Privacy Statement

We have created this Privacy Policy in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy and to disclose our practices in gathering, using and disclosing personal information in connection with this Web site. Personal information is information about a person that includes identifying information about that person. Although there are links from this Site to other Web sites, this Privacy Policy applies only to this Site and not to Web sites operated by others. For example, if you click on a link to the Web site of one of our partners or sponsors, the click takes you out of our Site. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other Web sites.

1. Openness. We follow a general policy of openness regarding our privacy practices. This Privacy Policy sets out the fair information practices that govern the collection, maintenance, use and disclosure of personal information regarding visitors who use this Site.
2. Revisions to the Privacy Policy. We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time as we add new features or as laws change that may affect our services. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will post a new version number at the beginning of this Privacy Policy, consisting of the date (year and month) the Policy was last revised, so that you will be able to tell when the Privacy Policy was last changed.
3. Collection of Personal Information. Except as disclosed in this Policy or as disclosed on other pages in this site where information may be collected, we do not collect personal information about visitors to this Site.
   1. Web logs. We maintain standard Web logs that record data about all visitors who use this Site. These logs may contain:
      1. The Internet domain from which you access this Site (e.g., aol.com, abc.org);
      2. Your Internet Protocol (IP) address. Your computer is automatically assigned a number which acts as its IP address when you surf the Internet. Your IP address is either static (always stays the same) or dynamic (changes from time to time). A static IP address may be identifiable to you, while a dynamic address is usually not identifiable.
      3. The type of browser and operating system you use.
      4. The date and time you visited the Site.
      5. The pages that you saw on this Site.
      6. The address of the Web site you linked here from.

      We use Web log information to help us design our Site, to identify popular features, and to make the Site more useful for visitors. Web logs are recorded in sequential files, and we do not normally try to identify individuals from Web logs or use Web logs to gather information about individuals. However, we may use Web logs to identify any person attempting to break into or damage our Site, and we may share Web log information with law enforcement agencies if we believe that we have evidence of a violation of computer security or related laws.

   2. Internet Cookies. We may place Internet cookies on visitors computer hard drives. Internet cookies save data about individuals, such as their name, user-name and the pages they visit on our Site. When a visitor with one of our cookies on his or her computer revisits our Site, we are able to recognize that computer and tailor our Site to be more helpful and efficient for that visitor. Also, cookies help us to provide streamlined services, and to document our transactions with visitors to this Site. You may have software on your computer that will allow you to decline or deactivate Internet cookies, but if you do so, some features of this Site may not work properly for you.
   3. Visitor /Customer Requests for Information. If you ask a question or make a request through this Web site, we may store your message and our response for awhile. We may also use this information, and any information you give to us in response to a survey on the Site, to send you information about health-related newsletters, promotional events and upcoming programs that we think you might be interested in; notices of enhancements to our services; additional surveys; and to send you an e-mail version of our physician contact information.
4. Access, Correction, Deletion and Data Integrity. Requests to access, correct or delete personal information may be submitted using our contact information. Please note that we do not consider Web log information to be personal information. Also, we may not be able to delete or revise information about you that we have relied upon to provide services to you, or that we are legally required to maintain.
5. Use and Disclosure of Personal Information. We do not sell or rent personal information about visitors to this Site. We do not use or disclose personal information obtained through this Site except as expressly described in this Policy. No patient identifying information will be shared or transmitted on this Site.
   1. Uses. We use information obtained from weblogs, cookies and visitor requests for the purposes described in this Policy. We also use personal information obtained from this Site to respond to requests, improve our services, demonstrate the quality of our services to our auditors and government agencies that have authority over us, and for the additional purposes described below.

   2. Disclosures. We may disclose personal information to any person performing audit, legal, operational or other services for us. Whenever possible, we will require any recipient of personal information for these purposes to agree in writing to use the information only for the purpose for which it was disclosed and to destroy or return it when no longer needed for that purpose. We may disclose personal information when required to do so by a subpoena, court order, or search warrant. Except when deemed by us to be infeasible, we will notify the individual of a subpoena, court order or search warrant for the individual information, by e-mail using the e-mail address (if any) that the individual provided to us.

      We may disclose personal information as we deem appropriate to protect the safety of an individual or for an investigation related to public safety or to report an activity that appears to be in violation of law.

      We may disclose personal information to protect the security and reliability of this Web site, and to take precautions against liability.

      We may disclose personal information to any successor in interest (any company or organization that purchases or otherwise takes over our assets).

6. Public Forums. From time to time this Site may contain message boards and/or news groups ("Forums"). Please remember that any information disclosed in these areas becomes publicly available. You should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information in these areas. We do not maintain or routinely monitor information posted on any message board or news group on our Site; however, we reserve the right to remove any postings that we deem inappropriate.
7. Security. We protect the personal information we have collected from this Site by using industry standard security precautions against loss and unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification or disclosure of that information.We comply with the security safeguards detailed in our computer security policies and procedures, and routinely monitor that compliance. When credit card or other financial information is transmitted over the Internet we use industry standard, SSL (secure socket layer) encryption to protect that information.
8. Children. We do not intend to collect personal information from children under age 13 and in any event will not do so without the permission of the child's parent or guardian. Visitors who wish to participate on our Site and provide personal information indicating that they are under 13 years of age are required to provide the e-mail address of their parent or guardian. We then send an e-mail message to that parent or guardian alerting them to the child's request to participate on our Site, and we ask for the permission of the parent or guardian. If permission is not promptly received, we delete all information about that visitor from our system as quickly as possible. No information collected from users under the age of 13 is used for any marketing or promotional purposes whatsoever.
9. Questions, Complaints or Requests to Change Information If at any time you wish to contact us with a question or complaint or to exercise any of the rights set out in this Privacy Policy, or if you want to change any information collected by us, you may do so by contacting us by e-mail, telephone, fax, or U.S. Mail, using the information set out below.

Advertising Policy

Advertisement and Sponsorship Identification

We believe it is important for you to be able to distinguish advertisements from health information. For this reason, advertisements and sponsorships are clearly identified as being separate from consumer health information.

Click Throughs

If you click on an advertisement, or a third-party's link, you will be leaving the Community Health Systems site and entering the advertiser's or third-party's site. Be aware that Community Health Systems has no control over the practices of other sites. Your computer may receive cookies from other sites and you will not be protected by Community Health Systems's Privacy Policy. These sites may place a cookie on your computer for the purposes of ad tracking and presentation. Community Health Systems does not share personally identifiable visitor information with its advertising services. Community Health Systems may share anonymous aggregated statistical information about uses of this Site.