Willamette Dental Corporate Privacy Statement

4714 July 8, 2020

At Willamette Dental Management Corporation and its affiliated companies, Willamette Dental Group, P.C., Willamette Dental Insurance, Inc., Willamette Dental of Washington, Inc., and Willamette Dental of Idaho, Inc., (“Willamette Dental”, collectively) we value the trust subscribers and patients (“customer or customers”, collectively) have placed in us. That is why we welcome this opportunity to describe the steps we take to protect customer information. This Statement provides details about these policies and procedures.

  • We do not sell customer information.
  • We do not share customer information with outside persons or companies for unrelated purposes such as selling their products or services.
  • We do not share customer health information provided as part of a dental record, insurance application or claim, with outside persons or companies, except for legally authorized purposes
  • We maintain security standards and procedures designed to protect customer information.
  • We require outside persons or companies that validly need our customer information to protect the confidentiality and prohibit independent use of customer information.
  • We afford prospective and former customers the same protections as existing customers with respect to the use of customer information.

INFORMATION COLLECTION

The primary reason that we collect and maintain customer information is to serve and administer customer relationships. This information may be collected from a variety of sources, such as the following:

  • Information provided to us on applications or forms, such as names, addresses, dates of birth, and phone, social security, insurance and account numbers; and
  • Information resulting from dental treatment, and dental account transactions, obtained from within Willamette Dental and from non-affiliated companies we work with to administer our business, including such information as health history, dental records, payment history and credit history.

HEALTH INFORMATION CONFIDENTIALITY

We will not disclose health information to anyone without authorization unless the law permits or requires us to do so. Our contractual relationships with health care providers, as well as state and federal laws require the providers to keep customer health information confidential. Willamette Dental, its health care providers and payers (including self-funded employers) require access to customers’ medical/dental information for a number of necessary reasons. These reasons include underwriting, claims payment, fraud prevention, case management, delivery of care, quality assessment, utilization review, compliance with state and federal requirements, data collection and reporting, accreditation, and statistical research. Customer authorization as well as federal and state laws permits these disclosures.

INFORMATION USE AND DISCLOSURE WITHIN WILLAMETTE DENTAL

We use and share customer information within Willamette Dental to provide products, services and administer our business. The information we maintain about customer relationships helps us verify identity, provide insurance benefits and dental treatment, and administer claims. Within Willamette Dental, we share the customer information we collect with our affiliates as reasonably necessary, including to provide dental care, dental insurance, enrollment, eligibility, claims management, billing and accounting.

WITH OUTSIDE COMPANIES OR PARTIES

We share information outside Willamette Dental only for necessary and appropriate business purposes. We require these non-affiliates to keep customer information confidential. We may disclose customer information to the following types of outside companies or parties:

  • Insurers, insurance administrators, benefit administrators, dentists and health care providers;
  • Companies that perform services on our behalf, such as check printing, preparation of account statements, and product marketing;
  • Government, credit, and collection agencies and other outside entities as permitted or required by federal and state law. These disclosures are made for specific limited purposes, such as to verify identity, credit and accounts, collect debts or respond to a court order or subpoena; and
  • Others, such as technical consultants engaged to program our computer systems to help us provide, track, analyze and market our services and products.

INFORMATION CONFIDENTIALITY AND PROTECTION PRACTICES

Willamette Dental is committed to preventing others from unauthorized access to customer information, and we maintain procedures and technology designed for this purpose. We take steps to protect the customer information we have, including the following:

  • We update our technology in accordance with federal and state privacy regulations to improve the protection of customer information; and
  • We have internal procedures that limit access to customer information, such as procedures requiring an employee to have a business need to access customer information. We maintain policies to provide security of workplaces and records.

INFORMATION INTEGRITY MEASURES

At Willamette Dental, we work hard to ensure customer information is complete and accurate. We have procedures and processes for updating our customer information. We protect the integrity and survivability of customer information through measures such as maintaining backup copies of account data in the event of power outages or other business interruptions, using computer virus detection and eradication software on systems containing customer information, upgrading computer hardware and software, and employing other technical means to protect against unauthorized computer entry into systems containing customer information.

COMMUNICATION

To contact Willamette Dental, write to:

Willamette Dental Privacy Officer
Willamette Dental Management Corporation
6950 NE Campus Way
Hillsboro, Oregon 97124