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CAQH Privacy Policy

EFFECTIVE DATE:  March 11, 2025

Our Privacy Policy has been updated as of March 11, 2025.  These changes clarify how we collect, use, share and protect your data as well as update our contact information.  We encourage you to review the updated Privacy Policy.  By continuing to use our services, you agree to these updates.  You can read the new Privacy Policy below.

1. CAQH SITES AND SERVICES

The Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare, Inc. (“CAQH,” "our," "we," or "us") is committed to helping reduce healthcare administrative burdens and protecting your privacy. The information we collect through our websites and services helps us provide you with information specific to your needs and interests. This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) governs your access to and use of all CAQH websites (collectively, “Sites”), including http://caqh.org and its various subdomains, and our services (collectively, “Services”), including the following:

  • CAQH Credentialing (formerly ProView)
  • CAQH Sanctions Monitoring (formerly SanctionsTrack)
  • CAQH Coordination of Benefits (formerly COB Smart)
  • CAQH Directory Management Solutions (formerly DirectAssure)
  • CAQH Primary Source Verification (formerly VeriFide)
  • CAQH CORE®—Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange
  • CAQH Index®(formerly the U.S. Healthcare Efficiency Index)
  • CAQH Insights
  • Customized reporting for credentialing, provider network, access to care, provider directory, location of practice, insurance offerings, and other provider-related matters

For our various Services, additional terms may apply. Additional Service-specific terms may be accessed through the Terms of Service.

Additionally, this Privacy Policy is to be read along with any separate service agreement(s) that you may have in place with CAQH. If there is a conflict between that agreement and this Privacy Policy, the terms of the service agreement will control.

By accessing our Sites or Services, you agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use our Sites or Services. Each time you use our Sites or Services, the current version of the Privacy Policy will apply and we reserve the right to make changes to this Privacy Policy. Accordingly, whenever you use our Sites or Services, you should check the date of this Privacy Policy (which appears at the top) and review any changes since the last version. This Privacy Policy is applicable to all visitors, registered users, and all other users of our Sites or Services.

Protected health information, as defined by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), that we collect, receive or otherwise maintain as a business associate to a covered entity is subject to our business associate agreement with that covered entity instead of this Privacy Policy.

2. HOW DOES CAQH GATHER AND USE INFORMATION?

The following definitions apply to this Privacy Policy:

“CAQH Content” means including, without limitation, characters, data, images, photographs, animations, video, audio, music, text, and applets on the Sites, and any and all other material and information provided by CAQH or its third-party providers that you see on the Sites and/or through the Services. Any content that you provide to CAQH regarding feedback or ideas on the Services shall become CAQH Content.

“Content” shall mean CAQH Content, Third Party Data, and User Submitted Data collectively.

“Personal Information” includes any information that is linked or reasonably linkable to an identified or identifiable natural person.

“Third Party Data” shall mean data that CAQH obtains from third party sources.

“User Submitted Data” shall include Personal Information and any other information that you submit to CAQH through the Sites or Services, including provider contact information.

The use of User Submitted Data is subject to this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service (including any Site-specific Terms associated with a particular Service) in effect at the time we use such information. This section provides details about how CAQH gathers and uses User Submitted Data.

Personal Information Collected

(a) Personal Information Collected Directly. We may collect contact information, government identifiers, demographic information, account credentials, payment information, certifications, and your communications with us. If you are a provider, we may also collect licensing and credentialing information and other information about you and your practice.

(b) Device and Browsing Information.  We may use cookies, log files, pixel tags, and other tracking technologies to automatically collect information when users access or use our Sites and Services. We may collect IP address, general location information, domain name, page views, date and time stamps, browser type, device type, device ID, Internet service provider, referring and exiting URLs, operating system, language, clickstream data, and similar device and usage information. This information enables our systems to gather information about your navigational patterns through the Sites and Services. Viewers have the option to accept or disable cookies at any time through their browsers. Visit the “help” portion of your toolbar for more information. If you block or refuse to accept cookies or delete cookies between visits to any of our Sites, you may not be able to access or use certain features or functions of our Sites or Services.

