Privacy Policy

Personal information is any accurate or subjective details, recorded or not, about a recognizable individual. Personal information contains information in any form that connects to their characteristics (e.g., gender, age, income, home address or phone number, ethnic background, family status), their health (e.g., health history, health conditions, health benefits received by them) or their actions and views (e.g., religion, politics, opinions expressed by an individual, an opinion or evaluation of an individual). Personal information is to be distinguished from business information (e.g., an individual’s business address and telephone number), which is not covered by privacy legislation.

CareWell Physical Therapy and Balance Center comprises Physical Therapists and administrative personnel. Our healthcare professionals and support staff are dedicated to providing care for those seeking treatment at our clinic. We also work with consultants or agencies that may have restricted access to personal health information in our possession during their duties.

Like all healthcare providers, we collect, use, and disclose information to serve our clients. For our clients, the immediate purpose of gathering personal information is to provide physical therapy. For example, we collect information about a client’s health history, physical condition, condition, and social situation to help us assess what their needs are, to advise them of their options, and then provide information so that in providing ongoing services, we can identify changes that are occurring over time.

For the general public, we collect personal information to notify them about special events (e.g., physical therapy seminars) or inform them about CareWell Physical Therapy and Balance Center's services. For example, while we aim to use work contact information whenever possible, we may also collect home addresses, fax numbers, and email addresses. We always obtain consent before using any such personal information. Still, where this is not, for any reason possible, we will, upon request, immediately remove any personal information from our client's list.

On our website, we only collect, except cookies, the personal information you provide and only use that information for the purpose you gave us (e.g., to respond to your email message, to register, change, or cancel an appointment). Cookies are only employed to help you find our website and are not used to monitor you.

For people contracted to work for us, our primary purpose for collecting personal information is to ensure we can contact them for necessary work-related communication. Examples of personal information collected for those purposes may include home address, date of birth, social insurance number, and telephone numbers. It is a number for us to collect such information without prior consent. Still, it might occur during a health emergency, such as a local pandemic outbreak, or to investigate a potential breach of law, such as theft. Suppose contract staff, volunteers, or students wish for a letter of reference or an evaluation. In that case, we will collect information about their work-related performance and provide a report only as they authorize it.

• To invoice clients for goods or services not paid for at the time, to produce credit card payments, or to co, collect unpaid accounts.
• To advise clients that their service should be reviewed (e.g., to ensure an exercise program is still appropriate for their current needs and to consider modifications).
• We are available to advise clients and inform them about special events or opportunities, such as seminars, new services development, or new products.
• Our clinic reviews clients and other files to ensure that we provide high-quality services, including assessing the performance of our staff. In addition, external consultants such as auditors, lawyers, practice consultants, and voluntary accreditation programs may conduct audits and continuing quality improvement reviews of our clinic on our behalf. This may involve reviewing client files and interviewing staff.
• Physical Therapists are regulated by their respective provincial Colleges (regulatory bodies). These bodies have the authority to inspect our records and interview our staff as part of their regulatory activities in the public interest. Additionally, as professionals, we must report serious misconduct, incompetence, or incapacity of other practitioners, regardless of whether they belong to other organizations or our own. Our organization also believes it should report information suggesting severe illegal behavior to the authorities. It's important to note that external regulators have strict privacy obligations, and sometimes, the reports we provide may include personal information about our clients or other individuals to support the concern (e.g., improper services). Furthermore, like all organizations, various government agencies can review our files and interview our staff as part of their mandates. In such cases, we may consult with professionals (e.g., lawyers, accountants) who will investigate the matter and report to us.

We understand the importance of protecting personal information. For that cause, we have taken the following steps:

• The information on paper is kept in a supervised or locked/restricted area for security purposes.
• Electronic hardware is always supervised or secured in a locked or restricted area. In addition, passwords are used on computers. Our cell phones are digital, so signals are more difficult to intercept.
• The information on paper is sent in sealed, addressed envelopes or boxes by reputable companies.
• Staff is trained to collect, use, and disclose personal information only as necessary to fulfil their duties and by our privacy policy.
• External consultants and agencies with access to personal information must enter into privacy agreements with our company.

We need to retain personal information for some time to ensure we can answer any questions you might have about the services provided and our accountability to external regulatory bodies. We only want to keep personal information brief to protect your privacy. Our client and contact directories are much more challenging to destroy systematically, so we remove such information when possible. If it does not appear, we will contact you again. If you request, we will promptly remove such contact information. We keep any personal information relating to our general correspondence with people who are not our clients, newsletters, seminars, and marketing activities for about two years after the newsletter ceases publication, seminar or marketing activity is over. We shred paper files containing personal information to destroy them. For electronic information, we delete it, and when we discard the hardware, we make sure to destroy the hard drive physically. Alternatively, we may return some or the entire client file to our client.

You generally have the right to access the personal information we have about you, with only a few exceptions. We can assist you in identifying the records we may have about you and help you understand any information that may need clarification, such as abbreviations or technical language. We must confirm your identity before providing this access if we do not know you. We secure the right to charge a fee for such requests.

If there is an issue, we may request that you submit your request in writing. If we cannot grant you access, we will inform you within 30 days, if possible, and provide the best possible explanation for why access cannot be granted.

You can request a correction if you believe there is a mistake in your information. This applies to factual information and not to any professional opinions we have formed. We may ask you to provide documentation if our records are incorrect. Where we agree that we made a mistake, we will correct and notify anyone to whom we sent this information. If we don't agree that we've made a mistake, we'll still agree to include a brief statement from you about the matter in our file and then forward that statement to anyone else who received the previous information.

CareWell Physical Therapy and Balance Center is committed to protecting your private personal information and treating you with the highest courtesy and respect. If you have any questions about our privacy practices or any concerns about how we handle your request for personal information, please contact:

Address: 3802 Ehrlich Rd STE 309 Tampa, FL 33624

Contact No: 813-725-4265

Mail ID: info@carewellphysicaltherapy.com

This policy is under the Personal Health Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. It is a complex Act and includes some additional exceptions to the privacy principles, which are too detailed to outline here. There are a few rare exceptions to the commitments mentioned above.