Notification of Change
The Information We Collect
Opting Out
Your California Privacy Rights
Correct/Update Your Profile
Aggregate Information
Cookies
Security of Your Information
Tell-A-Friend, Ecards and Personal Fundraising Pages
Links to Other Web Sites
Information from Children
Transmission of Health-Related Data

Welcome to the Easterseals Online Network, the Web site of Easterseals, Inc. (Easterseals headquarters) and participating Easterseals affiliates across the country.

Because Easterseals values the privacy of constituents visiting the Easterseals Online Network, users of the Easterseals Online Network have the right to manage their own personal information.

You can contact Easterseals for more information related to the privacy of the information you provide online:

Mail: 233 South Wacker Drive, Suite 2400, Chicago, IL 60606.
Phone: 312-726-6200
Online: Click here to contact Easterseals via email. Your request will be answered within 2-3 business days.

Notification of Change

Easterseals reserves the right to change this policy at any time. Easterseals privacy policy will be kept up-to-date and clearly posted on our Web site.

The Information We Collect

On many pages of the Easterseals Online Network -- in particular when donating online, completing an action alert, registering for a special event, purchasing a product, or completing various feedback forms -- visitors are asked to list name, address, and other personal contact information. Information collected is specifically and knowingly provided by site visitors and may include name, email address, format preference (HTML vs. text), address, telephone number, interests and other similar information. Collecting this information helps Easterseals to better provide site visitors with relevant and useful content.

Easterseals has partnered with Convio, Inc. to power the Web content, email and transaction processing capabilities to serve our constituents and fulfill our mission on the Internet. Convio, Inc. is an Internet software and services company that provides online electronic Constituent Relationship Management (eCRM) solutions for nonprofit organizations and higher education institutions. Convio will not disclose your name or other personally identifiable information (such as your e-mail address or phone number) to any party other than Easterseals.

Neither Easterseals nor Convio store sensitive information such as credit card numbers. When an online transaction is completed through the Easterseals Online Network, such as a charitable contribution, credit card information is used solely for the purpose of completing that specific transaction and is not retained in the Easterseals or Convio database.

Easterseals will not sell, share or exchange personal contact information collected from this Web site with other organizations. If a user has a previous relationship with Easterseals through another channel (i.e., mail, phone), Easterseals will occasionally rent or exchange those names and addresses with other organizations as a way of providing extra funds to help support services. If you do not want to participate in this program, please let us know.

Visitors to the Easterseals Online Network are not required to share any personally identifiable information. Users who do not wish to share personal information when visiting the Easterseals Online Network can still access the Network's Web pages and the valuable information provided.

Opting Out

Easterseals provides site visitors with the opportunity to opt-out of receiving our online and offline communications.

If you would like to opt-out of receiving email communications please update your user profile. Email unsubscribe requests are processed immediately.

To discontinue the receipt of postal mail, please contact Easterseals. Shortly, Easterseals will be adding the capability to remove your name from our postal mailing list online. You'll need to register as user of the Easterseals Online Network. Please note: there is a 8-12 week lapse period due to the fact that a subsequent mailing may already be in production. If you do receive another mailing, please disregard it.

Your California Privacy Rights

To review a special notice for California residents only per California Privacy Law (SB27): Exchanging, Renting, Reselling Personal Information, please visit the "Your California Privacy Rights" section.

Correct/Update Your Profile

Easterseals offers the option to change and modify personally identifiable information. Upon your request, Easterseals will remove personally identifying information retained in organizational databases. If you are a registered user of this site, you can access your Easterseals profile and update your contact information and user preferences by clicking here.

Easterseals reserves the right to maintain information on users who have had their access to the Easterseals Online Network blocked.