(c) User Analytics.  We may collect general statistics to track user trends on our Sites and Services. These statistics may include hits to our server, the types of browsers used to access our Sites, page views, and navigational patterns. This allows us to pinpoint high traffic areas and determine the most effective ways to communicate with our users. We may use this statistical information for research and commercial purposes and to develop improvements to our Sites and Services.

One of the tools we use to collect and track user statistics and trends related to our Sites and Services is Google Analytics. Information about how Google Analytics operates and uses data from our Sites and Services is available at: www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners. As part of our use of Google Analytics we may install cookies as set forth above in Section 2(b). You can also download the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on to prevent your data from being used by Google Analytics at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Purposes for Collecting and Processing Personal Information  

We may collect and store User Submitted Data when you register to use our Sites or Services, utilize the Services on our Sites, ask us a question, complete a form, conduct a transaction, send us an email, or otherwise communicate with us. To use our Services, you may be required to submit certain User Submitted Data. If you do not provide the requested information, you may not be able to access or use some of the features and functions of our Sites and we may not be able to provide you with certain Services.

We may use your User Submitted Data to communicate with you, and send you information about our Services, such as offers, promotions, newsletters, and other marketing content, as well as any other information that you sign up to receive. We also may use certain information we collect to manage and improve our advertising campaigns so that we can better reach people with relevant content, to tailor the content that we may send you and that we may display on the Site and Services and to otherwise personalize your experience.

We may also collect User Submitted Data related to your participation in our webinars and live events as well as other requests that you submit to us related to our Services. For example, if you register for or attend an event that we host or sponsor, we may collect information related to your registration for and participation in such event. When you fill out a ‘Contact Us’ form, signup for our mailing lists, or otherwise request information from us, we collect and maintain records of your requests.

Users who subscribe to certain of our Services will be required to provide certain User Submitted Data that will be shared with other users of the Services. The types of information collected through such Services include provider practice information including demographic and credentialing data for CAQH Credentialing.

We may combine your User Submitted Data with Third Party Data to provide our Services and use tools when processing User Submitted Data to make our operational processes more efficient.

In addition to this Privacy Policy, if you have an agreement with a third-party user of CAQH Services (“Service Recipient”) and provide information to or through the Service Recipient, that agreement may also govern the collection, use and disclosure of your User Submitted Data through this Site.

We may use User Submitted Data for administrative and security purposes, such as to prevent the introduction of viruses and hackers into our Sites, to protect our Services and our business operations, to prevent and detect fraud, unauthorized activities and access, and other misuse, where we believe necessary to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety or legal rights of any person or third party, or violations of our terms or this Privacy Policy.

We may use User Submitted Data to comply with the law and our legal obligations, and to respond to legal proceedings.

We may use User Submitted Data to consider and implement mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations, bankruptcies, and other business transactions, and related to the administration of our general business, accounting, auditing, compliance, recordkeeping, and legal functions.

We may use User Submitted Data to better understand how users access and use our Services, products, and offerings, and for other research and analytical purposes, such as to evaluate and improve our Services and business operations, to develop Services and features, and for internal quality control and training purposes.

We may use and disclose aggregate, deidentified, and non-identifiable data related to our business and Services for quality control, analytics, research, development, and other purposes such as to evaluate healthcare industry trends and address gaps in the healthcare system. Where we use “de-identified” data, as defined by U.S. privacy laws, we maintain such information in deidentified form and do not attempt to reidentify such information, except in compliance with applicable law.

3.  WHAT SECURITY PROCEDURES DOES CAQH USE TO PROTECT PERSONAL INFORMATION?

CAQH uses physical, electronic, and administrative safeguards to assist us in preventing unauthorized access, maintaining data accuracy, and correctly using User Submitted Data. Because email transmissions may not be secure, we encourage you to use encryption when sending us any User Submitted Data by email, or to use another means of transmitting the information to us. Please be aware that despite our efforts, no data security measures can guarantee security.

