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Privacy Practices

This Notice of Privacy Practices describes how we may use and disclose your protected health information to carry out treatment, payment or healthcare operations and for other purposes that are permitted or required by law. It also describes your rights to access and control your protected health information. "Protected health information" is information about you, including demographic information, that may identify you and that relates to your past, present or future physical or mental health or condition and related healthcare services.

Read the entire Notice of Privacy Practices document in:

Our Philosophy on Privacy

Your privacy is important to HealthSouth, and we are committed to safeguarding your privacy online. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible visiting our website and using its services. We urge you to read our privacy policy so that you will know how we maintain and protect information we collect from you.

Our Privacy Policy

Our privacy policy comprises a number of different sections, each addressing different issues and information. We hope that reading them gives you a clear idea of how we manage information we collect from you when you use our website. To access a particular topic, click on the title of that section.

Section 1: Information we collect and how it is used.
Section 2: Who collects the information.
Section 3: Disclosure of and access to information.
Section 4: Security measures and procedures; your responsibilities.
Section 5: Choices available to you regarding the information you receive.
Section 6: Updating, correcting and deleting your personally identifiable information.
Section 7: Changes to our privacy policy; compliance with our website terms and conditions; request for consent to use personally identifiable information in other ways; miscellaneous.

Section 1: Information we collect and how it is used

We collect information in different ways through our website. The information we collect from users of our website can be categorized as being either anonymous or personally identifiable.

Anonymous information refers to information that cannot be tied to a specific individual. Many persons who access our website do not use the personalization features that are available to them through our website, and therefore these individuals are anonymous to us and the data we collect from them does not enable us to identify them in any personal way. For example, we may know that 10,000 users visit our website every day and that 3,000 of them reside in New York, but we may not know their names or where they live.

Personally identifiable information refers to information that tells us specifically who you are, such as your name, address, age, etc. In many cases, we ask for this information to provide the personalized service you wish to use. The amount of personally identifiable information that we know about you is entirely up to you to decide. We will only know personally identifiable information about you if you choose to share this information about yourself.

Our primary goal in collecting information of either type is to provide you with interactive and personal services. Below, we describe what types of information are collected and how we collect and use it.

All anonymous information we collect through our website is collected when your web browser accesses our website. When you surf the Internet, your web browser automatically transmits information about your preferences to our server every time you visit our website. The anonymous information collected by us through your web browser helps us to monitor audience size, measure traffic patterns and identify popular services and information within our website. We use this information to improve our services to you and to help develop improved services based on user interests, behavior and demographics.

We collect personally identifiable information when you voluntarily provide it when entering a promotion or contest, requesting a newsletter that we produce or indicating that you would like to receive certain targeted information on topics that interest you.

In addition, we may also collect information through the use of "cookies". When you visit our website for the first time, our server sends a cookie to your computer's hard drive through your web browser. A cookie is a small text file that contains a unique identification number that is sent from us and stored on your computer. Cookies enable us to recognize your web browser whenever you visit our website; we are able to do so through the unique identification number assigned to the cookie. If you wish to find out how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to disable cookies altogether and how to monitor when you receive a new cookie, check the "help" feature of your web browser.

Section 2: Who collects the information

All of the personally identifiable information collected on HealthSouth.com is collected by us alone, unless we specifically tell you otherwise.

Section 3: Disclosure of and access to information

As a general rule, we will not disclose your personally identifiable information to any unaffiliated third party, except when we have your permission or under special circumstances, such as when we believe in good faith that the law requires it or to protect your rights, our rights and the rights of others, as described below. Your personally identifiable information may be accessed by any of our affiliated third parties, such as our healthcare facilities. However, even in such cases, your information can only be accessed by certain authorized HealthSouth employees, and access is only obtainable through the use of encrypted passwords.

If we offer services in conjunction with an unaffiliated third party, we may need to share some or all of your personally identifiable information with that unaffiliated third party. If information is being collected by, maintained by or shared with an unaffiliated third party, we will notify you of this fact before the information is collected or shared, as appropriate. If you do not want your personally identifiable information to be shared, you can choose not to use that particular service or notify us that you do not wish your personally identifiable information to be shared.