Aggregate Information

Demographic and profile data (i.e., age, gender, browser usage) is also collected via the Easterseals Online Network. Easterseals uses such data to improve marketing and promotional efforts, statistically analyze site usage, improve content and product offerings and to customize site content, layout, and services. Additionally, this data may be shared with third parties on an aggregated basis. Easterseals does not share personally identifying information with third parties, except to a court or governmental agency if required by law and as stated above in the section titled "The Information We Collect."

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file a Web site places on a site visitor's computer hard drive. Its purpose is to let the site know when a user visits and to perform certain functions such as saving passwords and personal preferences.

Cookies help evaluate visitors' use of a Web site, such as what viewers want to see and what they never read. This information allows Easterseals to better focus online information and to concentrate on information people are using.

Your browser is probably set to accept cookies. If you would like to turn this feature off, you will need to change the settings of your Internet browser.

Security of Your Information

All credit card and personal profile information provided to Easterseals or our Internet software partner, Convio, Inc., is transmitted using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption using Verisign as a payment gateway. SSL is a proven coding system that allows a browser to automatically encrypt, or scramble, data before it is sent.

Easterseals also protects account information by placing it on a secure portion of the Easterseals Online Network that is only accessible by certain qualified employees of Easterseals. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure. Easterseals strives to protect your information, however cannot ensure or warrant the security of such information.

Tell-A-Friend, Ecards and Personal Fundraising Pages

If you elect to use the referral service to inform a friend about a page on the Easterseals Online Network, send an ecard, or raise funds for Easterseals by soliciting friends and family, you will be asked for the friend's name and email address. Easterseals will automatically send the friend a one-time email inviting them to visit the site. Easterseals stores this information to send this one-time email only. In addition, the contact information will be maintained solely for the future convenience of the individual who provided the information - to send subsequent ecards or fundraising reminders/updates.

Links to Other Web Sites

Easterseals has links to other Web sites outside of the Easterseals Online Network. Easterseals is not responsible for the content of any linked Web site, or any link contained in a linked Web site, or any changes or updates to such Web sites. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by Easterseals of that Web site.

In addition, please be aware that Easterseals is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other Web sites. Easterseals encourages you to read the privacy statements of each and every Web site that requests personal information from you.

Information from Children

Easterseals does not seek to collect personal information about children through the Easterseals Online Network. If a child submits information through any part of the Network, and Easterseals is aware that the user submitting the information is a child, the information is not used for any purpose, nor is it disclosed to third parties. Easterseals will comply with all regulations set forward by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). To learn more about COPPA, visit the Federal Trade Commission.

Transmission of Health-Related Data

Easterseals understands the sensitivity of collecting and using health-related data. Personally identifiable health-related data collected on the Easterseals Online Network will not be shared with entities other than Easterseals, Inc., and Easterseals affiliates. Any transfer of personally identifiable health-related data between Easterseals organizations will take place in a secure environment with access allowed only to certain qualified employees of Easterseals. Easterseals will comply with all regulations set forward by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). To learn more about HIPAA, visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights.

Effective date: April 14, 2003

This notice describes how medical information about you may be used and disclosed and how you can get access to this information.  Please review it carefully.

Understanding Your Medical Records Information

We maintain a medical record that contains health information about you or your family.  Typically, this record contains a health history, current status, evaluation results, diagnoses, treatment, and a plan for future care or treatment.

This information serves as a:

• Basis for planning your care and treatment.
• Means of communication among the interdisciplinary team members who contribute to your care.
• Legal document describing the care you received.
• Means by which you or a third-party payer can verify that you actually received the services billed for.
• A tool to assess the appropriateness and quality of care you received.
• A tool to improve the quality of our services and achieve better outcomes.

Understanding what is in your medical records and how your health information is used to help you to:

• Ensure its accuracy and completeness.
• Understand who, what, where, why, and how others may access your health information.
• Make informed decision about authorizing disclosure to others.
• Better understand your health information rights.