If you wish to cancel your account or request that we no longer use your information to provide our Services, please contact us at info@caqh.org. We will retain and use User Submitted Data as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

4. WILL CAQH DISCLOSE THE USER SUBMITTED DATA WE COLLECT TO THIRD PARTIES?

CAQH may share the following categories of Personal Information with customers and other third parties: contact information; government identifiers; demographic information; licensing information, credentialing information, payment information, certifications, other information about you and your practice as it relates to the Services; device and browsing information; and user analytics data.

CAQH may share this information as described below.

(a) Affiliated Businesses We Control.  We may share User Submitted Data with the affiliated businesses we control to make sure that your experience with us is as seamless as possible and that you have the full benefit of our Services. The use of User Submitted Data by such controlled affiliates remains subject to this Privacy Policy.

(b) Agents.  We employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Some examples of such functions include operating and hosting our service offerings, supporting our information technology infrastructure, sending postal mail and e-mail, removing repetitive information from customer lists, improving data quality, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, processing payments, and providing customer service. We share User Submitted Data with these agents as we deem necessary for such third parties to perform their functions. We may also provide aggregate statistics about our customers, traffic patterns and related Site information to reputable third-party vendors, but these statistics do not include Personal Information.

(c) Advertising and Analytics Vendors. We may disclose certain information that includes Personal Information to analytics vendors for purposes of targeted advertising and to improve and measure the effectiveness of our ads. 

(d) Protection of CAQH and Others.  We may disclose User Submitted Data collected from you to (a) comply with the law, applicable regulations, governmental and quasi-governmental requests, orders or subpoenas directed to us or our affiliates; (b) protect and defend our rights or property or the rights or property of other users of our Sites and Services including the enforcement of our Terms of Service or other agreements; (c) respond to an emergency or protect the personal safety of users of our Sites or Services, or the public; or (d) prevent a crime or protect national security (including exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection).

(e) Change of Control.  In the event that a third party acquires all or a substantial portion of CAQH’s business, whether such acquisition is by way of merger, liquidation, dissolution, consolidation or sale of all or a substantial portion of our business, trade or assets, informational Content (including User Submitted Data) will be transferred to the acquiring third party. By using our Site or Services, you consent to the sale and transfer of your User Submitted Data as described in this paragraph.

(f) Public Areas of our Site or Services.  If you provide any User Submitted Data to CAQH for posting in areas of our Sites or through our Services that may be publicly viewed (e.g., blogs or messaging features to the extent available), your information will be available to third parties who use our Sites or Services. Please be cautious when using public areas of our Sites or Services.

(g) Authorized by User.  We may disclose User Submitted Data we collect from you if you request or authorize it.

(h) As Part of the Services.  CAQH may disclose User Submitted Data, which you provide as part of your membership in the Services to Service recipients such as health plans, providers, government agencies, and resources for patients to find providers, and other CAQH customers in accordance with any Terms of Service relating to each applicable Service. Access to such User Submitted Data through our Services is limited to registered users who are bound by agreements governing their use of Content (subject to any agreement you may have directly with Service Recipients relating to their use of your Personal Information).

(i) Unaffiliated Third Parties.  CAQH may from time to time disclose User Submitted Data to third parties as set forth in Section 4(h) above, or in connection with other initiatives or activities consistent with our mission to simplify healthcare administration. 

(j) Privacy Policy.  User Submitted Data may also be disclosed as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy or for other purposes, which we will notify you of and/or obtain your consent when required.

5. EXTERNAL LINKS

Other companies or organizations may have links to their websites or services through our Sites or Services. We are not responsible for how these other companies or organizations collect, use, disclose, or secure the information that you provide them. If you choose to access a third-party website or service linked to one of our Sites or Services, you do so at your own risk and subject to the terms of service or privacy policy (if any) associated with such third-party websites.

