MedMatchers Privacy Notice
MedMatchers, LLC ("MedMatchers," "we," "us") operates medmatchers.com, a marketplace that connects healthcare students with practicing clinicians for clinical rotations, observerships and shadowing. This notice explains what information we collect, why we collect it, who sees it, and the choices you have. It applies to students, to parents and guardians who hold an account for a student, to clinicians ("Preceptors"), and to visitors to the site.
The Student Terms and the Preceptor Agreement refer to this notice. Where they conflict with it about how we handle personal information, this notice governs.
1
Information we collect
Account and sign-in. Your email address and name, and a record of how and when you signed in. You can sign in with an email address or with a Google account. If you use Google, we receive your name, email address and profile picture from Google. We never receive your Google password.
Student profile. Your name, date of birth and gender; your phone number and mailing address; your school, program level (MD, NP, PA or high school) and graduation year; and an optional profile picture.
Parent and guardian accounts. When a parent or legal guardian holds the account for a student under 18, the profile details above belong to the guardian. We also collect the student's name and date of birth, and the guardian's relationship to the student.
Clinician profile. Your name, credentials and years in practice; your practice or facility name, address and phone number; your medical license number and National Provider Identifier (NPI), which we use to verify you before you can publish a listing; and an optional profile picture.
Listings. What a clinician publishes about an opportunity: specialty, type, location, dates, hours, weekly rate, description and requirements.
Bookings. For each booking we keep the dates requested, the application message, the price, the booking's status and payment status, the agreement version accepted and when, whether the attending student is a minor, and records of completion, disputes and payout.
Messages. Messages sent between a student and a clinician through the platform. Messages are stored, and MedMatchers can read them (see section 4).
Reviews. Ratings and comments students leave after a completed rotation.
Agreement acceptance records. Which agreement and version you accepted, when, and from which account; for clinicians, the name typed as an electronic signature; and for guardians, the relationship to the student and the student's name.
Payment information. Payments are processed by Stripe. Students enter card details on Stripe's checkout page, and we never see or store a full card number; Stripe tells us whether the payment succeeded and gives us a reference to the charge. Clinicians are paid through a Stripe Express account. Stripe collects the identity, tax (including Form W-9) and bank details it needs to pay you. MedMatchers does not store your Social Security number or bank account number. We store your Stripe account reference, whether Stripe has enabled payouts, and any items Stripe says are still outstanding.
Support correspondence. What you send us at support@medmatchers.com.
Technical information. The site keeps you signed in using your browser's storage, and remembers small interface choices such as a dismissed reminder. Our hosting provider receives standard request information, such as IP address, browser type and the pages requested, and may keep basic usage and performance statistics to operate the service. We do not use advertising cookies or advertising pixels, and the site does not load third-party analytics or tracking scripts.
What we do not want. Do not send us patient information or protected health information, by message, upload or email. The platform is not built to receive it, and the Student Terms and Preceptor Agreement prohibit it.
2
How we use information
We use personal information to:
- create and run your account, and verify a clinician's license and NPI before they can publish a listing;
- show listings, take applications, and manage bookings, payments, payouts, cancellations and refunds;
- send transactional email, such as booking updates, receipts, message alerts, payout notices and reminders to finish your profile;
- keep the agreement records our terms require, and resolve disputes and complaints;
- provide support;
- detect and prevent fraud, abuse and breaches of our terms;
- meet our accounting, tax and other legal obligations; and
- maintain and improve the platform.
We do not sell personal information. We do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not use it to build advertising profiles.
3
Who sees your information
The other party to your booking. A clinician sees the applying student's name, email address, application message and requested dates, and whether the attending student is a minor, along with anything the student writes in messages. A student who has booked sees the clinician's name, practice address, license number and NPI; those details are withheld from everyone else until a booking exists.
