Updated January 13, 2020; October 28, 2023

Prologue

It is absolutely possible to use almost every feature of the site without creating an account and logging in.  You can save raw forms as text files and then open them up on this page. That said, there are some advantages to registering.  Thus, we have a privacy policy, which may be the most daunting aspect of this website.

Who we are

This website is an educational project used and operated by people who want to make, test, and share forms, calculators, and clinical decision tools.  Our website address is: https://www.soapnote.org.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

General Principles

  • We don’t ask you for personal information unless we truly need it.
  • We don’t share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, develop our products, or protect our rights.
  • We don’t store personal information on our servers unless required for the on-going operation of our site.
  • The site is intended for educational purposes.
  • Because anyone can post on the site, there is no guarantee about the accuracy of the content of the site.  Users should personally verify the content of the pages they use.
  • This site will not work as an electronic health record and is not intended to be used as an electronic health record.  Attempts to use the site as an electronic health record or to store protected health information will result in deletion of the information and termination of the user account.

Form Output

You may choose to save or email your form output or save it to your computer.  It is not saved on the website.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Contact forms

If you contact us with a question or feedback, we may publish your question or comment with our feedback or frequently asked questions page.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year. If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser. When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select "Remember Me", your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed. If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to your website or other websites. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and/or other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Ads Settings. (Alternatively, you can direct users to opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting www.aboutads.info.)

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who we share your data with

Visitor comments may be shared with an automated spam detection service. The site serves Google Adsense Ads which may serve cookies and web beacons on your website to serve targeted ads.  The site uses Google Analytics to monitor website traffic.  More information on Google services is at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites The site uses Cloudflare to speed content delivery.  Information on Cloudflare is at https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue. For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Contact information

Please feel free to contact us with questions, corrections, or suggestions at this page.