Protecting your privacy and information
Protecting your health information
We follow the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). HIPAA is a law that provides rules on how health plans must keep your personal health information (PHI) private and safe. These rules also state that we can only use your PHI for purposes of treatment, payment and health plan operations. Learn more by reading our HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices (pdf).
Protecting your privacy on our website
Collection and use of personal information
Our website provides you with the opportunity to request additional information about Fallon Health. In the course of these transactions, you may provide us with personal demographic information or possibly detailed medical information. We use the information you provide solely to help us respond to your request. As part of researching or fulfilling your request, your information may be shared with other Fallon Health employees. All employees of Fallon Health sign confidentiality agreements as part of our employment policy to ensure that any private information encountered through the course of their work is treated with the utmost respect.
At no time will we sell, rent, loan, trade, or lease any information collected on our site. However, please note that we may need to use this information within the Fallon Health family of affiliate companies or with a third party vendor to perform administrative, technical, or other functions that help us provide service to you. We seek to hold third-party vendors to the same privacy practices as Fallon Health.
Except as noted above, Fallon Health will not release individualized information to another party unless required to do so by government authorities, legal processes, or otherwise required by law.
Any personally identifiable information collected through the website is not stored on the website, but will go to back-office systems in the same manner that information from paper forms, submissions, and phone calls to customer service are currently handled. The information is used as defined above. As a standard practice, as described below, we collect general statistical information on the content viewed, which is used to help us provide better service to you.
You have the right and ability to exit this website at any time and not remain in active session. If you choose to remain in session on our site, you implicitly consent to our privacy and security policies.
Collection and use of other information: cookies
When you visit our website, we collect certain information that does not identify you personally, but provides us with aggregate "usage data." This information is used to measure the number of visitors to the different sections of our site and to help us make our site more useful to our visitors. This information is retained and periodically deleted from the site; no back-up copies are made.
This website does employ "cookies" to provide visitors with information that is specific to them. A "cookie" is a packet of information sent by a website to a user’s computer, which is then sent back by the computer each time it accesses that website. These cookies do not contain any personally identifiable information, and they cannot be accessed or “read” by any website other than this website.
If you choose, you may block or delete our cookies from your hard drive; however, blocking or deleting cookies may cause some of the website features and functionality to work incorrectly.
Please note that individualized information transmitted via email correspondence between you and Fallon Health—as opposed to transmission over this website—is not encrypted. As a result, such email correspondence may be accessed and viewed by other Internet users without your knowledge and permission while in transit. For that reason, to protect your privacy, if you have concerns about your treatment, or questions that would involve the communication of confidential information, please call your primary care physician or Fallon Health at 1-866-473-0471 (TRS 711), 8 a.m.–6 p.m., Monday–Friday.
Electronic copies of email are not retained in the system once the issue has been resolved. However, hard copies of the information may be retained in Fallon Health files. Information from emails may be transcribed into other Fallon Health systems such as a calls database.
Security
A range of security features protects the privacy of any individualized information you provide over this website. During transmission, your privacy is protected by encryption security. Other security safeguards are also in place.
Fallon Health uses physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect any personally identifiable data stored on its computers. Only authorized employees have access to the information you provide to Fallon Health.
Linked sites
This website has links to various other websites that we think might be useful or of interest to you. Fallon Health, however, cannot be responsible for and does not endorse the privacy practices or the content of its linked websites. We urge you to review the privacy policies of any website you visit once you leave this website. Links to various non-Fallon Health websites do not constitute or imply endorsement by Fallon Health of these websites, any products or services described on these sites, or of any other material contained in them.
Interoperability
In 2020, CMS made a new rule called the Interoperability and Patient Access final rule. This rule requires most payers regulated by CMS, like Medicare Advantage and Medicaid programs, to create a secure API. This API lets patients use third-party apps to see claims, encounter details, cost information (including provider payments and enrollee cost-sharing), and some clinical data.
Third-party apps and your health information
If you choose to allow a third-party app to retrieve your health care data, it is important for you to take an active role in protecting your health information. If an app you are considering does not have a privacy policy, Fallon Health advises you not to use that app.
When choosing your app, you should ask these questions:
- What health data will this app collect? Will this app collect non-health data from my device, such as my location?
- Will my data be stored in a de-identified or anonymized form?
- How will this app use my data?
- Will this app disclose my data to third parties?
- Will this app sell my data for any reason, such as advertising or research?
- Will this app share my data for any reason? If so, with whom? For what purpose?
- How can I limit this app’s use and disclosure of my data?
- What security measures does this app use to protect my data?
- What impact could my sharing of my data with this app have on others, including my family members?
- How can I access my data and correct inaccuracies in the data retrieved by this app?
- Does this app have a process for collecting and responding to user complaints?
- If I no longer want to use this app, or if I no longer want this app to have access to my health information, how do I terminate the app’s access to my data?
- What is the app’s policy for deleting my data once I terminate access? Do I have to do more than just delete the app from my device?
- How does this app inform users of changes that could affect its privacy practices?
If the app’s privacy policy does not clearly answer these questions, you should reconsider using the app to access your health information. Your health information is very sensitive, and you should be very careful to choose apps with strong privacy and security standards to protect it.
Most third-party apps will not be covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). If you want to learn more about HIPAA, who is required to follow it and your rights under HIPAA, read more at the Department of Health and Human Services' website.
Most third-party apps will instead fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the protections provided by the FTC Act. The FTC Act, among other things, protects against deceptive acts (e.g., if an app shares personal data without permission, despite having a privacy policy that says it will not do so).
The FTC provides information about mobile app privacy and security for consumers here: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0018-understanding-mobile-apps
If you think your data has been breached under HIPAA, you should contact our Privacy Officer:
Address: 1 Mercantile St., Ste 400, Worcester, MA 01608
Phone: 1-800-868-5200 (TTY: 711)
Fax: 1-508-831-1136
Email: compliance@fallonhealth.org
Additionally, you can submit a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights under HIPAA, or with the FTC.
- To learn more about filing a complaint with OCR under HIPAA,visit: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/filing-a-complaint/index.html
- You can file a complaint with OCR using the OCR complaint portal: https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/smartscreen/main.jsf
- You can file a complaint with the FTC using the FTC complaint assistant: https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/assistant
Accessing and sharing your health information
If you are interested in sharing your health information with an app, here are the steps you will need to take:
- Download the app(s) of your choice to your device. Click here to view a selection of apps that will allow you to access your Fallon Health data.
- When you are in the app, use the search bar to search for your health plan. You should search for “Fallon Health.”
- Once you have selected your health plan, you will need to provide your consent for Fallon Health to share your health data with the app of your choice. You will be asked for information including your email address, your birth date, and your member ID number.
- You will then be asked to provide a code that will be sent to your email address. The email will come from “no-reply@fallonhealthfhir.com.” This is the third-party vendor that Fallon Health has partnered with.
- Type the code from your email into the app.
- At that point, you can agree to share your Fallon Health medical data with the app of your choice.
Policy is subject to change
We are always looking to offer expanded features and functions that make health care more efficient and accessible for their users. As additional features and functions are added, the privacy policy will be updated to correctly represent how information and features are being used. Please check this policy periodically as it is subject to change at any time.