Notice of Health Information Privacy Practices
This section of our Privacy Policy (Section I, “Notice of Health Information Privacy Practices” or “Notice” ) describes how Aster Mental Health may use and disclose health information about you and how you can access this information. Please review it carefully.

We are required by law to:

  • Maintain the privacy of your health information.

  • Provide this Notice of our duties and privacy practices.

  • Abide by the terms of the Notice currently in effect.

  • Tell you if there has been a breach that compromises your health information.

    We reserve the right to change our privacy practices, and make the new practices effective for all the information we maintain. Revised notices will be posted on the Aster Mental Health website.

  1. How is patient privacy protected?
    As the healthcare professionals providing online medical and clinical services within Aster Mental Health (“us“, “we“, “our“), we understand that information about you and your health is personal. Because of this, we strive to maintain the confidentiality of your health information. We continuously seek to safeguard that information through administrative, physical and technical means, and otherwise abide by applicable federal and state guidelines.

  2. How do we use and disclose health information?
    We use and disclose your health information for the normal business activities that the law sees as falling in the categories of treatment, payment and healthcare operations. Below we provide examples of those activities, although not every use or disclosure falling within each category is listed:

    • Treatment – We keep a record of the health information you provide us. This record may include your test results, diagnoses, medications, your response to medications or other therapies, and information we learn about your medical condition through our Services. We may disclose this information so that other doctors, nurses, and entities such as laboratories can meet your healthcare needs.

    • Payment – We document the services and supplies you receive when we are providing care to you so that you, your insurance company, or another third party can pay us. We may tell your health plan about upcoming treatment or services that require prior approval by your health plan.

    • Health care Operations – Health information is used to improve the services we provide, to train staff, for business management, quality assessment and improvement, and for customer service. For example, we may use your health information to review our treatment and services and to evaluate the performance of our staff in caring for you.

  3. We may also use your health information to:

    • Comply with federal, state or local laws that require disclosure.

    • Assist in public health activities such as tracking diseases or medical devices.

    • Inform authorities to protect victims of abuse or neglect.

    • Comply with federal and state health oversight activities such as fraud investigations.

    • Respond to law enforcement officials or to judicial orders, subpoenas or other processes.

    • Inform coroners, medical examiners and funeral directors of information necessary for them to fulfill their duties.

    • Facilitate organ and tissue donation or procurement.

    • Conduct research following internal review protocols to ensure the balancing of privacy and research needs.

    • Avert a serious threat to health or safety.

    • Assist in specialized government functions such as national security, intelligence and protective services.

    • Inform military and veteran authorities if you are an armed forces member (active or reserve).

    • Inform a correctional institution if you are an inmate.

    • Inform workers’ compensation carriers or your employer if you are injured at work.

    • Recommend treatment alternatives.

    • Tell you about health-related products and services.

    • Communicate within our organization for treatment, payment, or healthcare operations.

    • Communicate with other providers, health plans, or their related entities for their treatment or payment activities, or health care operations activities relating to quality assessment and improvement, care coordination and the qualifications and training of healthcare professionals;

    • Provide information to other third parties with whom we do business, such as a record storage provider. However, you should know that in these situations, we require third parties to provide us with assurances that they will safeguard your information.

    • We may also use or disclose your personal or health information for operational purposes. For example, we may communicate with individuals involved in your care or payment for that care, such as friends and family and send appointment reminders.

  4. All other uses and disclosures

    All other uses and disclosures, not previously described, may only be done with your written authorization. We will also obtain your authorization before we use or disclose your health information for marketing purposes. You may revoke your authorization at any time; however, this will not affect prior uses and disclosures.

  5. Do you have any Federal Rights?
    The law entitles you to:

    • Inspect and copy certain portions of your health information. We may deny your request under limited circumstances. You may request that we provide your health records to you in an electronic format.

    • Request amendment of your health information if you feel the health information is incorrect or incomplete. However, under certain circumstances we may deny your request.

    • Receive an accounting of certain disclosures of your health information made for the prior six (6) years, although this excludes disclosures for treatment, payment, and health care operations. (Fees may apply to this request).

    • Request that we restrict how we use or disclose your health information. However, we are not required to agree with your requests, unless you request that we restrict information provided to a payor, the disclosure would be for the payor’s payment or healthcare operations, and you have paid for the health care services completely out of pocket.

    • Request that we communicate with you at a specific telephone number or address.

    • Obtain a paper copy of this notice even if you receive it electronically.

      We may ask that you make some of these requests in writing.

What if I have a complaint?
If you believe that your privacy has been violated, you may file a complaint with us or with the Secretary of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. We will not retaliate or penalize you for filing a complaint with the practice or the Secretary. To file a complaint with us or receive more information contact:


Phone: (617) 299-2238
Email: inquiries@astermh.com
Address: 325 Wood Road, Ste 209, Braintree, MA 02184

To file a complaint with the Secretary of Health and Human Services write to: 200 Independence Ave., S.E., Washington, D.C. 20201, call 1-800-537-7697, or file an online complaint at https://ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/smartscreen/main.jsf.

