Connecting minds. Moving medicine.

PRIVACY POLICY

  1. Introduction

Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) will help you understand how Formedics LLC (collectively with our Family of Businesses, “us” or “we”) collects, uses, discloses and protects the data you provide to us when you visit and use our websites, mobile applications and related online or offline services that we provide (collectively, the “Services”). This Policy also describes your choices about the collection and use of your information.

Please read this Policy carefully before you start to use our Services. By using the Services, you agree to be bound and abide by our posted Terms of Use (the “Terms”) and this Policy. If you do not agree to the Terms and this Policy, or if you violate them in any way, your right to access or use the Services is terminated. PLEASE SEE SECTIONS 12-14 IN OUR TERMS REGARDING YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS IN ANY DISPUTE INVOLVING OUR SERVICES, INCLUDING MANDATORY ARBITRATION AND A WAIVER OF RIGHTS TO A JURY TRIAL OR CLASS ACTION.

  1. How We Collect Information

We may collect information you by various means, including:

  • Directly from you, both online (e.g., website, app, email) and offline (e.g. phone);
  • From other third party sources and social media platforms that you may use to engage with us;
  • Through your use of our Services; and
  • By combining information from different sources, including online and offline data.
  1. Types of Information We Collect

In order to provide you with our Services, we may collect the following categories of information:

  • Profile and registration information, such as a username and password, name, shipping and billing address, business name, title, medical specialty, email address, phone number, areas of interest, verification details (as may be required to verify you, your credentials or your medical specialty in your country of residence or medical practice), and other Account profile information;
  • De-Identified Medical Information, such as de-identified medical records and claims data associated with certain practices;
  • Social Media Information, such as content posted on social media platforms by our members or third parties;
  • Survey information, in response to questions we may send you in connection with the Services, including for feedback and research purposes;
  • Communications between you and us, such as via email, mail, phone, or other channels;
  • Information Posted on Services, such as comments posted on discussion boards or other public forums;
  • Offline activity you directly engage with us, if any; and
  • Online User Activitydescribed in the next section.

You may use certain Services to invite colleagues to join the Services. While we may access your address book to do so, we do not store your complete address book. You are responsible for any consents necessary for any emails we send at your direction.

If you provide us with information regarding another individual, you represent that you have that person’s consent to give us his or her information and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Policy.

  1. Case Information

Based on your account status, some of the following Services may be made available to you:

  • Upload cases with captions and tags;
  • Share cases;
  • Comment on cases;
  • Answer medical and non-medical questions; and
  • Create “Collections” in the Website and Application.

This information is collectively referred to as “Case Information”. All Case Information that you post or respond to through the Services must comply with all applicable laws, including privacy laws and regulations.

You must remove any identifying individual information prior to posting any Case Information through the Services, and you agree that you shall not include any such identifying information in any captions, comments or elsewhere in the Services. The Services may include certain features provided in an abundance of caution, such as automatic and manual information-blocking tools, to help detect and remove direct identifiers and other common identifiers in posted Case Information. Notwithstanding our provision of such features, you must still endeavor to anonymize all Case Information before posting it, and these features do not release you from any duties or obligations that you owe to any third parties (including, if applicable, any of your patients) under any applicable laws. (A list of common identifying features is in Figure 1’s Content Policy).

  1. Online User Activity, Cookies and Information Collected by Other Automated Means

Cookies are a commonly used web technology that allow websites to store and retrieve certain information on a user’s system, and track users’ online activities. We, together with vendors we use, may collect information about your use of our Services by such automated means, including but not limited to cookies, pixels, SDKs and other similar technologies.

Cookies and similar technologies can help us automatically identify you when you return to our Services. Cookies help us review website traffic patterns, improve the Services, and determine which Services are popular. We can also use such information to deliver customized content and advertising to users of the Services whose behavior indicates that they are interested in a particular subject area.

