AHealthyMe.com is brought to you by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Inc., but we couldn't do it without a lot of help from Consumer Health Interactive (or CHI, as their friends call them).

Consumer Health Interactive, a company that has won more than 50 awards for its health and medical content, develops customized Web sites for major healthcare companies. It has created hundreds of original stories on health topics you're most interested in, along with interactive health tools and quizzes, a health encyclopedia and drug and herb databases, health plan information, and thousands of news and journal articles on the latest in health and medicine. The result is the dynamic, award-winning site you're looking at right now.

Consumer Health Interactive is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Caremark Rx, Inc. Caremark Rx, Inc. is a leading pharmaceutical services company, providing through its affiliates comprehensive drug benefit services to over 2,000 health plan sponsors and their plan participants throughout the U.S. For more information about Caremark, click here.

For more information, check out the links to CHI's "Editorial Guidelines" and "Awards" in the footer at the bottom of the home page.

For more information about Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, please click here.

All personal information you provide on this site is kept confidential. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Consumer Health Interactive will never sell, rent, or release your name, email address, or any other personal details to a third party without your consent. As always, you are not required to provide any personal information to use most of the features on this site. However, you will be required to register in order to create a personal home page, access some features on this site like the Health Assessment, or receive a personal newsletter.

The personal information you provide will be used in only three ways:

1. To create a personal profile, which allows us to give you customized health information. This includes your personal home page, personal email newsletters, and some interactive tools which require you to log on.

2. To better understand the interests and opinions of groups of people within the health-care market.

3. To tell you about services and products that might interest you (if you've agreed to this).

The email addresses that may be collected during this process are collected and used by this site only for distribution of email newsletters and password identification and recovery during registration/login. Your email will never be shared with other organizations, without your explicit authorization.

We also use various "cookies" to automatically display your personal home page on repeat visits (if you choose) and to collect some anonymous (non-personal) information. The information we collect is not connected to your personal details in any way, and we use it only to understand how our users browse the site and respond to the email newsletters.

Certain services offered to you on our Web site are hosted and operated by companies other than Consumer Health Interactive. We are committed to your privacy and do not disclose your personal information to these third-party partners unless it is absolutely necessary. Even then, we don't share this information unless you have given your consent.

In some cases (with our Health Assessments, for example), you will be notified before leaving the site that a third party may collect and store your personal health information. Please review the privacy policy of each site you visit before providing any personal information. It is important to understand how this information will be used and who will have access to it.

If you agree to participate in surveys or receive promotional materials, you may be asked to provide your name, email address, mailing address, or telephone number so that we can contact you. We share this information with our partners only as necessary to complete such transactions. We will not release any information to a third party unless you have agreed to receive these materials, and we will only release it for the stated purpose.

A "cookie" is a small piece of information generated by a Web server and stored temporarily in the computer's Web browser. Cookies are embedded in the HTML code that flows back and forth between the user's computer and the servers. Because cookies can be stored on a Web browser, they are useful for having your browser remember specific information that the Web server can later retrieve, like which topics you're interested in.

A cookie file is not a secret way for a Web server to find out everything about users and the information they have stored on their computers. The only way that any personal information (like your name) could be part of your cookie file would be if you personally entered that information on our Web site (when registering, for example) and our Web site's server was programmed to include that information into the cookie file. Also, each cookie is specific to the particular server it came from, and Web browsers like Netscape Navigator will only send the cookie back to that server. There is no way for a Web server to use a cookie to access any private information about you, or read your computer data. In addition, viruses are not spread through the use of cookies.

We use two types of cookies on the site. One type is used to track unique visitors to the site, and the other is linked to your username and password. The first type of cookie is called a "per session cookie". A per session cookie is always in use and can only track non-personal information, such as how many times someone from that computer used a site in a month. This information is only available to view after it has been combined into aggregate reports used to track things like patterns of navigation and pages viewed, number of pages viewed per session, frequency and length of visits, Web sites clicked through from, and the types of browser and operating systems in use.

