Dental Clinic Patient Portal Privacy Policy

The Portal has the ability to provide you with access to some of your medical records. When you seek access to those records via the Portal, NSU needs to confirm your identity. As such, we may ask you for information such as your name, email address, physical address, and/or other personal information such as your date of birth (which we may also use to make sure you are eligible to use the Portal in accordance with the Terms) and the answers to "secret questions" to which only you know the answers (collectively, “Personal Information”). This information may be used to help administer, secure, and manage your user account.

Personal Information collected by NSU through the Portal may be used in the following ways: (i) to provide, analyze, administer, and improve our Services; (ii) to contact you in connection with our Services and appointments, events or offerings that you may have registered for; (iii) to identify and authenticate your access to the parts of the Portal that you are authorized to access; (iv) to protect our rights or our property and to ensure the technical functionality and security of our Services; and (v) as required to meet legal and regulatory obligations applicable to NSU.

If you have questions about the legal basis upon which NSU collects and uses your information, please see the HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices.

NSU does not sell, lease, rent or otherwise disclose the Personal Information collected from the Portal to third parties unless otherwise stated below or with your consent.

• Third Party Providers. NSU may transfer Personal Information to third party service providers to perform tasks on its behalf and to assist it in providing its Services. For example, NSU may utilize third party service providers for security, reliability, legal/regulatory compliance, analytics, and payment processing. NSU uses commercially reasonable efforts to only engage or interact with third party service providers and partners that post a privacy policy governing their processing of Personal Information and require our service providers to maintain confidentiality and comply with applicable laws in the processing of personal information.
• Other Disclosures. We may disclose Personal Information about you if we have a good faith belief that disclosure of such information is helpful or reasonably necessary to: (i) comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request; (ii) enforce our terms of use, including investigations of potential violations thereof; (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud or security issues; or (iv) protect against harm to our or third parties’ rights, property or safety.

In addition to the uses and disclosures of information outlined above, if you use the Portal, your information may also be used and disclosed as follows:

• Authorized Representatives. If another individual is managing your account on your behalf (a family member assisting an elderly parent), as authorized by you or as a personal representative under applicable law, that person can view all Personal Information about you in the Portal.
• Healthcare Providers. Your healthcare providers may have access to Personal Information for administrative and healthcare services. We may also use Personal Information to respond to and fulfill your orders and requests.

Absolute security cannot be guaranteed, but NSU maintains industry accepted physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect your Personal Information collected via our Services in compliance with applicable law. Please see the (“Terms”) Policy located at the bottom the login page of the Portal for more specific information about information security and your responsibilities.

Users are also responsible for taking appropriate steps to protect the privacy of their Personal Information. In order to protect your privacy, you should:

• Never share your username or password for the Portal with anyone;
• Only access the Portal in a private location and avoid using public or shared devices to access the Portal;
• Always sign out of the Portal and completely close your web browser when you are finished using the Portal;
• Ensure that your device’s operating system is up-to-date and patched with the most current security updates available;
• Use only secure web browsers and ensure that the most current security updates available have been installed;
• Utilize appropriate anti-virus and anti-malware tools on your personal system or device;
• Use a strong password with a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols that are not easily guessed;
• Change your password often; and
• Contact the at itsecurity@nova.edu immediately if you believe your login and/or password have been compromised

Sharing your Portal username and password with another person will allow that person to see your confidential medical record information. NSU has no responsibility related to any breach of your confidential medical record information due to your sharing or losing your username or password, or the compromise of your account due to the insufficiency of your own security practices.

NSU will retain Personal Information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it has been collected and as required by law.

While two-way communication is available through the portal, the portal is unmonitored and intended only for non-urgent and non-health related messages. Please contact your health care provider during business hours for health-related questions. If this is a medical emergency, please immediately call 911 for prompt medical attention. Do not rely on electronic communications for assistance in regard to your immediate, urgent medical needs.

If you are visiting our Portal from outside the United States, your information may be transferred to, stored or processed in the United States, where our servers are located, and our central database is operated. Although the data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country, we take steps to protect your privacy. By using our Portal, you understand and agree that your information may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this Privacy Policy.

If you are a patient, your medical information in the Portal is considered protected health information ("PHI") protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, as amended (“HIPAA”), and the applicable provisions of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (“HITECH”) Act. In addition to this Privacy Policy, NSU’s HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices applies to your PHI.

In collecting Personal Information, our Services may also collect PHI. Just as we strive to protect Personal Information, we are committed to protecting your PHI. If there is a breach of your PHI, we are required by law to notify you. Your PHI will only be disclosed to you or your personal representative, unless otherwise required or permitted by state or federal law. This protection extends to PHI that is oral, written, or electronic.

NSU will never ask for or knowingly collect Personal Information from children through the Services or Portal. If you are a child, you are not permitted to use the Portal and should immediately exit our Portal.

NSU reserves the right to change the terms of this Privacy Policy at any time by posting those changes in revisions to this Privacy Policy, so that you are always aware of our processes related to collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information. As such, NSU recommends that you check here for any updates to this Privacy Policy from time to time. Unless otherwise indicated, any changes to this Privacy Policy will apply immediately upon publication.