When you use the Services, the information we may collect by automated means includes, for example:

  • Usage Details about your interaction with our Services (such as the date, time, and length of visits, and specific pages or content accessed during the visits, search terms, frequency of the visits, referring website addresses);
  • Device Information including the IP address and other details of a device that you use to connect with our Services (such as device type and unique device identifier, operating system, browser type, mobile network information, and the device’s telephone number); and
  • Location information where you choose to provide the Services with access to information about your device’s location.

We may also ask advertisers or other partners to serve ads or services to you, which may use cookies or similar technologies placed by us or the third party. If a user does not want information collected through the use of cookies, most browsers allow the visitor to reject cookies, but if you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features our Services provide. We may share non-personal information obtained via cookies with our advertisers and affiliates. Because there is not yet a consensus on how companies should respond to web browser-based do-not-track (“DNT”) mechanisms, we do not respond to web browser-based DNT signals at this time.

If we implement third party targeted advertising cookies or other tools that require an opt-out right under applicable privacy laws, we will provide an opt-out option, and endeavor to process “Global Privacy Control” (GPC) signals from web browsers by automatically opting-out such visitors from such third party tools, although GPC technology is not fully developed and it is not yet supported by all browsers.

  1. How We Use Information We Collect

We may use the information we obtain about you for purposes allowed by applicable laws, including:

  • Provide our Services to you, including to maintain your Account, store your User Content and Case Information, manage any purchases or transactions, provide important notices, respond to your requests, questions and comments and provide customer support;
  • Monitor the performance of our Services including metrics such as total number of visitors, traffic, and demographic patterns;
  • Tailor the content we display to you in our Services and communications, including advertising, and offer products and services that we believe may be of interest to you;
  • Operate, evaluate and improve our Services and other products and services we offer (including to develop new services), and diagnose or fix technology problems;
  • Analyze and enhance our communications and strategies;
  • Inform you about changes to this Privacy Policy and our Terms and other policies; and
  • Comply with and enforce as needed applicable legal requirements, industry standards, our policies and our contractual rights, as needed for security purposes, and to investigate possible fraud or safety issues.

We may also use or share information in an anonymized or aggregate manner for many purposes such as research, analysis, modeling, marketing, and improvement of our Services.

  1. Online Advertising

You may see us advertising on various websites, web pages, social media and other platforms. Please note that online advertising services do not always provide us with complete information about the platforms or websites on which our advertising may appear. If you believe that our advertising is being displayed through websites or channels that promote inappropriate or offensive content, please contact us.

  1. How You and We Share Your Information

You understand and agree that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy or confidentiality for User Content or Case Information you share with one or more user(s) through the Services. While shared information may initially be directed to selected users, we cannot control how users will use or disclose information, and it is therefore deemed public once posted, unless and to the extent we expressly provide otherwise.

We will not disclose your personal information without consent, except in the following circumstances:

  • As discussed above, certain Online User Activity may be shared through third party targeted advertising cookies or other tools, but subject to opt-out functionality where required by law.
  • We may share limited contact details and medical practice-related information with advertising partners and sponsors for their own business purposes including marketing.
  • We may allow Users to post certain User Content and Case Information through our Services.
  • We may share your information with service providers that we believe need the information to perform a technology, business, or other professional function for us (examples include IT services, maintenance and hosting of our Services, payment processors, shipping and returns partners, marketing partners, and other service providers). We only provide such vendors with information so they can perform their required functions on our behalf.
  • If we receive information about an adverse event regarding a pharmaceutical product or medical device, we may be required by law to report such information, along with your contact information, to the manufacturer in order to fulfill its reporting obligations to the applicable regulatory authority.
  • We also may disclose information about you (i) if we are required to do so by law or legal process, (ii) when we believe disclosure is necessary to prevent harm or financial loss, (iii) in connection with an investigation of suspected or actual fraudulent or illegal activity; or (iv) under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of our staff, users or the public.
  • We reserve the right to transfer the information we maintain in the event we sell or transfer all or a portion of our business or assets. If we engage in such a sale or transfer, we will make reasonable efforts to direct the recipient to use your personal information in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Policy.

