Terms, privacy, and how this site is run.

What this policy covers

This policy is about this website. It is not about your medical record. How the practice handles your protected health information is a separate document, the Notice of Privacy Practices, and that notice governs your health information rather than this page.

What this site collects

Nothing you type. There is no contact form, no message box, no newsletter sign-up, and no account to create. No page on this website asks you for information about yourself, so there is nothing you have written for the practice to store, share, or lose.

If you choose Allow analytics in the privacy choice shown on this site, Google Analytics counts visits and reports which pages are read and which are ignored. If you choose No thanks, Google Analytics is not loaded. It is described in full in the next section.

To reach the office, call 210-293-9380 or email office@adapaspine.com. Clicking the email link opens your own email application; this website does not collect or store the message.

How visits are measured

This site offers optional Google Analytics 4, a measurement service provided by Google. It is how the practice can learn that a condition page is hard to find, that an article is worth keeping, or that people leave before they reach the booking page. It exists to improve this website and is loaded only after you choose Allow analytics.

If you allow it, it records the address of the pages you visit, the page or search that sent you, your approximate location, your browser and device type, your language, and the time. It stores a small cookie in your browser, with a name beginning _ga, holding a randomly generated number. That number lets two pages read in one visit be counted as one visit rather than two strangers. It is not a name, and the practice cannot turn it back into one.

Google works out an approximate location from your IP address and then discards the address. Analytics 4 does not retain IP addresses and offers no setting to keep them.

Two things are deliberately switched off in the site’s own code:

• Google Signals is off, so what you read here is never joined to a Google account you happen to be signed in to, and never followed across your other devices.
• Ad personalization is off, so nothing measured here is used to build advertising audiences or to aim advertising at you, here or anywhere else.

The practice does not sell this information, does not share it with advertisers, and runs no advertising from it. What comes back to the office is counts and trends, not people.

Because the pages here are named after spinal conditions and procedures, one point is worth stating plainly: this measurement describes the website, not you. It is not part of your medical record, it is never added to your chart, and nobody at the office can use it to see what any particular person read.

Your analytics choice

When the site first opens, it asks whether you want to allow analytics. Choose No thanks and no Google Analytics script is loaded, no analytics request is sent, and no analytics cookie is created. The site works the same either way. Your choice does not affect your care or your ability to book an appointment.

The site stores the choice itself in your browser’s local storage under adapa-spine-analytics-consent. That preference is not sent to Google. Use the Privacy choices button at the bottom of any page to change your answer. If you withdraw permission, the site removes its first-party Google Analytics cookies and reloads without the analytics script.

What this site still does not do

There is no tag manager, no advertising or conversion pixel from any network, no social media tracking tag, no session recording, and no heat mapping. Nothing here watches your pointer, reads your keystrokes, or replays your visit.

Nothing on this site follows you to other websites. Typefaces are served from this site rather than fetched from Google, so loading a page does not tell a font provider that you were here.

Two further things are supplied by other companies and are described below: the booking scheduler and the maps on the home page and the locations page. What follows is about this website itself, not about what those companies do inside their own frames.

Online booking is run by athenahealth

The scheduler on the booking page is not part of this website. It is athenahealth’s scheduling application, displayed inside a frame on the page.

Anything you type into it, including your name, date of birth, contact details, insurance, and the reason for your visit, goes directly to athenahealth under the practice’s agreement with it and athenahealth’s own privacy notice. This website does not receive it, cannot see it, and does not store it. athenahealth may set its own cookies or storage inside that frame, under its notice rather than this one.

The maps are loaded from Google

The home page and the locations page show the clinic on a Google map, displayed inside a frame in the same way as the scheduler. It is there so you can see where the office is before you drive to it.

When that frame loads, your browser contacts Google directly, which means Google receives your IP address and can set its own cookies or storage inside the frame, under Google’s privacy policy rather than this one. This website does not receive anything from it and cannot see what you do inside it.

The frame is set to load only when you scroll near it, so on most visits it is never requested at all. If you would rather not load it, the full street address, hours, and parking are written out on the page as text, and the Get directions button opens Google Maps only when you choose to click it.

Server logs

Like any website, this one is served by a hosting provider that records standard request information: IP address, browser and device type, the page requested, and the time. Those logs exist to keep the site running and secure, are retained for a limited period by the provider, and are not used to identify or profile visitors.

Sending records to the office

Because there is no form here, records never travel through this website. Bring them to your appointment, or fax them to 210-293-9381. If you need a secure route, call 210-293-9380 and ask for one.

Your choices

Optional measurement is the one thing this site can collect, and the section above explains how to refuse or withdraw permission. Beyond your browser remembering that choice, there is no account here, no saved profile, and no message of yours held anywhere on this website, so there is nothing else to correct or delete. Requests about your medical records go to the practice directly, because the practice holds them and this website does not.

Texas residents have rights under the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, including the right to know what is collected about them and to opt out of the sale of personal data and of targeted advertising. The practice does neither, and the two settings named above are switched off in code so that neither can happen by accident. To ask a question or make a request, call 210-293-9380.

Security

The site is served over an encrypted connection and reasonable administrative and technical safeguards are applied to it. The strongest safeguard is still the shape of the site itself: it asks you for nothing, holds no record of yours, and has no patient information stored on it to breach.

Children

This site is written for adults. It asks nothing of anyone, children included, and the measurement described above is not directed at them. Care for a patient under 18 is arranged by a parent or guardian through the office.

Changes to this policy

If what the site collects changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top is the date of the current version.

Questions

Call 210-293-9380 or use the contact page. Nikhil Adapa, MD, 9150 Huebner Road, Suite 290, San Antonio, TX 78240.