Legal

Privacy Policy

This page has two parts. Part 1 is our general Privacy Policy. Part 2 covers the Guardian Care Services Meta app.

Part 1: Privacy Policy

Effective Date: November 24, 2024  ·  Last Updated: June 13, 2026  ·  Download as PDF

Guardian Care Services (“we,” “us,” or “our”) is a Georgia-based in-home nursing agency providing pediatric care to families of children with special needs, including services delivered through the Georgia Pediatric Program (GAPP). We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of the personal and health information entrusted to us by the families we serve, the clinicians we employ, and the visitors to our website.

This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use and protect it, and the choices available to you. It applies to information we collect through our website, our intake and enrollment processes, and our general business operations.

1. Information We Collect

The information we collect depends on your relationship with us. It generally falls into the following categories.

Information from families and patients

• Identifying information — child and parent or guardian names, dates of birth, home address, telephone numbers, and email addresses.
• Health information — diagnoses, physician orders, plans of care, treatment records, medication information, and related clinical documentation needed to provide and coordinate care.
• Insurance and program information — Medicaid identification numbers, Georgia Pediatric Program enrollment details, insurance coverage, and billing information.
• Eligibility documentation — records required to establish or maintain eligibility for covered services.

Information from clinicians and applicants

• Employment information — contact details, resumes, licenses and certifications, background-check results, and onboarding documentation collected during hiring and employment.

Information collected through our website

• Information you provide — details you submit through contact forms, referral forms, or email, such as your name, email address, phone number, and the contents of your message.
• Automatically collected information — standard technical data such as IP address, browser type, device information, pages visited, and the dates and times of visits, collected through cookies and similar technologies.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• To provide, coordinate, and manage in-home nursing and pediatric care services.
• To verify eligibility and process enrollment in the Georgia Pediatric Program and other applicable programs.
• To bill for services and obtain payment from Medicaid, insurers, or other responsible parties.
• To communicate with families, guardians, physicians, and care teams.
• To recruit, screen, onboard, and manage our clinical and administrative staff.
• To respond to inquiries submitted through our website or other channels.
• To operate, maintain, and improve our website and business operations.
• To comply with legal, regulatory, accreditation, and contractual obligations.

3. How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal or health information. We share information only as necessary to provide care and operate our business, and as permitted or required by law. This may include sharing with:

• Treating providers and care teams — physicians, hospitals, therapists, and other professionals involved in the patient’s care.
• Government programs and payers — the Georgia Department of Community Health, the Georgia Pediatric Program, Medicaid, and insurers, for eligibility, authorization, billing, and oversight.
• Service providers — vendors who perform functions on our behalf, such as billing, scheduling, electronic records, and information-technology services, under agreements that require them to protect your information.
• Legal and regulatory authorities — when required by law, subpoena, court order, audit, or to comply with regulatory and reporting obligations, including mandatory reporting of suspected abuse or neglect.

Disclosures of protected health information are made in accordance with HIPAA and the standards described in our Notice of Privacy Practices.

4. Children’s Privacy

Because we serve children with special needs, much of the information we maintain relates to minors. We collect this information from parents, legal guardians, and treating providers for the purpose of delivering care, and we treat it with heightened care and confidentiality.

Our website is intended for use by parents, guardians, caregivers, referral partners, and prospective employees — not by children. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13 through our website. If you believe a child has provided information through our website, please contact us so we can remove it.

5. How We Protect Your Information

We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal and health information against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. These measures include access controls, staff training, secure storage and transmission of records, and policies governing the handling of sensitive information.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. While we work to protect your information, we cannot guarantee absolute security. In the event of a breach affecting protected health information, we will provide notification as required by applicable law.

6. Data Retention

We retain personal and health information for as long as necessary to provide services, meet our legal and regulatory obligations, support billing and audit requirements, and resolve disputes. Retention periods for medical and program records are governed by applicable federal and Georgia state law. When information is no longer required, we dispose of it securely.

7. Cookies and Website Analytics

Our website may use cookies and similar technologies to operate the site, remember your preferences, and understand how visitors use our pages. Most web browsers allow you to refuse or delete cookies through your browser settings; doing so may affect how parts of the website function. We do not use website data to make decisions about your care or eligibility.

8. Your Rights and Choices

Depending on your relationship with us and applicable law, you may have the right to:

• Access and obtain a copy of the health information we maintain about you or your child.
• Request a correction to information you believe is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Request restrictions on certain uses and disclosures of your information.
• Receive an accounting of certain disclosures we have made.
• Receive a paper copy of our Notice of Privacy Practices upon request.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the information below. Your rights with respect to protected health information are described more fully in our Notice of Privacy Practices.

9. Third-Party Links

Our website may contain links to websites operated by others. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of any website you visit.

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. When we make changes, we will revise the “Last Updated” date above and post the current version on our website. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

11. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, wish to exercise your rights, or want to report a concern, please contact us:

Guardian Care Services
Email: privacy@guardiancareservices.org

Part 2: Guardian Care Services Meta app

Effective October 14, 2026

This part explains how the Guardian Care Services Meta app (the “App”) handles data. It adds to Part 1 and does not reduce any protection Part 1 or HIPAA gives you.

1. What the app is

The App is an internal tool registered to Guardian Care Services with Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram. We use it for one thing: managing our own advertising on Facebook and Instagram, including ads that tell Georgia families about our services and ads that recruit nurses and caregivers. It connects only to our own ad account and our own Facebook Page. Nobody outside Guardian Care Services signs in to it, and it does not use Facebook Login.

2. What the app receives

The App reads performance reports for our own ads. These are totals, such as how much an ad cost, how many people it reached, how many times it was clicked, and how many conversations or calls it produced. The reports do not identify the people who saw, clicked or responded to an ad. The App also holds the images, videos and wording of our own ads.

3. What the app never receives

• Protected health information, or any information about a child, a family, a patient or an intake.
• The names, profiles, friends, photos or posts of Facebook or Instagram users.
• The content of Messenger, Instagram or WhatsApp conversations.
• Leads. We do not use Meta lead forms, so nobody gives the App their details.
• Customer or patient lists. We never upload them to Meta and never build audiences from them.

Our ads describe our services; they are written so that they never state or suggest anything about the health of the person viewing them or their child.

4. No Meta tracking on our website

Our website does not use the Meta pixel or any other Meta tracking tool, and makes no requests to Meta or any other advertising company. Visiting our site, reading about our services, or submitting the intake form sends nothing to Meta.

5. If you contact us through Facebook or Instagram

If you reply to one of our ads, message our Page, or comment on a post, Meta handles that conversation under its own Privacy Policy, and we handle what you send us under Part 1. Please do not send health details about yourself or your child through Facebook, Instagram or Messenger. We will move the conversation to a phone call or our secure intake form as soon as we can.

6. Storage, sharing and retention

The performance data the App reads is stored on our own server, is used only to decide which of our ads to run, and is never sold or shared. The App's access keys are kept private and out of our logs. We keep this data only as long as it helps us run our advertising, and we delete it when we stop using the App.

7. Deleting your data

We will confirm your request and may ask a question to make sure it comes from you. The App itself stores no personal information about Facebook or Instagram users, so there is nothing about you in it to delete. Anything else we hold about you, such as messages you sent us, is deleted within 30 days, except records that the law, including HIPAA and Medicaid program rules, requires us to keep. Those are kept only as long as required and then destroyed. To remove information Meta holds about your activity, use your Facebook or Instagram settings.

See also our Terms of Service.