Where appropriate, we will limit sharing of your information in accordance with the choices you have provided to us and consistent with applicable law.

Certain Services may be a member of the IQVIA Healthcare Communications Network (the “HCN”). HCN is owned an managed by IQVIA Inc. (“IQVIA”) and is designed to enable IQVIA and HCN members to provide medically relevant business communications to authenticated U.S.-based healthcare professionals. If you are a U.S.-based healthcare professional, Your registration at the particular Service includes registration with HCN. As a result, your contact and other professionally relevant information will be disclosed to IQVIA and each HCN member to provide you medically relevant content as described in the HCN privacy policy available at https://hcn.health/privacy-policy/.

  1. Your Privacy Choices
  2. Generally

We offer you certain choices about what information we collect from you, how we use and disclose the information, and how we communicate with you.

  • Marketing Emails: From time to time, we may contact you via email for the purpose of providing announcements, promotional offers, alerts, confirmations, surveys, and/or other general communication. You may choose not to receive marketing emails from us by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the marketing emails you receive from us. Even if you opt out of receiving such communications, we will continue sending you non-marketing email communications, such as administrative or transaction alerts, or information about changes to our Terms.
  • Cookies: Web browsers may offer users the ability to disable receiving certain types of cookies; however, if cookies are disabled, some features or functionality of our Services may not function correctly.
  • Device settings: Your device may enable you to disable certain permissions or functionality in our Apps (e.g., location); however, when necessary permissions or functionality are disabled, some features or functionality of our website may not function correctly. You can also disable pop-up notifications in device settings.
  • Account deletion:
    • We will terminate and delete your Account for Figure 1 Services after receiving and verifying a request submitted to [email protected]. We may also be able to anonymize certain User Content and Case Information and reattribute it to “Account Deleted.” You may request to have all images and comments associated with your Account deleted, but we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.
    • We will terminate and delete your Account for Physician’s Weekly Services after receiving and verifying a request submitted to [email protected].

Notwithstanding the foregoing, we may retain certain information as required by law or for our legitimate business purposes (e.g., transaction records). In addition, deleted information may remain in our backup archives for some period of time. We may also retain information for fraud detection or similar purposes.

  1. State-Specific Rights

In addition to the disclosures provided in this Policy, if you are a resident of a state with a comprehensive state privacy law and we are subject to such law based on our business activities, you can exercise certain additional rights regarding your personal information to the extent provided that that law. In particular:

  • You may request a copy of the following: (1) the categories of personal information we collected about you; (2) the categories of sources from which the personal information is collected; (3) the business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling (if applicable) the personal information; (4) the categories of third parties with whom we shared personal information, and the categories of personal information shared; and (5) the specific pieces of your personal information that we have collected, used, disclosed, or sold.
  • You may request that we (and our service providers) correct your personal information if it is inaccurate or delete your personal information. Note that deletion requests are subject to certain limitations, for example, we may retain personal information as permitted by law, such as for tax or other record keeping purposes, to maintain an active account, to process transactions and facilitate customer requests, and for certain other internal business purposes described in our Privacy Policy.

If you have an Account with us, you may access certain personal information (such as profile and transaction information) directly through your Account after logging in to the Services, and may update and correct certain profile information as well. Otherwise, to request a copy of personal information we have collected about you, to request a correction of your information, or to request that the your information be deleted, please contact us as directed below. You may authorize another person (your “agent”) to submit a request on your behalf the same way. After you (or your agent) submit a request, we will check our records for matching information and contact you (typically via email at the email address provided during submission of your request) with instructions on how to verify the request before we fulfill it. We will aim to complete your requests as soon as reasonably practicable and consistent with any applicable laws. Note that you can terminate an Account or opt out of email or marketing lists as provided above.

