Website Privacy Policy

Effective date: [SET AT LAUNCH]

Last updated: [SET AT LAUNCH]

About this policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Sigma Psychiatry treats information collected through our website at sigmapsych.net (the "Site"). It covers the information you give us when you fill out a form on the Site, along with basic technical information your browser shares automatically when you visit.

This policy is about the website. It isn't the same as our Notice of Privacy Practices. Our Notice of Privacy Practices is a separate document that governs your protected health information once you become a patient and we provide care. Protected health information is the medical and billing information we create and keep as your treating practice, and it's regulated under a federal health-privacy law called HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Information you submit through a simple website contact form before you're a patient is generally not protected health information, so this Privacy Policy, rather than the Notice of Privacy Practices, applies to it. If you're already a patient, please read the Notice of Privacy Practices for how we handle your clinical information.

Sigma Psychiatry is a telehealth psychiatry practice serving patients in California and New Jersey. Care in California is provided by Sigma Psychiatry, A Professional Medical Corporation. Care in New Jersey is provided by Sigma Psychiatry LLC. For the purposes of this website policy, "Sigma Psychiatry," "we," "us," and "our" refer to both entities together as the operators of the Site.

What we collect

Information you give us through the consultation-request form. When you ask to be contacted or to request a consultation, our form asks for:

• Your name
• Your email address
• Your phone number
• The state you're located in (California or New Jersey)
• A free-text message describing what you're looking for

You choose what to put in the message field. Please don't include detailed medical history, diagnoses, medication lists, or other sensitive health details in the website message box. A brief note about why you're reaching out is all we need at this stage. We'll gather clinical information through secure, HIPAA-appropriate channels once you're a patient.

Information collected automatically. Like most websites, our Site may collect limited technical information automatically, such as your device type, browser type, the pages you view, and general analytics about how visitors use the Site. We use this only to understand and improve how the Site works. If we use a third-party analytics tool, it operates on our behalf under terms that restrict how it may use the data. We don't use the Site to build advertising profiles about you, and we don't run targeted advertising based on health interests.

We don't knowingly collect more information than we need to respond to you and to operate the Site.

How we use your information

We use the information you provide to:

• Respond to your consultation request and contact you by phone or email
• Answer your questions and help you decide whether our practice is a fit
• Schedule an intake call or appointment if you choose to move forward
• Operate, maintain, secure, and improve the Site

We use automatically collected technical information only to keep the Site working properly and to understand general usage patterns.

We don't sell your information

We don't sell your personal information. We don't rent or trade it. We don't share it with third parties for their own marketing.

We share information only with service providers who help us run the Site or our practice (for example, a website host, a secure scheduling or communications tool, or an analytics provider), and only to the extent they need it to perform that service for us. These providers are bound by contracts that require them to protect your information and to use it only for the services they provide to us. We may also disclose information if we're required to do so by law, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of our patients, our practice, or others.

How we protect your information

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect the information collected through the Site against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. No website or method of transmission over the internet is perfectly secure, so we can't guarantee absolute security. For that reason, please don't send sensitive health details through the website form. Once you're a patient, we communicate clinical information through secure channels appropriate to protected health information.

How long we keep website information

We keep consultation-request information only as long as we need it to respond to your inquiry and for a reasonable period afterward consistent with our ordinary business and recordkeeping needs, and then we delete or de-identify it. If your inquiry leads to your becoming a patient, the information you provided may become part of your clinical record, which is governed by our Notice of Privacy Practices and by the retention rules that apply to medical records, not by this website policy. We keep general website analytics for a limited period for the purpose of maintaining and improving the Site.

Children's privacy

Our Site is intended to be used by adults, including parents and guardians who are seeking psychiatric care for themselves or for a child or adolescent. The Site isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information online from a child under 13 through the Site. A federal law called the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, requires website operators to obtain a parent's verifiable consent before knowingly collecting personal information online from a child under 13 (16 C.F.R. Part 312). We don't seek that information from children. If you're a parent or guardian reaching out about a minor, please submit the form yourself rather than having your child do so, and please keep clinical details out of the message box. If you believe a child under 13 has provided personal information through the Site, contact us at RamyMD@sigmapsych.net and we'll delete it. Please note: the personal and health information of your minor child that we collect as part of providing care, once your child is a patient, is protected health information governed by our Notice of Privacy Practices and by state law on minors' health information, not by this website policy.

Your California privacy rights

California residents have rights regarding their personal information under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (together, the "CCPA"). Two points come first:

First, medical information that we hold as a health care provider is generally not covered by the CCPA. The CCPA exempts protected health information held by a HIPAA-covered entity and medical information governed by California's Confidentiality of Medical Information Act. So your clinical information is governed by our Notice of Privacy Practices and by HIPAA and California medical-privacy law, not by the CCPA. The rights described here apply to the limited personal information we collect through the Site, such as your contact-form entries and website analytics.

Second, as a small practice, we may not meet the size and revenue thresholds that make the CCPA's full set of business obligations mandatory for us. Even so, as a matter of good practice we'll honor the following requests regarding website information about California residents:

• The right to know. You may request that we tell you the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you through the Site, the categories of sources, the business purpose for collecting it, and the categories of third parties (such as service providers) with whom we share it.
• The right to delete. You may request that we delete personal information we collected from you through the Site, subject to legal exceptions.
• The right to correct. You may request that we correct inaccurate personal information we hold about you from the Site.
• The right to opt out of sale or sharing. We don't sell or share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there's nothing to opt out of. If that ever changes, we'll update this policy and provide a clear opt-out method first.
• The right to limit use of sensitive personal information. We don't use sensitive personal information collected through the Site for purposes beyond providing the services you request and operating the Site.
• The right to non-discrimination. We won't deny you services, charge you a different price, or provide you a different level of service because you exercised any of these rights.

To make any of these requests, contact us at RamyMD@sigmapsych.net. We may need to verify your identity before responding, which protects you by making sure we don't give your information to someone else. You may use an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf. We'll respond within the timeframes the CCPA requires.

Links to other sites

The Site may contain links to other websites we don't control, such as a third-party scheduling or telehealth platform. This policy doesn't apply to those sites. Please review the privacy policy of any third-party site you visit.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we'll change the "Last updated" date above and post the revised policy on this page. If we make a material change, we'll make that clear.

How to contact us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or about how we handle website information, contact:

Dr. Ramy
Sigma Psychiatry
Email: RamyMD@sigmapsych.net