Website Privacy Policy

Your Health Idaho (YHI) will keep the information you provide private as required by law. The information you provide will be used for the purposes of enrollment in a plan; treatment; payment; determining eligibility; or other purposes permitted by law.

1. YHI Generally

YHI operates a website and online insurance marketplace that together provide a resource where you can learn about your health coverage options, compare health insurance plans based on costs, benefits, and other important features, choose a plan, and enroll in coverage. YHI also provides information on programs that help people with low to moderate income and resources pay for coverage. This includes ways to save on the monthly premiums and out-of-pocket costs of coverage available through YHI, and information about other programs, including Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). This Notice of Privacy Practices describes how YHI will use information that you or your authorized representative submit to YHI. “We” refers to YHI staff and contractors that perform functions for YHI. “You” refers to any person whose information is entered on an application, or those acting on such a person’s behalf.

2. Permission for Information Submitted

YHI is authorized to collect information on the application, including Social Security Numbers (SSN), and will confirm information that may affect initial or ongoing eligibility for all persons listed on your application. You are allowing YHI to use SSNs and other information from your application to request and receive additional information or records to confirm the information in your application. We need this information to check your eligibility for health insurance and to give you the best service possible. You release YHI from all liability associated with sharing this information with other agencies for this purpose.
When you file an application with YHI, the application filer confirms that the application filer has permission from all of the people whose information is on the application to both (a) submit their information to YHI and (b) receive any communications about their eligibility and enrollment.
Regulations that support YHI’s collection of this data can be found under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) (Public Law 111-148), as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-152), the Social Security Act (Public Law 74-271), and the Idaho Health Insurance Exchange Act (Idaho 2013 Session Laws Ch. 170).

3. Protection of your data

YHI has significant protections in place to ensure the privacy of your personal information. The Marketplace system has been implemented in compliance with federal and state rules, regulations, and laws designed to protect customer information.
You will be asked to provide only the minimum information necessary to determine eligibility for relevant health plan options. Multiple layers of physical, administrative, and electronic protections have been put in place to protect all information from unauthorized use, access, or malicious activity. Personnel procedures and processes have also been developed with an emphasis on privacy.
YHI (and contractors for YHI) adhere to the privacy and security standards required by 45 CFR §155.260. Additionally, our customer-support partners —Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Idaho Department of Insurance, Certified Health Insurance Agents and Brokers, Enrollment Counselors, and others — must all comply with and support our security and privacy efforts, including security and privacy training, as part of their agreements. Their access to customer data is restricted based on the roles they serve.
Licensed health insurance agents, brokers, and enrollment counselors will have access to consumer data, but only after completing a certification process and being authorized by the consumer. Within our own Customer Service Center, representatives will also receive training, screening, and be subject to controls.
Under the regulations governing the ACA, any person who knowingly and willfully uses or discloses information in violation of section 1411(g) of the ACA will be subject to a civil penalty of no more than $25,000 per person or entity, per use or disclosure, in addition to other penalties that may be prescribed by law.
The Marketplace system is tested, inspected, and audited by independent third parties and federal and state organizations. Effective customer privacy and security are a top priority as part of our overall mission to provide this service to Idaho.
You have the right to see whatever information we have about you. You also have the right to have this information corrected if we have any incorrect information on file.

4. Need for Personal Information

YHI collects personal information on applications and other forms to determine your eligibility to (a) purchase coverage through YHI and (b), if you choose, to obtain financial assistance. As part of that process, we will verify the information you provide, communicate with you or your authorized representative, and eventually provide the information to the health carrier you select so that the carrier can enroll any eligible individuals in a qualified health plan or apply eligible insurance affordability benefits.
We will also use the information provided as part of the ongoing operation of YHI, including activities such as verifying continued eligibility for programs, processing appeals, reporting on and managing the insurance affordability programs, communicating with you to keep your coverage up to date, responding to your feedback or complaints, performing oversight and quality control, combatting fraud, and responding to any concerns about the security or confidentiality of personal information held by YHI.
In addition, state and federal law may require or permit YHI to share the information we collect or maintain about you for other purposes. These purposes are described in more detail in Section 6 below entitled Information Sharing.