You may also have the right at any time to opt out of (i) selling or sharing of your personal information to third parties, and (ii) targeted advertising through third parties. We may provide certain personal information to advertising businesses and other third parties, such as to provide targeted advertising, customer analytics, a more personalized experience and special offers to you. Specifically, your contact and practice information, Online User Activity (as described above) and/or similar information may be shared through targeting cookies or data sharing, and we may benefit from these activities. You can opt-out of such sharing (which may be referred to as a “Do Not Sell or Share” right). For cookies and other online tools subject by law to such requirements, we will provide an opt-out mechanism on our Services and endeavor to process GPC signals as described in Section 3 above. You can opt-out of third party data sharing by contacting us as directed below and we will fulfill the request as required by law and otherwise in our discretion.

Privacy laws may provide you with other opt-out rights which are inapplicable to us. In particular, we do not engage in impactful profiling activities, and we do not collect, use or disclose sensitive personal information (such as precise geolocation, financial account information, etc.) except for the specific purpose(s) that you provide it.

We may not, and will not, discriminate against any customer for exercising their privacy rights, including those provided by the applicable privacy laws. Please note that we may otherwise continue to share your personal information with our affiliates and service providers, and as otherwise directed by you, for the purposes described in our Privacy Policy.

If we deny a privacy request, you may appeal the decision to us at the contact information provided below. To the extent possible, please describe the basis for your appeal and if there is any specific personal information that concern you. We will endeavor to provide a prompt response.

  1. Additional notice for California residents
  • Financial Incentives. We do not generally provide a loyalty program or other financial incentive in return for the collection or use of personal information. On some occasions we may engage in a limited-time marketing event, promotional offer or discount that includes a registration or other collection of personal information, and we will disclose the benefits and terms of that promotion at the time of collection.
  • Privacy rights requests for non-users. California privacy rights apply to all individuals (not just Users), including job applicants, current and former employees, contractors and business partners. Due to the nature of these relationships, the collection and use of personal information can vary, as described above. All such individuals who are California residents can request additional information about our privacy practices with respect to their information, as well as make the access, deletion, correction and opt-out requests described above, by contacting us as directed below. Please provide sufficient information that we can identify you, and be aware that we may employ a more extensive authentication process to verify your identity before responding to your request.
  • California Privacy Rights – Direct Marketing. If you are a resident of California, you are entitled to opt out and/or request information regarding our disclosure of your personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes within California. To make such a request, please send an email to us as directed below. Any such request must include “California Privacy Rights Request” in the first line of the request and include your name, street, address, city, state, and ZIP code. Please note that we are only required to respond to one request per user each year, and we are not required to respond to requests made by means other than through this email address or mail address. California residents are also entitled to contact the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs in writing at 1625 North Market Blvd., Sacramento, CA 95834, or by telephone at (916) 445-1254 or (800) 952-5210 for suspected violations and to learn more about their rights.
  1. Additional notice for Nevada residents

Please note that if and to the extent we sell personal information as defined by Nevada law (Nevada Revised Statutes, Chapter 603A, Section 1.6), you can submit a request to us as directed below to opt out of the sale of such information.

  1. International Notice

This section is specifically intended for individuals residing outside of the United States (“US”). This includes residents of the European Economic Area (“EEA”) including the European Union (“EU”), the United Kingdom (“UK”), Switzerland and any other relevant jurisdiction outside the United States with respect to your local privacy and data protection laws, to the extent they are applicable to us.

