or wish to exercise your rights under this Notice, please do not hesitate to contact us at:
Health Advocates, LLC
Compliance Department
21540 Plummer Street, Suite B
Chatsworth, CA 91311
(818) 995-9500
(818) 995-9599 Fax
(800) 435-3457 Toll Free
info@healthadvocates.com