The other type of cookie is used separately from the first -- and only if you enable persistent cookies on your computer -- and it displays your personal home page on your computer and allows you to access the Health Assessments on repeat visits. Even if you choose this option, we don't ever make the connection between the two cookies (the one with your login information and the one that tracks site usage). If you choose not to enable the cookies, certain features on the site will not be available.

A temporary persistent cookie is used for our online surveys that allows us to know if you already took or chose to not take the online survey on the site in order to ensure you are not served the survey multiple times. No login or personal information is ever tied to the survey cookie and a user can not be identified on this survey and it is solely used to identify that a user was presented the survey and is set to disappear after the length of the survey.

Personalization is a way for you to receive customized information on the topics of your choice through a personal home page and email newsletters. When you register, the system creates an entry for you in the site's user database. With the exception of email addresses -- which must be correct in order to receive newsletters -- the site does not validate any information such as your name, gender, and age. If you don't want to receive email newsletters or you don't want your personal home page displayed automatically on repeat visits, you can opt out of either option when registering or changing your profile.

For example, if Mary sets up an account and opts to save her information (username and topics) in order to have it displayed each time she visits the site, anyone entering our Web site on her computer would be able to see her personal page and profile. This is because the cookie with her login information is stored on her computer.

In order to maintain her privacy when someone other than Mary uses her computer, she must choose to not have her information saved while registering or changing her profile. In that case her personal home page would not automatically display and she would have to log in every time she visited the site. In either case, if Mary uses a library's computer to access our site, she would have to log in with her username and password to see her profile information since the cookies written to her computer would not be on the library's computer.

All information collected from users is securely stored by Consumer Health Interactive, and is protected against unauthorized use. This information is stored on servers that are protected by physical and network security, including keys, access codes, and passwords. Access is restricted to authorized employees of Consumer Health Interactive who are trained on our security policies and processes.

In addition, all information entered or edited during registration and login is exchanged over the Internet through the secure HTTPS protocol to ensure confidentiality of passwords and profile information. All passwords are encrypted in the database using a HMAC-SHAI keyed cryptographic digest. This encryption allows the user's password to be verified, but the password cannot be obtained from the digest. (It is a one-way function.) Users who have lost their passwords will be assigned a new temporary password by Consumer Health Interactive, or will have to open a new account. No password information will be submitted via the Internet or email to anyone. The information stored from registration will remain securely in our database indefinitely until you choose to delete or un-register. To do that, please send us an e-mail via the Contact Us page.

If you leave our site, you should review the privacy policies of other sites you visit to understand how these sites use cookies and the information they collect. Our privacy policies will not apply once you have left our site. If we link you to another site, we'll make it clear that you're leaving our site. For example, in some of our articles we link to other Web sites as further resources. Also, our Web site reviews (located in each topic's resource center) link to the sites being reviewed.

You will receive weekly email newsletters if you choose this option while registering. The newsletters contain personalized news based on the interest topics in your profile. You can always change your topics or unsubscribe from the newsletter through links at the bottom of the newsletters. As mentioned earlier, we track certain anonymous, non-personal information about how users respond to our weekly and other emails.

When using the "Send to a Friend" application, Consumer Health Interactive emails the article you choose to your friend's email address. Your friend's email address is used only for the purpose of sending the article you requested and for no other purpose.

We are fully committed to protecting the privacy of children. This Web site is not designed for, or intended to attract, children under the age of 13.

Spyware is a data collection technology that is downloaded to a consumer’s personal computer which aids in gathering information about that person or organization without their knowledge. It can enter your computer as a software virus or as a result of installing a new program. It is used to gather information about your personal internet usage, monitor keyboard strokes or capture personal information for use by other parties.

Consumer Health Interactive does not install any tracking software on your system, or collect personal information about you and your browsing habits. Any personally identifiable information gathered about users is with the consent of the user, and all possible uses for the data are outlined at the time the data is provided. We take the security of your personal information seriously, and work hard to maintain a safe and secure site for your use.

The information on this site is updated daily and the privacy policies are updated at a minimum yearly or as any processes are modified. Any material changes regarding to the use of personal information will be noted in this privacy policy. If you have any privacy issues regarding this site please contact us by accessing the Contact Us feature found below.

Please read our terms of use to understand more about using our site.

Last updated June 13, 2006