Internet Privacy Policy

Internet Use and Privacy Statement

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, Inc., welcomes the opportunity to provide its customers with the electronic services contained on this website. Most of these website services as well as other services are also available by telephone, by visiting our office during normal business hours, or by writing to us. (Contact Us for more information.) Generally, the same rules apply to you and to us whether we conduct business by way of the Internet, by telephone, in person, or in writing. The following rules apply specifically when doing business with us at this site.

Conduct On This Site

We comply with applicable Federal and Kansas laws relating to Internet security, privacy and confidentiality. We require under our Corporate Code of Conduct that our employees treat your personal and medical information as confidential. Employees are subject to discipline for any breach of confidentiality. We follow legally required and industry standards for maintaining the security of electronic data by way of this site.

At this site, we provide claim payment and coverage information access only through the member whose name and identification number appears on the identification card, including claim payment information for other persons covered under the same membership. Customers who do not access the secure area after setting up a profile will have their user names and passwords deleted after 18 months of inactivity. Through means other than the Internet, we also provide information about claim payments to an alternate payee pursuant to a Qualified Medical Child Support Order or to a person who is otherwise authorized to act on behalf of a minor child covered under the membership or who is an adult child covered under the membership.

We provide you with the ability to access other Internet sites that can provide you with information about a variety of health, wellness, and general interest issues. Those sites to which we provide linkage are not controlled or maintained by BCBSKS, and BCBSKS provides no warranty of any kind concerning the site itself, any advertising that may appear on the site, the availability of benefits for any kind of diagnosis, treatment, product or regimen described on the site. Further, any information provided on a linked site is not offered as medical or legal advice and should not be substituted for the advice of your physician or lawyer.

When you visit BCBSKS (including the BCBSKS web portal BlueAccess), or when you visit one of our other websites, BCBSKS may collect and/or track: (1) your domain names, your email address, your type of computer, the files downloaded, the search engine used, operating system, and type of web browser; (2) the email addresses of visitors who communicate with BCBSKS via email; (3) information knowingly provided by the visitor in online forms, surveys, email, contest entries, and other online submissions (including demographic and personal profile data), and (4) aggregate information on pages accessed by a visitor.

To better serve you, we use “cookies” to customize your browsing experience. Cookies are simple text files stored by your browser, and they provide a method of distinguishing among visitors to our sites. We use “cookies” to store a randomly generated tag on your computer such that when you revisit our sites, we may recognize the visitor by the Internet cookie and customize the visitor’s experience accordingly. The cookies created on your computer by using our sites do not contain personally identifiable information. You may refuse a cookie, or delete the cookies file from your computer at any time by using any one of a number of widely available methods. However, you should be aware that if you disable the “cookies” feature of your browser, you may not be able to use the portals within our site.

You may use third-party social networking services, including but not limited to Facebook, Google+, Twitter and others to share information about your experience on BCBSKS with your friends and followers on those social networking services. These social networking services may be able to collect information about you via the use of cookies and tracking pixels, including your activity on BCBSKS. These third-party social networking services also may notify your friends, both on BCBSKS and on the social networking services themselves, that you are a user of BCBSKS. If you choose to access or make use of third-party social networking services, we may receive information about you that you have made available to those social networking services, including information about your contacts on those social networking services. Your interactions with those social networking services are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing the relevant service and any information that we collect will be governed by this Privacy Policy.

To opt-out of the collection and use of information for ad targeting via third-parties, mechanisms such as http://www.aboutads.info/choices are available to exercise that choice.

BCBSKS may use the online personal information for a number of different reasons, including editorial and feedback purposes, healthcare marketing and promotions, performing a statistical analysis of visitor usage, product development, content improvement, to protect our rights or property, or to customize the content and layout of our site. Aggregate data that does not identify individual users may be used for internal purposes or provided to third parties.

Personally identifiable information that visitors voluntarily provide to BCBSKS, online or offline, may be added to our databases and used for future communications, which may include website updates, new products and services, the confirmation of transactions through the portals, upcoming events, or health reminders, and for other purposes in accordance with applicable state and federal law.

Online personal information may or may not be individually identifiable health information that is also protected by the federal HIPAA privacy law (“the HIPAA Privacy Rule”). Where online personal information also constitutes individually identifiable health information under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, the provisions of this Privacy Rule also will govern BCBSKS permitted uses and disclosures of the online personal information.

We do not provide a warranty of any kind concerning the use of our site or the content of our site. Internet use carries the inherent risk of damage from equipment failure, infection from a computer virus, and corruption of systems or data. Such risks are not the responsibility of BCBSKS. Report any problems with this site to web support.

Errors in claims processing or information maintained about you should be reported by email, telephone, in person or in writing to BCBSKS.

This site, its design and the information residing on it (but not linked sites) are the property of BCBSKS. Such design and content constitute proprietary information and/or trade secrets. BCBSKS vigorously defends ownership of its proprietary information and trade secrets. For more information, see our Legal Notices.

If you do not want to accept these conditions of use, please exit the site and contact BCBSKS by telephone, in person or by mail.

Updated May 2018