Privacy

Effective Date: July 1, 2001
Revised Date: March 12, 2021

Please read our Notice of Privacy Practices Regarding Medical Information

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana along with HMO Louisiana, Inc. and Southern National Life Insurance Company, Inc., know that our customers expect us to keep their personal and financial information safe and private.

This notice will tell you about how we get, use, protect and share your personal information. We will share this with you when you become our customer and purchase certain insurance products. If we update this notice in the future, we will share the new version with you.

What do we collect and how do we get it?

We collect your name, address, Social Security number, health and financial information. We get these facts from forms you fill out, phone calls or in person. We may get information from your claims, payment history and other records. We may also get information about you from your agent, companies we own and other companies.

What do we share and whom do we share it with?

We may share your information with companies we own, your agent, and companies or financial institutions that we do business with to serve you. Examples include businesses we have hired to help us with marketing, benefit administration and claims processing. We may share your information after you are no longer our customer. We may also share your information as permitted or required by law.

How do we keep your information safe?

Our employees who need your information to serve you are the only ones who can get to it. We keep physical, electronic and procedural safeguards in place that follow all laws to protect your information.

We share this information with you to meet the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. To learn more about our privacy practices and policies, please read the Notice of Privacy Practices Regarding Medical Information.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana [BCBSLA] and its subsidiaries are committed to protecting the information you provide to us over the phone, in person or through the mail. We also respect the privacy of all individuals who visit our website. This is how we handle information we learn about you from your visit to our website:

If you visit our site to read or download information:

BCBSLA routinely gathers data on website usage, such as how many people visit the site, the sections they visit, what time they visit, how long they stay, etc. Please know that site visitor data is collected on an aggregate, anonymous basis. That means no personal information is associated with this data unless you voluntarily provide it to us.

We collect and store the following information: the name of the domain from which you access the Internet [for example, yahoo.com if you are connecting from a Yahoo account]; the browser version from which you access our site; the date and time you access our site; and the Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site. We use this information to measure the number of visitors to different sections of our site and to help us make our site more useful to visitors.

If you access some sections of our website (for example if you apply for a job) we use COOKIES. A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user’s computer for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies on our sites to identify and track visitors, their usage of our websites, and their website access preferences across multiple requests and visits. We link the information we store in cookies to personally identifiable information you submit while on our site.

We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser’s “help” directory. If you reject cookies, you may still use our site, but the functionality of some areas of our site will be limited.

We understand the importance of protecting children's privacy, especially in an Internet environment. It is our policy never to knowingly collect or maintain information from children by way of the Internet. We also do not collect information for distribution to third parties via your visit to our website.

If you identify yourself by sending an E-mail:

WE CANNOT GUARANTEE THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF PERSONAL INFORMATION TRANSMITTED TO US BY E-MAIL.

Please use your own best judgment when sending information via the Internet to an e-mail address. E-mail sent via the Internet may pass through private and public networks with varying levels of security. Some networks may have taken steps to maintain the security of e-mail transmissions while others have not, thereby compromising the privacy and integrity of your e-mail. An e-mail may be copied, altered or destroyed by anyone who is able to access it.

If you have personal or confidential information to relay to our company, please call the appropriate customer service phone number that you will find on our Member Services Contact Us section.

If you send us e-mail to ask a question, we will use the information you provide to answer your request. If you do provide personal information, such as an e-mail address, telephone or fax number, or other identifying information, we will not disclose it to third parties except as provided in our Privacy Notice, above. We will preserve the content of your e-mail, your e-mail address and our response so that we can efficiently respond to questions you might have. We also do this in an effort to meet legal and regulatory requirements.

If you respond to an online survey or complete an online form:

You may have an opportunity to provide information to us through online surveys and forms. We use this information to better understand health care needs and to provide quality products, service and other opportunities.

BCBSLA wants your visit to our website to be informative and enjoyable. We plan to use any information we obtain from you to help us continually improve the content, functionality and overall usefulness of our website.

Updates to this Privacy Notice:

We recognize and respect your desire for privacy when it comes to your personal and health care affairs. We protect online information according to established company security standards and practices, and we continually evaluate new technologies for safeguarding information.

Evolving technology will continue to provide us with new and better ways to collect and use information so that we may better serve your health coverage needs. We may revise or update this BCBSLA Privacy Notice in the future to reflect these technological advances, and we encourage you to return to this page from time to time for any updates.

Copyright 2021, All Rights Reserved.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana,
Incorporated as Louisiana Health Service & Indemnity Company
An Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association