Your Rights Under the Federal Privacy Standard

Although your health records are the physical property of the healthcare provider who completed it, you have certain rights with regard to the information contained therein.  You have the right to:

• Request restriction on uses and disclosures of your health information for treatment, payment, and health care operations.
• Obtain a copy of this notice of information practices.
• Inspect and copy your health information upon request.  (We reserve the right to charge a reasonable, cost-based fee for making copies).
• Request amendment/correction of your health information.
• Revoke your consent or authorization to use or disclose health information except to the extent that we have already taken action in reliance on the consent or authorization.
• Obtain an accounting of “non-routine” uses and disclosures-those other than for treatment, payment and health care operations.

We must provide the accounting within 60 days.  The accounting must include:

• Date of each disclosure.
• Name and address of the organization or person  who received the protected health information.
• Brief statement of the purpose of the disclosure that reasonably informs you of the basis for the disclosure or, in lieu of such statement, a copy of your written authorization, or a copy of the written request for disclosure.

The first accounting in any 12 month period is free.  Thereafter, we reserve the right to charge a reasonable, cost-based fee.

In some situations, we may deny you access but, if we do, we must provide you a review of the decision denying access.

Our responsibilities under the Federal Privacy Standard

In addition to providing you your rights, as detailed above, the federal privacy standard requires us to:

• Maintain the privacy of your health information, including implementing reasonable and appropriate physical, administrative, and technical safeguards to protect the information.
• Provide you with this notice as to our legal duties and privacy practices with respect to individually identifiable health information we collect and maintain about you.
• Abide by the terms of this notice.
• Train our personnel concerning privacy and confidentiality.
• Implement a sanction policy to discipline those who breach privacy/confidentiality or our polices with regard thereto.
• Mitigate (lessen and harm of) any breach of privacy/confidentiality.

We reserve the right to change our practices and to make the new provisions effective for all individually identifiable health information we maintain.  Should we change our information practices, we will mail a revised notice to the address you have supplied us.

We will not use or disclose your health information without your consent or authorization, except as described in this notice or otherwise required by law.

If you have questions and/or would like additional information, you may contact Samuel Martin, Director and Privacy Officer, at 309.686.1177.

Examples of disclosures for treatment, payment, and health operations

We will use your health information for treatment.  Example:  Staff will record information in your, or your child’s, record to identify your present status and the best course of treatment.  Staff will write a treatment plan and document the treatment provided and you or your child’s progress/level of participation.  As appropriate, the therapist will also document parent education activities and record progress made during home program activities.  We will also provide other members of the interdisciplinary team with copies of your records to assist them in working with you or your child once we are no longer providing services.

We will use your health information for payment.  Example:  We may send a bill to you or to a third-party payer.  The information on or accompanying the bill may include information that identifies you or your child, diagnosis, treatment received, and any supplies used.

We will use your health information to conduct quality assurance reviews.  Example:  Members of the quality assurance team may use information in your health record to assess the care and outcomes in your cases and the competence of the caregivers.  We will use this information in an effort to continually improve the quality and effectiveness of the healthcare and services we provide.

Business Associates:  We provide some services through contracts with business associates.  Examples include adaptive equipment evaluations or orthotics/splinting services.  When we use these services, we may disclose your health information so that they can perform the function(s) we have contracted with them to do and bill you or your third-party payer for services rendered.  To protect your health information, however, we require the business associate to appropriately safeguard your information.

Research:  We may disclose information to researchers when their research have been approved by an institutional review board that has reviewed the research proposal and established protocols to ensure the privacy of your health information.

Marketing/continuity of care:  We may contact you to provide appointment reminders or information about treatment alternatives or other health-related benefits and services that may be of interest to you.

Fund-raising:  We may contact you as a part of a fund-raising effort.  You have the right to request not to received subsequent fund-raising materials.

Law Enforcement:  We may disclose health information purposes as required by law or in response to a valid subpoena.

You have the right to file complaints regarding these privacy regulations to Samuel Martin, Compliance Officer at 309.686.1177.