HIPAA & Privacy Policy

Information you provide

The contact form requests your name, email address, phone number, preferred contact method, service of interest, and reason for contacting us. This information is used to respond to your inquiry and help arrange your visit. Please do not submit medical records, Social Security numbers, payment card details, or other sensitive information through the general website form. Call the office to ask how to provide clinical information.

Website tools and information collected automatically

The site uses browser storage to remember accessibility preferences and a cookie to remember your selected translation language. It also loads Google Fonts, Google Translate, Google Maps, and Cloudflare Turnstile for form spam protection. Requests to these services can disclose technical information such as an IP address, browser information, and the page requesting the service. These providers may use cookies or other technologies under their own policies.

Contact requests are sent through the website’s Gargle forms service. Website hosting and form-processing providers handle information needed to operate the website and deliver requests. Contact the office with questions about who processes your inquiry.

[Before publication: confirm the complete provider list, hosting logs, form-data retention, vendor safeguards, and any analytics, advertising, scheduling, or call-tracking tools enabled for the live site.] The current website code includes Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager launch placeholders; their final settings and data collection have not been confirmed.

Cookies, external services, and browser choices

You can use browser settings to manage cookies and clear stored website preferences. Blocking cookies or external services may affect translation, maps, or form submission. Third-party sites reached through links, including review sites, apply their own privacy policies.

The website currently has no application-level response to a browser’s Do Not Track signal. Third-party services may handle signals differently. [Before publication: confirm live tracking behavior, Global Privacy Control handling, and whether any third-party service collects information across other websites over time.]

Provider information: Google Privacy Policy and Cloudflare Privacy Policy.

California privacy requests

California medical privacy laws and HIPAA govern protected medical information. Other personal information may be subject to different laws. The California Consumer Privacy Act applies to businesses that meet its criteria, and its medical-information exemptions do not automatically exempt every category of website information.

Where applicable, California consumers may have rights to know or access personal information, request deletion or correction, opt out of sale or sharing, limit certain uses of sensitive personal information, and exercise rights without discrimination. Contact the office to ask about your information or submit a privacy request. Requests may require identity verification; legal recordkeeping obligations can limit deletion of patient records.

[Before publication: determine CCPA applicability; confirm whether personal information is sold or shared for cross-context behavioral advertising; document request handling, retention periods or criteria, and any required privacy-choice mechanism. No sale or sharing determination has been made in this draft.]

Security, retention, and changes

No internet transmission or storage method can be guaranteed completely secure. Avoid sending sensitive clinical information through general website communications. [Before publication: confirm the office’s safeguards, website and inquiry retention practices, and the process for requesting access or corrections.]

Updates to this policy will be posted on this page with a revised effective date. Material changes will be identified here. Questions about personal information should be directed to the office using the contact details above.

Our responsibilities

We are required by law to protect the privacy of your protected health information, provide a notice of our legal duties and privacy practices, follow the notice currently in effect, and notify affected individuals following a breach of unsecured protected health information as required by law. The duties described in this draft become the office’s notice upon adoption.

How health information may be used and disclosed

• Treatment: information may be used to plan dental care or shared with another treating professional. For example, a specialist may need dental images to evaluate a referral.
• Payment: information may be used to bill for care or seek benefits. For example, a dental benefit plan may receive information about a procedure when reviewing a claim.
• Health care operations: information may support practice administration and quality improvement. For example, records may be reviewed to evaluate care or resolve a billing issue. Service providers handling protected information must meet applicable confidentiality requirements.
• Care communications: information may be used for appointment reminders and discussions of treatment alternatives or health-related services.
• People involved in your care: relevant information may be shared with family members or others involved in care or payment when you agree, do not object, or applicable law permits professional judgment when you cannot express a preference. Disaster-relief disclosures may also be permitted.

Other disclosures may be permitted or required for public health reporting; suspected abuse, neglect, or domestic violence; preventing a serious health or safety threat; health oversight; approved research subject to legal safeguards; workers’ compensation; qualifying law-enforcement requests; court proceedings; coroners, medical examiners, or funeral directors; organ donation; and certain government functions. Each disclosure must meet the conditions of applicable law. A request from another party does not by itself authorize disclosure.

California protections and specially protected records

California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act and other applicable state protections can limit disclosures beyond HIPAA. Where a stricter law applies, its requirements govern. Written authorization is generally needed for medical-information disclosures unless a legal exception applies. Additional rules may protect certain mental-health, HIV-related, reproductive-health, or other sensitive information.

If the office receives substance use disorder records protected by 42 CFR Part 2, those records, or testimony about their contents, cannot be used or disclosed in civil, criminal, administrative, or legislative proceedings against you without the required written consent or a qualifying court order with a subpoena or other legal requirement compelling disclosure. For example, protected treatment records cannot be supplied for a proceeding against you merely because they are requested.

Information disclosed under HIPAA may be disclosed again by a recipient and may no longer have HIPAA protection; other laws, including Part 2 and California law, may still restrict its use or disclosure.

When written authorization is needed

Uses and disclosures not described in the adopted notice require your written authorization unless permitted or required by law. Most uses of psychotherapy notes, marketing uses of protected health information, and sales of protected health information require authorization, subject to legal exceptions. You may revoke an authorization in writing, except to the extent action has already been taken in reliance on it.

[Office to confirm whether it conducts fundraising or any marketing requiring authorization.] If fundraising communications using protected health information are sent, you may opt out of future communications. Before using Part 2 records for fundraising, a clear opportunity to decline those communications must be provided.

Your rights and how to exercise them

Contact the office at (619) 425-2600 or submit a written request to the practice address above. Ask for the designated privacy contact. Rights are subject to applicable exceptions; the office may need to verify your identity or a representative’s authority.

• Inspect or obtain records: request access to your dental and billing records, including an available electronic copy. California generally requires inspection within five working days and copies within 15 days after a qualifying written request, subject to exceptions and lawful fees.
• Request a correction: ask to amend information you believe is inaccurate or incomplete. If a request is denied, you may receive a written explanation and have rights to submit a statement of disagreement.
• Request confidential communications: ask to be contacted at a different address or by a specific method. Reasonable requests must be accommodated.
• Request limits on disclosures: ask to restrict information used or shared for treatment, payment, or operations. The office generally need not agree, except it must honor a qualifying request not to disclose to your health plan for payment or operations when you pay the relevant item or service in full and disclosure is not otherwise required by law.
• Request an accounting: ask for an accounting of certain disclosures during the preceding six years. This generally excludes treatment, payment, operations, and authorized disclosures. The first accounting within a 12-month period is free; additional requests may have a reasonable fee.
• Obtain a paper notice: request a paper copy of the adopted notice even if you received it electronically.
• Use an authorized representative: a legally authorized representative may exercise rights on your behalf, subject to applicable law.
• Receive breach notification: receive notice when required following a breach of unsecured protected health information.

Questions or complaints

Contact the designated privacy contact through the office at (619) 425-2600 or write to San Diego Bay Dental, 257 F St, Chula Vista, CA 91910. You may also file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, call 1-877-696-6775, or write to 200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, DC 20201. You will not be retaliated against for filing a complaint or exercising privacy rights.

California resources: California Attorney General’s patient privacy guide.

Changes to the adopted notice

The office may revise the adopted notice and apply its revised terms to information it already maintains, as permitted by law. A revised notice will identify its effective date and be available at the office, on the website, and upon request.