Who Will Follow This Notice?
This Notice describes the health care practices of:

  • Aster Mental Health Providers who are authorized to access and/or enter information into your health record;

  • All departments and units of Aster Mental Health through which online health services are provided; and

  • All affiliates and volunteers

Aster Mental Health Site Privacy Policy
Introduction.
This Section of our Privacy Policy (Section II, “Site Privacy Policy“) explains how we collect, use, and disclose information from and/or about you when you use the Site or the Services.

BY USING THE SITE, YOU AGREE THAT WE CAN COLLECT AND USE YOUR PERSONAL AND OTHER INFORMATION AS DESCRIBED IN THIS SITE PRIVACY POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, PLEASE DO NOT USE THE SITE.


Important Definitions.
When we use the term “Personal Information” in this Privacy Policy, we mean information about you that is personally identifiable to you, such as your contact information (e.g., name, address, email address, or telephone number). When we use the term “Non-Personally Identifiable Information”, we mean information that is neither used nor intended to be used to personally identify an individual.

The Personal information we collect or maintain may include:

  • Your name, age, email address, and phone number.

  • Other information you input into the Site or related services.

  1. We may use your Personal Information for the following purposes (subject to the restrictions relating to the use of Health Information described in Section I):

    • To contact you to arrange the provision of Services.

    • To create Non-Personally Identifiable Information such as aggregate statistics relating to the use of the Services.

    • To market and promote the Site and the Services to you.

    • To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide us Personal Information.

    • For any other purpose for which you give us authorization.

  2. We may also disclose Personal Information that we collect or you provide (subject to the restrictions relating to the use of Health Information described in Section I):

    • To contractors, service providers and other third parties we use to support our business and who are bound by contractual obligations to keep personal information confidential.

    • As required by law, which can include providing information as required by a court order.

    • When we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect your safety or the safety of others, to protect our rights, to investigate fraud, or to respond to a government request.

    • To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution or other sale or transfer of some or all of Aster Mental Health assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding, in which Personal Information maintained by the Site is among the assets transferred.

    • For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.

  3. Information We Collect via Technology.
    As you use the Site or the Services, certain information may be passively collected by Cookies, navigational data like Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and third party tracking services, including:

    • Site Activity Information. We may keep track of some of the actions you take on the Site, such as the content of searches you perform on the Site.

    • Access Device and Browser Information. When you access the Site from a computer or other device, we may collect anonymous information from that device, such as your Internet protocol address, browser type, connection speed and access times (collectively, “Anonymous Information”).

    • Analytics Tools. We use tools such as Google Analytics to help analyze how users use the Site. Such third parties may use cookies, APIs, and SDKs in our services to enable them to collect and analyze user and device related data and information on our behalf. Google Analytics uses Cookies to collect information such as how often users visit the Site, what pages they visit, and what other sites they used prior to coming to the Site. This information is used to improve our Site and Services. You may prevent your data from being used by Google Analytics by downloading and installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.


Non-Personally Identifiable Information.
We may use Non-Personally Identifiable Information created by us without restriction.

Information You Share With Third Parties.
This Site Privacy Policy applies only to information we collect through the Site and in email, text and other electronic communications set through or in connection with the Site. This Site Privacy Policy DOES NOT apply to information collected by any third party. When you click on links on the Site you may leave our Site. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites, and we encourage you to read their privacy statements.

Modification of Information.
Members will be able to update some of their information through the Site. Requests to modify any information may also be submitted to inquiries@astermentalhealth.com.

Limitations on Deletion of Information.
You may request deletion of your Personal Information by us, however, we may be required (by law or otherwise) to keep this information and not delete it (or to keep this information for a certain time, in which case we will comply with your deletion request only after we have fulfilled such requirements). When we delete Personal Information, it will be deleted from the active database, but may remain in our archives and we may also retain Anonymous Information about your use of our services. Once we disclose some of your Personal Information to third parties, we may not be able to access that Personal Information any longer and cannot force the deletion or modification of any such information by the parties to whom we have made those disclosures. After we delete Personal Information, we may retain Non-Personally Identifiable Information and will continue to use Non-Personally Identifiable Information as permitted under this Site Privacy Policy.

Steps we take to keep your information secure.
We employ reasonable physical, electronic and managerial security methods to help protect against unauthorized access to Personal Information, such as encryption. But please be aware that no data transmission over the Internet or data storage facility can be guaranteed to be perfectly secure. As a result, while we try to protect your Personal Information, we cannot ensure or guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us.

Right to Non-Discrimination
Aster Mental Health will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your privacy rights under law, or as set forth in this Site Privacy Policy.

Changes to the Site Privacy Policy.
We may change the Site Privacy Policy from time to time in the future. We will post any revised version of the Site Privacy Policy on this page. Continued use of our services following notice of such changes will indicate your acknowledgement of such changes and agreement to be bound by the terms and conditions of such changes. By using the Site, you are agreeing to our collection, use and disposal of Personal Information and other data as described in this Site Privacy Policy, both as it exists now and as it is changed from time to time.

Revised on February 14th, 2024