6. COLLECTION OF INFORMATION FROM CHILDREN

CAQH does not direct any of our content specifically to children. We do not knowingly collect or use Personal Information from individual under eighteen (18) without obtaining verifiable consent from their parents or a guardian. If we learn that a user is under 18 years of age, we will promptly delete any Personal Information we have collected about that user. If you are under the age of 18, please do not send us any information about yourself.

7. DO NOT TRACK

CAQH does not respond to web browser “do not track” signals. As such, your navigation of our Sites and use of the Service may be tracked as part of the gathering of the general User Analytics collected by CAQH. If you arrive at our Sites by way of a link from a third-party site that does respond to “do not track” requests, the recognition of any “do not track” request you have initiated will end as soon as you reach our Sites.

8. ACCESSING YOUR INFORMATION

On some of our Sites or to use our Services, you may be required to register in order to access your information. You may be required, under certain agreements you may have with health plans, hospitals or other third parties, to ensure that your information with CAQH is up-to-date and accurate. You may view and edit your User Submitted Data by accessing the Site and supplying your username and password or other required authentication. Your username and password or other authentication allows access to your information so you are responsible for the disclosure of your information to anyone using your username and password. Please protect these security devices and notify us immediately if they have been lost, stolen or misappropriated.

9. UPDATING OUR POLICY

CAQH may at our sole discretion revise this Privacy Policy at any time. If any material changes are made, we will notify you by displaying a prominent announcement on our Sites prior to the new Privacy Policy taking effect. Depending on the Service, we may display notice of a change for a reasonable period. If you continue to use our Sites and Services following the posting of changes to this Privacy Policy, you will be deemed to have accepted the changes. Any revised privacy policies posted by CAQH will supersede all previous notices or statements regarding the Sites or Services. 

10. OPT-OUT / INFORMATION CORRECTION OR REMOVAL

If any of the information that we have about you is incorrect or you wish to have information (including Personal Information) removed from our records please contact:

CAQH Solutions Center: 1-888-599-1771

Additionally, if you prefer not to receive marketing messages from us, please let us know by clicking on the unsubscribe link within any marketing messages that you receive or by sending a message to us at info@caqh.org. This election will not affect your receipt of messages from us associated with the Services.

11. INTERNATIONAL USERS

CAQH is headquartered in the United States of America. Personal Information that you provide may be accessed by CAQH or transferred to CAQH in the United States or to our affiliates, partners, merchants, or service providers elsewhere in the world in accordance with this Privacy Policy. By visiting our Sites or using our Services, you consent to this transfer. You explicitly acknowledge and consent to the fact that Personal Information will be stored and processed in the United States and will be subject to the laws of the United States, including the ability of governments, courts or law enforcement or regulatory agencies of the United States to obtain disclosure of your Personal Information.

12. ACCESS TO PERSONAL INFORMATION AND OTHER INFORMATION-RELATED REQUESTS

If you want a copy of your personal information, we will provide one or direct you to where within our application you are able to download a copy. Additionally, we have a process to consider requests by users to delete or correct inaccuracies in personal information that we maintain. If we reject the request, we will inform you of our decision.

You may make an information-related request by contacting us at 888-599-1771. Before responding to your request, we will take steps to verify your identity using the personal information you provided to us. Please indicate that you are making a request for access, deletion or correction of your personal information and provide us with the following information: (1) first and last name; (2) email address; (3) CAQH ID; and (4) zip code. We will take steps to verify your request by matching the information provided by you with the information we have in our records. In some cases, we may request additional information in order to verify your identity, or where necessary to process your request. If we are unable to verify your identity after a good faith attempt, we may deny the request and, if so, will explain the basis for the denial.

13. CONTACTING US

The Sites and Services are owned and operated by CAQH. If you have questions or suggestions regarding this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices please send an email message to: info@caqh.org.