We may also use promotions and contests that are sponsored or co-sponsored by unaffiliated third parties. Some or all of the information we collect from our website, including personally identifiable information, may be shared with the sponsor or co-sponsor. If information is to be shared, we will notify you before the information is collected. If you do not wish for your personally identifiable information to be shared, you can choose not to participate in the promotion or contest.

Unaffiliated third parties will have their own data collection and privacy policies. If you agree to have your information shared with an unaffiliated third party, we encourage you to review its policies. We are not responsible for, nor do we have any liability with respect to, these policies.

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or via facsimile can be guaranteed to be 100 percent secure. As a result, while we strive to protect the privacy of your personally identifiable information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any of your personally identifiable information transmitted in this manner.

In some circumstances we may be required by law to disclose personally identifiable information. We will do so, in good faith, only to the extent required by law and only upon receipt of authentic and proper documentation. We may also disclose personally identifiable information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against a third party who may be violating our terms and conditions governing the use of our website, or who may be (intentionally or unintentionally) causing injury to or interference with your or our rights or property or those of a third party.

We may share anonymous information with unaffiliated third parties. For example, we may match our user information, such as gender and age preferences and usage, with data of these unaffiliated third parties to help develop additional products and services to offer through our website.

Section 4: Security measures and procedures; your responsibilities

HealthSouth.com is a secure data network protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Each data server included in the network is also protected by intrusion detection devices. All personally identifiable information is encrypted and stored on separate data servers.

We review our security and privacy policies periodically and enhance and amend them as and when we believe it is necessary. As indicated above, only certain authorized HealthSouth employees have access to information, including personally identifying information, you provide. Access is only obtainable through the use of encrypted passwords. All of our employees must abide by this privacy policy. Those who violate it are subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.

IMPORTANT: Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose information about yourself in the public domain, for example, through bulletin boards, chat rooms, e-mails, it is likely to be collected and used by third parties. These third parties may use your information to contact you or for unauthorized purposes. Also, please remember that no one can guarantee the absolute security of information transmitted electronically.

Section 5: Choices available to you regarding the information you receive

If you submit personally identifiable information through our website, we may send you unsolicited targeted information. You may choose not to receive this information by notifying us. We will promptly unsubscribe you from receiving any of this information.

We ask for contact information (such as name and email address) if you wish to subscribe to various newsletters. You can unsubscribe from such newsletters very easily. When you have received a newsletter you wish to stop, click on the "reply" button in your mail program, then type in the word "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the "Subject" field and send. We will promptly unsubscribe you from that newsletter.

Section 6: Updating, correcting and deleting personally identifiable information

We strongly believe in providing you with the ability to access and edit any information you may have provided to us about yourself. Accordingly, at any time, you may amend the information about you contained in any registration profile you have completed with us, including any and all personally identifiable information and any other information such as information receipt preferences.

Section 7: Changes to our privacy policy; compliance with our website terms and conditions; request for consent to use personally identifiable information in other ways; miscellaneous

We may amend and update our privacy policy periodically. You should review our privacy policy from time to time to reacquaint yourself with its terms.

Please note that when you use our website, you are agreeing to use our website according to our terms and conditions. If you do not agree to the terms of this privacy policy, our terms and conditions or any revised privacy policy or terms and conditions, please exit our website immediately.

If we make significant changes to our privacy policy which affect the way that we wish to use your personally identifiable information, we will notify you by email of the relevant changes, if you have provided us with an email address. If we collected personally identifiable information from you prior to any significant change in our privacy policy, we will also request your consent for the new use. However, not all changes will affect the way we use your personally identifiable information; we may make non-significant changes to our privacy policy that will not affect our use of your personally identifiable information without specific notice to you.

Our website is not intended for use by children. Children under the age of 18 may only use our website under the supervision of a parent or guardian.