Effective Date: July 12, 2024
Last Updated: October 16, 2024
Healthfirst, Inc. is a not-for-profit health insurer that offers high-quality, affordable plans to fit every life stage for its New York member base. We value your relationship with us and are proud to respect your privacy and protect your personal information.
This website is owned, operated, licensed, and controlled by Healthfirst, Inc. (“Healthfirst,” and together with Healthfirst, Inc., “Healthfirst”, “we,” “us,” or “our”). This Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy” or “Policy”) describes the types of personal information we collect from our plan members (“Members”), website visitors, and other individuals (collectively, “you”) when they visit our website at https://healthfirst.org and all related websites and applications (collectively, our “Sites”), as well as over the course of providing our member benefits and other products and services, whether that personal information is collected online, via other electronic communications or telephone, in paper correspondence, or in person (collectively, the “Services”). This Policy also describes how we use your personal information, under what circumstances we may share it and with whom, and your rights and choices.
For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, “personal information” means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular individual. It does not include publicly available information or information that has been de-identified or aggregated.
Please note that your health and medical information and other personal information collected for purposes of providing healthcare or managing your health insurance are regulated by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and similar federal and state laws (collectively “protected health information”), including the privacy and security protections of those laws. Accordingly, this Policy does not pertain to protected health information. Any coverage of protected health information in this Policy is incidental and provided merely to enhance your understanding of our data collection and use practices and does not waive or override our obligations under other laws. Please visit https://healthfirst.org/privacy-notices for more information regarding our collection and use of protected health information. To the extent your use of the Sites are subject to a separate agreement, in the event of a conflict between that agreement and this Policy, the agreement will govern.
This Policy also does not apply to third-party sites, products, or services, even if they link to our Sites or Services, and we encourage you to read the privacy policies of any third-party site with which you choose to interact. Where links to third-party sites are integrated in our Sites or Services, we will make every effort to clearly mark them as such.
This Privacy Policy explains the following. Please click on each section for more detail.
The types of personal information we collect will be apparent by the context of the page or your interactions with us, and generally includes personal information you choose to provide us and personal information we collect as you interact with our Sites and Services.
We may collect the following categories of personal information about you that you choose to provide to us when you use the Sites and Services, including when you contact us or respond to our communications, create a new account on our Site, interact with us on social media, or participate in our events.
In addition to the personal information you choose to provide us, our Sites and Services use cookies, and similar tracking technologies that automatically collect personal information about you, including:
This collection may involve the use of third-party cookies on our Sites to help us analyze your use of our Sites and diagnose technical issues. In addition, we may share this tracking information with third parties for the limited purposes indicated herein. To learn more about our use of cookies and how you can opt-out of analytics tracking by third parties, please see our Cookie Policy.
We may collect personal information about you from third-party sources, including our affiliate companies, business associates and other vendors, as well as our clients and business partners. This may include personal information collected:
This collection may include the following types of personal information:
These third parties collect this personal information and provide it to us pursuant to their privacy policies and other contractual and legal obligations, as may be applicable. To control the information that we receive from a third-party, please update your privacy settings or preferences with that third party or in your browser.
We may combine the personal information that you provide with information that we obtain from these sources, including both online and offline data providers.
We will not sell or rent any personal information you provide to us. We may use the personal information that we collect about you for the following purposes:
Generally speaking, we may use your personal information to:
We may combine personal information collected from you via the Sites and Services with other information we obtain from our business records or third-party sources in order to provide you with a better experience and to provide and improve and maintain our Sites and Services. Additionally, personal information collected about you from a particular browser or device may be linked to personal information collected from another computer or device that we believe relates to you.
We may share certain of your personal information with our business associates, partners and other entities, consistent with the circumstances in which we have collected the information and for the following reasons:
The Sites may use cookies and similar technologies to improve user experience, for performance and analytics, provide tailored digital advertisements, and to customize and enhance our content, products, and services. A “cookie” is a small text file that a web server stores in browser software. A browser sends cookies to a server when the browser makes a connection to that server (for example, when requesting a web page from the same domain that created the cookie).
The general purpose of cookies is to remember a browser over time and distinguish one browser instance (or user) from all others. Some cookies and other technologies may track the personal information users provide when they interact with a site and may store such personal information. We may use first-party and third-party cookies to ensure that our Sites and Services function properly, to understand how individuals use and engage with our Sites and Services and to analyze and improve our Site and Services.