  1. Legitimate Bases for Processing

Where required by law, all processing of personal information is justified by a legally recognized basis for processing. In the majority of cases, processing will be justified on one or more of the following bases for processing: (i) The processing is necessary to perform a contract with you (such as if you using an Account, making a purchase, or subscribing to our Services or email marketing); (ii) The processing is necessary for us to comply with a relevant legal obligation, such as keeping accounting records; (iii) The processing is in our legitimate interests, which are not overridden by your interests and fundamental rights. Our legitimate interests are to use personal information to reasonably and responsibly conduct and develop our business activities without abusing any privacy interests or rights of such individuals, including provision of our Services, facilitating communications between users, and engaging in promotional and advertising activities with partners that may be of interest to you; and (iv) In some instances, we rely on your consent to our processing (at times as a secondary basis for processing in an abundance of caution).

  1. Transfer of Personal Information

If you use our Services from outside the United States, you acknowledge and agree that we may transfer your information to and from the United States. If you are in the EEA/EU, the UK, Switzerland or another jurisdiction that has imposed similar legal requirements regarding the lawful transfer of personal information from that jurisdiction to another country (e.g., the US), to the extent that we engage in such a transfer of your personal information (a “Cross-Border Transfer”) we will take steps to ensure that such Cross-Border Transfer satisfies known legal requirements. In particular: If we transfer personal information to a jurisdiction deemed by relevant regulatory authorities to provide adequate protection for personal information, we will rely on such adequacy decision, as applicable, and will otherwise take steps to conduct the Cross-Border Transfer using other legally-valid mechanisms, such as by entering into data transfer agreements with standard contractual clauses (“SCCs”) among our affiliates and with relevant service providers, in any necessary supplementary safeguards. We monitor evolving laws and regulatory developments to assess if and when alternative or supplemental measures are available or necessary.

  1. Exercising Privacy Requests

Residents of certain jurisdictions outside the United States may be entitled to exercise certain rights under privacy laws applicable to their personal information. This includes the right to (a) request access to your personal information; (b) request that we correct inaccurate personal information we hold about you; (c) request that we delete any personal information we hold about you; (d) restrict or object (i.e., withdraw consent) to the processing of personal information we hold about you in some circumstances; and/or (e) receive any personal information we hold about you in a structured and commonly used format. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your supervisory authority if the processing of your personal information infringes applicable law. Please contact us as provided below if you wish to exercise any of your rights, or if you have any inquiries or complaints regarding the processing of your personal information.

  1. Links to Other Websites and Third Party Content

Our Services may contain links to other websites or online services, including social media. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of such other websites or online services, and we encourage you to be aware when you leave our Services and to read the privacy statements of any other website or online service that collects personal information.

You may see us promoted by other businesses on various websites, web pages, social media and other platforms. Please note that we do not always have complete information about where our brand may be displayed or promoted, and if you believe that we are featured in venues that are inappropriate or offensive, please contact us.

  1. How We Protect Information

We endeavor to maintain reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to protect the personal information we maintain against accidental, unlawful or unauthorized destruction, loss, alteration, access, disclosure or use. However, we cannot ensure the security of any information you transmit to us, or guarantee that this information will not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed. We will make any legally required disclosures in the event of any compromise of personal information. To the extent the law allows us to provide such notification via e-mail or conspicuous posting on the Services, you agree to accept notice in that form.

  1. Children

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16 on our Services. If you believe that a child under 16 provided personal information to us through the Services, please notify us. If we learn that we have received personal information from a child under 16 without parental consent, we will endeavor to promptly delete that information.

  1. Updates to Our Privacy Policy

We may revise or update this Privacy Policy at any time by posting the updated version on our Services. We may also notify you via email about changes to our Privacy Policy. We will indicate on our Privacy Policy when it was most recently updated. Your continued use of our Services after such updates will constitute an acknowledgment of the change and agreement to abide and be bound by the updated Privacy Policy.

  1. Contacting Us

Please contact us if you have any questions, concerns or comments about this Privacy Policy, our privacy practices, or if you would like us to update information or preferences you provided to us, please contact us as directed at 800-317-9139 or [email protected].

This Privacy Policy was last updated October 8, 2024.