Privacy Policy

Help My Legs is an educational website that helps people understand leg symptoms and connects those who want an evaluation with a participating physician near them. This policy explains what we collect when you use this site or submit a form, what we do with it, and who else sees it.

Help My Legs is a marketing and referral service. We are not a medical practice, we do not provide medical care, and we do not make treatment decisions. Any care you receive comes from an independent physician, not from us.

Help My Legs is operated as a DBA (“doing business as”) of Coastal Medical Services. That DBA registration is in process.

Information you give us

Everything we collect about you, you type into a form. We do not buy information about you from data brokers, and we do not track you across other websites.

If you request a consultation or take the candidate check

Depending on which form you use, we ask for some or all of the following:

• Your first and last name
• Your phone number and email address
• Your ZIP code, which we use to find a physician near you
• Your age range, given as a range and not a date of birth
• The type of insurance you have, for example Medicare or a commercial plan. We do not ask for your member ID or policy number.
• Information about your symptoms: what is bothering you most, which symptoms you have, relevant health history such as diabetes or smoking, and how long it has been going on
• Anything you choose to write in a free text box

If you contact us as a physician or business

We ask for your name, your practice or organization, your role, your phone number, your email address, and your reason for reaching out. This is business contact information and is handled separately from patient information.

Information we create about you

When you complete the candidate check, our website scores your answers and forms an internal, automated suggestion about which category of care might be relevant to you, such as circulation, vein, or knee. This suggestion is shared with the physician we route you to so they know why you were referred. It is generated by software, it is not a diagnosis, and no clinician reviews it before it reaches the physician. Only a physician who examines you can tell you what is actually wrong.

Information we deliberately do not collect

To keep the amount of sensitive information we hold as small as possible, we do not ask for and do not want:

• Your Social Security number
• Your full date of birth
• Your insurance member ID, group number, or policy number
• Copies of medical records, imaging, or test results

Please do not include any of the above in a free text box. If you send it to us anyway, we will delete it.

How we use your information

• To connect you with a participating physician in or near your ZIP code
• To give that physician enough context to contact you and schedule an evaluation
• To respond to you and confirm we received your request
• To measure how well the site works in aggregate, for example how many people finish a form
• To detect spam and abuse
• To meet legal obligations

Who we share it with

The physician we route you to

This is the point of the service. When you submit a patient form and check the consent box, we send what you provided, along with the automated category suggestion described above, to a participating physician’s office so they can contact you. Once your information reaches that office, their privacy practices apply to it, not ours. They are an independent practice and we do not control what they do with it.

Companies that operate the site for us

We use ordinary business services to run this website, and your information passes through them:

• Automattic and WordPress.com, which host the site and process our forms
• Akismet, an Automattic service that checks form submissions for spam. It receives what you submit in order to score it.
• Google, which provides our email and the spreadsheet where we log inquiries, and provides Google Analytics

Other situations

We may disclose information if the law requires it, if we need to enforce our terms, or if we need to protect someone’s safety. If the business is ever sold or merged, information may transfer as part of that transaction.

We do not sell your information to data brokers, advertisers, or lead aggregators, and we do not let anyone use it to advertise their own unrelated products to you.

Cookies and analytics

We use Google Analytics and the analytics built into our website platform to understand traffic in aggregate: which pages people visit, how they arrived, and whether a form was completed. When a form is completed, we record only that a submission happened, which form it was, and what page it happened on. We never send your name, contact details, ZIP code, symptoms, or answers to Google Analytics.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. The site will still work.

Your choices and your rights

You can ask us to:

• Tell you what information we hold about you
• Correct it if it is wrong
• Delete it
• Stop contacting you

To make any of these requests, email info@helpmylegs.com. We will not treat you differently for exercising a right.

An important limit: once we have already sent your information to a physician’s office, we can delete our copy but we cannot delete theirs. You would need to contact that office directly. If you want to know which office received your information, ask us and we will tell you.

If you live in California, you have rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, including the rights listed above. If you live in Washington, Nevada, or Connecticut, you have specific rights regarding consumer health data. The rights above are available to you regardless of where you live.

Calls, texts, and emails

When you check the consent box on a form, you are agreeing that Help My Legs and the physician’s office we route you to may contact you at the phone number and email address you gave us, including by automated means. Message and data rates may apply.

You can stop this at any time. Reply STOP to any text, or email info@helpmylegs.com.

How we protect your information

The site is served over an encrypted connection, and the systems we use to receive and store inquiries are protected by access controls and require authentication. Only people who need access to route your inquiry have it.

We should be straightforward with you: no method of transmitting information over the internet is completely secure, and we cannot promise that nothing will ever go wrong.

How long we keep it

We keep patient inquiries for 60 days, or until you have been referred to a physician, whichever comes first. After that, your information is deleted unless the law requires us to keep a record of the referral longer. You can ask us to delete your information sooner at any time using the contact details below.

Children

This site is intended for adults. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page. If the change is significant, we will make that clear rather than quietly editing the page.

How to contact us

For any question about this policy, or to make a request about your information, email info@helpmylegs.com.

Help My Legs provides general educational information and connects people with independent physicians. Nothing on this site is medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment recommendation, and using this site does not create a doctor and patient relationship. Always talk to a qualified health professional about your own situation. If you think you have an emergency, call your local emergency number.