We may use third-party vendors, including Google, who use first-party cookies and third-party cookies together to inform, optimize, and serve advertisements based on your past activity on the Sites. The information collected may be used to, among other things, analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content, and better understand online activity. We encourage you to review Google’s relevant privacy policies. If you do not want any information to be collected and used by Google Analytics, you may be able to install an opt-out in your web browser.
Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to block or delete all cookies in your browser’s settings using the links provided below. Please note that if you block essential cookies, certain parts of the Site may not function properly.
To the extent applicable, if you would like to stop receiving our emailed newsletter or other electronic marketing or promotional messages and notifications, you may do so by following the unsubscribe instructions that appear in our email or text communications. You may also be able to manage your electronic communications preferences by contacting us using the information in the Contact Us section. We will endeavor to comply with these requests as soon as reasonably practicable. Please be advised that you may not be able to opt-out of receiving certain service or transactional email messages from us that are required to provide you with our Services.
If you have an account with us, we provide you with the ability to review, correct, or update certain personal information that we have collected about you. You may do so by signing into your Healthfirst account or if you do not have an account, by contacting us. If you wish to delete your account with us, you may do so by contacting us.
You have the right to access your personal information, as well to request to change or delete such information. For your own protection, we may require additional information or contact you to verify your identity before processing your request. We will not fulfill your request unless you have provided sufficient information that enables us to reasonably verify that you are the consumer about whom we collected the personal information on. We will endeavor to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable.
The privacy and security of your personal information is deeply important to us. To that end, Healthfirst maintains technical, administrative, and physical safeguards to help protect the security of your personal information against unauthorized access, destruction, loss, alteration, misuse or disclosure. Within Healthfirst, your personal information is accessible to only a limited number of personnel who need access to the information to perform their duties. Please note, however, that no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure.
You are solely responsible for the content of your email messages and other web-based communications. It is important to use your best judgment when sending information to Healthfirst via email and similar methods. These communications may pass through private and public networks with varying levels of security. Some, but not all, of these networks may have taken appropriate steps to secure the email transmissions. It is thus possible for the privacy and integrity of an email message to be compromised.
If you wish to share personal or other sensitive information with Healthfirst, please call the Member Services telephone number located on your ID card. This is the safest way to ensure that your information is not intercepted and possibly misused by others.
Healthfirst offers health plans for New Yorkers. As such, our Site and Services are operated from the United States and intended only for Members, potential Members, and web visitors located in the United States. Any collection of personal information from individuals located outside the United States is unintentional and/or incidental.
That said, it is possible that your personal information is transferred outside of your state, country, or other governmental jurisdiction in order for the Healthfirst to render the collection, use, and sharing practices disclosed elsewhere in this Privacy Policy.
Those jurisdictions may have data protection rules that are different from those of your jurisdiction. If so, we will take measures to ensure that any such transfers comply with applicable data protection laws and that your personal information remains protected to the standards described in this Privacy Policy. Personal information transferred to another country may be subject to lawful access requests by courts, law enforcement agencies, or other government authorities in those other countries.
Our Sites and Services are not directed toward individuals under the age of 13 (“Children”). We do not knowingly collect personal information from Children, and no personal information should be submitted to our Sites by Children. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a Child, without appropriate consents, we will delete that personal information as permitted by law. You must be old enough to consent to the processing of your personal information in your country, and you must be at least 18 years of age to use our Services. If you believe we may have any collected personal information from a child under the age of 13 without parental consent, please submit a written request via the email to HIPAAprivacy@healthfirst.org.
Our Sites and Services may contain links or otherwise provide access to third-party sites, which may include websites or mobile applications. These links are maintained for your informational purposes only and to point you toward the products and services of third parties that we believe may be of interest to you. Please note that we have no control over and are not responsible for third-party sites, their content, or any products or services available through the third-party sites. Our Privacy Policy does not apply to third-party sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any third-party sites with which you choose to interact.
Advancements in technology will continue to provide us with new and improved ways to collect and use information so that we may better serve your health care needs. We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect those advances, and we encourage you to regularly return to this page for any updates.
The date this Privacy Policy was last updated is identified at the top of this page. Any changes are effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy on the Sites. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy that expand our rights to collect new personal information or to use differently any personal information that we have previously collected about you, we will use our available contact information about you – if you are an existing member – to reasonably notify you of such updates and provide you with the new disclosures by posting it on our Sites and/or via email.
If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can email us, write to us, or call us using the information below:
Healthfirst Privacy Office
P.O. Box 5183
New York, NY 10274-5183
Email: HIPAAprivacy@healthfirst.org
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