The public. Anyone visiting the site can see listings (including the clinician's title, years of experience, city and state), clinicians' public profile pages and profile pictures, and published reviews with the reviewer's name, rating and comment. Profile pictures are stored at a web address that is not access-controlled, so anyone who has that address can view the image.
Service providers. We use a small number of companies to run the platform. They process information on our behalf and only for that purpose:
- Base44, which hosts the application and its database, handles sign-in, and sends platform email;
- Stripe, which processes payments and payouts and verifies clinicians' identity and tax details (Stripe's own privacy policy, at stripe.com/privacy, also applies to what it collects from you directly);
- Google, which provides Google sign-in if you choose it, and our business email at support@medmatchers.com; and
- Intuit QuickBooks, which holds our accounting records of payments and payouts.
Schools and clinical sites. We do not send your information to your school or to a clinical site on our own initiative. You or your clinician may share it to arrange a rotation.
Legal and safety reasons. We may disclose information when the law requires it, to respond to valid legal process, to enforce our terms, or to protect the rights, safety or property of our users, MedMatchers or others.
Business transfers. If MedMatchers is involved in a merger, financing, reorganization or sale of assets, information may transfer as part of that transaction and will remain subject to this notice.
4
Messages
Messages sent through the platform are stored. MedMatchers staff may read them to administer a booking, provide support, investigate a complaint or a suspected breach of our terms, and comply with the law. This is the same commitment made in section 11 of the Student Terms. Do not use platform messaging for anything you would not want MedMatchers to read, and never for patient information.
5
Students under 18
MedMatchers is not directed to children. Students must be at least 13 years old. A student aged 13 to 17 may use the platform only through an account held by a parent or legal guardian, who provides the student's information, accepts the terms, and remains the point of contact for every booking. When a booking involves a minor, we tell the clinician, because the clinical site must agree to host a minor. If you believe a child has given us information without a parent or guardian, write to support@medmatchers.com and we will delete it.
6
How long we keep information
- Account and profile details: while your account is open, and deleted within 90 days after you close it, except for anything covered by a longer period below.
- Bookings, payment and payout records: 7 years after the booking ends, to meet tax and accounting requirements.
- Agreement acceptance records: 7 years after the last booking they govern, or after the account closes if no booking was made, because they may be needed to resolve a dispute.
- Messages: 3 years after the booking ends.
- Reviews: while published, until removed through moderation or at your request.
- Support email: 3 years after the conversation ends.
We may keep information longer where the law requires it, or where it is needed to resolve a dispute or enforce our agreements.
7
Your choices and rights
See and correct. You can update most profile details yourself on the Profile page. A clinician's license number and NPI can be changed only through support, because changing them resets verification.
Copy or delete. You can ask for a copy of your information, or ask us to delete your account, by writing to support@medmatchers.com from the email address on your account. We will keep any records we are required to retain under section 6. Deleting your MedMatchers account does not delete what Stripe holds; contact Stripe directly for that.
Email. We send transactional email only: messages about your account and your bookings, which are needed to use the service. We do not send marketing email.
State privacy rights. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to know what personal information we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to obtain a portable copy, and to appeal if we decline a request. We offer these rights to every user, and we will not treat you differently for using them. To make a request or an appeal, write to support@medmatchers.com. We may need to verify your identity first. We will confirm a request within 10 business days and respond within 45 days.
8
Security
We use reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect information. Each user sees only their own records and the records of their own bookings; clinicians' identifying details are held back until a booking exists; payment details are handled only by Stripe; and the site is served only over encrypted (HTTPS) connections. No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you as the law requires.
9
Where information is processed
MedMatchers operates in the United States, and your information is processed and stored in the United States. Our service providers may also process it in other countries under their own safeguards.
10
Changes to this notice
We will post any update on this page with a new effective date. If a change is material, we will also tell you through the platform or by email before it takes effect.
11
Contact
MedMatchers, LLC, 4646 Wild Indigo Street #230, Houston, TX 77027. Email: support@medmatchers.com.