Privacy Policy

Your Personal Information and Your Privacy

Effective Date: January 29, 2025

At PC Metro Health & Dental Benefits Ltd. (“we”, “our”, or “us”), we respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal and health-related information. As a third-party administrator (TPA) for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), we handle your data with the utmost care. This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, use, share, and protect the personal, health, and financial information you provide to us when submitting dental and health claims or participating in HSA plan administration.

Collection of Personal Information

We collect the following categories of information:

  • Personal Information: Information that identifies you, such as your name, contact information (address, phone number, email address), date of birth, and other personally identifiable information (PII).
  • Health Information: Health-related information necessary to process your dental or medical claims, such as diagnosis, treatment details, procedures, prescriptions, medical history, and other health information required by insurance providers and healthcare professionals.
  • Financial Information: For HSA plan administration, we collect financial details such as your Health Savings Account balance, contributions, withdrawals, claims, and billing information.

How We Collect Your Information

We collect information in the following ways:

  • Account Registration and Claim Submissions: When you register an account on our platform, submit dental or health claims, or manage your HSA, you provide personal, health, and financial information directly.
  • Cookies and Tracking Technologies: We may use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve user experience, analyze website usage, and track claim submissions.
  • Interaction with Service Providers: As part of HSA plan administration, we may collect information from your healthcare providers, insurance carriers, or other third-party entities to process your claims and manage your HSA account.

We may also collect your personal information over the phone or through an on-line chat with our customer service representatives.

Generally, we obtain your express consent before we collect your personal information. Whenever possible we will collect personal information directly from you but may also collect it from third parties. We only collect the personal information we need.

Sharing Your Personal Information

We do not sell your personal or health information. However, we may share your data in the following circumstances:

  • Third-Party Service Providers: We may share your information with trusted third-party vendors and partners who assist us in processing claims, administering your HSA, or providing other services related to your account.
  • Healthcare Providers and Insurance Carriers: As part of the claim submission process and HSA administration, we may share your information with healthcare providers, insurance companies, and other entities necessary to verify and process claims.
  • Legal and Regulatory Requirements: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law, regulation, or legal process, such as subpoenas, court orders, or requests from law enforcement agencies.
  • Business Transactions: In the event of a merger, acquisition, or transfer of assets, your information may be transferred to the new entity in accordance with applicable laws.

Your Rights and Choices

As a user in Canada, you have certain rights regarding your personal and health information under PIPEDA:

  • Access and Correction: You can request access to the personal, health, and financial information we hold about you. You may also request corrections if the information is inaccurate or incomplete.
  • Withdrawal of Consent: You can withdraw your consent for certain uses of your information, subject to legal or contractual limitations.
  • Deletion: You can request the deletion of your personal and health information, provided that it is not required for legal, regulatory, or contractual obligations.
  • Opt-Out: You can opt out of receiving marketing communications or notifications from us at any time.

Use of your personal information

We use your information for the following purposes:

  • Processing Claims: To evaluate, process, and manage dental and health claims, including verifying eligibility and coverage under your insurance plan.
  • HSA Plan Administration: To manage your Health Savings Account, including contributions, withdrawals, and maintaining balance information.
  • Communications: To send you important updates regarding the status of your claims, HSA transactions, account management, customer service, and other relevant communications.
  • Legal and Regulatory Compliance: To comply with Canadian health and privacy laws, such as the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and applicable provincial regulations, including reporting to healthcare providers, insurers, or regulatory bodies when required.
  • Service Improvement: To enhance our platform’s functionality, performance, and user experience.

Privacy Policy

Privacy Notice

An important part of any relationship is trust. At PC Metro Health & Dental Benefits we work hard to earn and maintain your trust through our commitment to fairness, integrity, and respect in all our dealings with you. This includes our handling of your personal information and respecting your privacy rights. This privacy notice represents our commitment to transparency regarding our practices related to the management of personal information.

Who this privacy notice applies to?

This privacy notice applies to:

  • our customers, former customers and individuals who apply for our products or use our services
  • group plan members and policy beneficiaries.
  • advisors who sell our products or provide service to our customers.
  • individuals who contact us, for example, by phone, email, website, web portal or postal mail.
  • individuals who apply for a job posting.
  • individuals who visit our website.

What is personal information?

Personal information means any factual or subjective information concerning an identifiable individual. We obtain consent before or at the time we collect personal information (with limited legal exceptions).

Retention and protection of personal information

We take extensive measures to ensure your personal, health, and financial information is protected, including:

  • Encryption: We use secure methods such as encryption to protect sensitive data during transmission.
  • Access Control: We limit access to your information to authorized personnel who need it to perform their duties related to claim processing or HSA administration.
  • Data Retention: We retain your personal and health information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy or as required by law.

Data analytics

To develop new and innovative products, to improve our existing offerings and to be an organization that is simple, fast and easy to deal with, we may use your personal information to conduct analytic studies or develop artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning models. Generally, we use de-identified personal information to conduct our studies or develop new models, but if we require identifiable personal information, we’ll first obtain your consent.

Automated decision-making

Automated decision-making is the process of rendering a decision by automated means without any human involvement which may include the use of artificial intelligence or machine learning.

If PC Metro Health Dental Benefits uses your personal information for automated decision-making, we will:

  • ensure it is lawful, fair and transparent, and
  • inform you before or at the time the decision is rendered. 

You’ll have the right to request the:

  • personal information used to render the decision;
  • the principal factors that led to the decision (with some exceptions); and
  • personal information used to render the decision be corrected, if it was inaccurate.

You’ll also have the right to ask questions regarding any automated decision made by PC Metro Health & Dental Benefits impacting you.

Cookies

Our website uses:

Session cookies to enable our website to remember your journey through our website. If we didn’t use a session cookie, the website would think you were a new visitor every time you moved to another page (i.e., you couldn’t go back to the page you were just on). This type of cookie is temporary and is deleted when you close your browser. Session cookies contain session information only.

Persistent cookies to function as your identification card – recording your preferences. This type of cookie persists after you close your browser and has an expiration date.

Performance cookies to improve our website’s performance by, for example, counting page visits, examining how much time a user has spent on a website and/or analyzing loading speeds. They also enable our website to collect analytics data and perform other functions that provide a good user experience.

Our cookies do not collect personal information.

Third Party Links

  • Our website may contain links to third-party websites that are not controlled by us. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of these external sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party sites before submitting personal or health information.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

  • We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make significant changes, we will post the updated policy on our website and update the “Effective Date” at the top of this page. We encourage you to periodically review this policy to stay informed about how we are protecting your information.

Contact Us

If you would like to know more about our privacy policies or ask questions about accessing your personal information, please contact us either by phone or in writing at:

PC Metro Health & Dental Benefits

Vancouver, BC Canada
Email: privacy@pcmetro.ca

Please include your name, address, and/or email address when you contact us.