5. Marketplace – Sharing Your Information Is Voluntary

You are not required to provide certain personal information, such as your SSN, to YHI. But if you decline to provide this information, you may delay or prevent YHI from performing certain functions, such as (a) determining your eligibility for benefits or financial assistance or (b) allowing you to select and enroll in health coverage.
If you are applying for health coverage, you must provide identity verification and legal presence documentation. Your application must also provide identity verification and legal presence documentation of any tax filer who isn’t applying for health coverage if the tax filer’s tax information will be used to verify the household’s eligibility for financial assistance. Other members of the household who are not applying for health coverage are not required to provide identity verification and legal presence documentation, but are encouraged to do so to speed up the application process. We use SSNs to check income and other information to determine eligibility for help with health coverage costs. Individuals who would like help getting an SSN should visit the Social Security Administration website, or call 1-800-772-1213. TTY users should call 1-800-325-0778.
If you choose to provide personal information to YHI, be sure to provide correct information. Anyone who fails to provide correct information or who knowingly and willfully provides false or untrue information to YHI may be subject to a penalty, recision of enrollment by the carrier, and/or other law enforcement action.
When considering whether to provide personal information to YHI, you should note that you may be subject to a penalty if you don’t maintain qualifying health coverage for 3 months or longer during the year and that you aren’t exempt from the shared responsibility payment.

6. Marketplace – Information Sharing

YHI will share the information you submit to YHI as follows:

6.1 Verification

YHI verifies the information you provide with these organizations and agencies to determine your eligibility to purchase a qualified health plan through YHI and, if you choose, for help paying for health coverage:
• Social Security Administration may verify your SSNs and citizenship status.
• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security may verify your immigration status and/or naturalized citizenship status.
• The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may verify your household income and family size; the income of household members may also be verified with the Social Security Administration and with a consumer credit reporting agency.
• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
• United States Customs and Immigration Services.
• A consumer credit reporting agency may verify your employment information.
• The employers listed on your application may verify your eligibility for employer-sponsored health plans.
• The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Medicare, Peace Corps, U.S. Department of Defense (for TRICARE), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) may verify your eligibility for or enrollment in health coverage programs.
If the information you provide does not match the information on file with these sources, we may ask you to send us proof of the information you provide.
Not all applicants will need to provide all of this information. For example, you’ll be asked about your employment, income, and enrollment in health coverage only if you want help paying for health coverage.

6.2 Agents, Brokers, Health Plan Issuers and Authorized Representatives

You may decide to give permission to organizations or people who can communicate with YHI on your behalf for needs such as resolving inconsistencies, or ensuring complete and accurate applications. Depending on your permission, they may include:
• Your authorized representatives.
• Your YHI-certified agent, broker, or enrollment counselor or the insurance company that issues the health plan you select through YHI.

6.3 Application Filer

Each application filer confirms that he or she is authorized to share information for everyone on the application. That way, YHI has permission to share your information with your application filer.

6.4 Enrollment in Coverage and Insurance Affordability Programs

Once you select coverage, YHI will share your information for purposes such as:
• Notifying employers on your application if you’re eligible for certain insurance affordability programs (Advance Premium Tax Credit, cost-sharing reductions, or expiration of COBRA eligibility/contribution).
• Transferring your enrollment information to the appropriate organization or agency. This might be the issuer of the health plan that you select, or the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, for example.
• Making reports to the IRS about your enrollment in a qualified health plan through YHI and about your eligibility for Advance Premium Tax Credit, cost-sharing reductions, or a certification of exemption from the individual responsibility requirements.

6.5 Appeals

If you choose to submit an appeal, YHI may share information from your application and your appeal with the federal and state agencies listed above under “6.1 Verification.”

6.6 Marketplace Functions

To maintain Marketplace operation, YHI works with the following groups and may therefore share your information with:
• Contractors that perform special functions for YHI.
• Other federal, state, or local government agencies to combat fraud, waste, and abuse and to respond to concerns about the security or confidentiality of information.
• Insurance companies that issue Marketplace plans and also the IRS, for the ongoing administration of the Advance Premium Tax Credit and cost-sharing reductions, if applicable to you.
• If a complaint is filed with YHI about a qualified health plan or issuer, YHI may notify the issuer and the proper state or federal agencies.
• Anyone else as required by law.

7. Marketplace – Identity Verification

To protect your privacy, you will need to successfully complete identity verification before you may activate your Marketplace account. When you agree to identify verification, you are providing consent to allow an identity verification contractor to access your personal information and conduct identify verification on YHI’s behalf. We will collect personal information only to verify your identity with an identity verification provider. Below are a few items to keep in mind:
• Ensure that you have entered your legal name, current home address, primary phone number, date of birth, and email address correctly.
• Identity verification involves using information from your consumer report profile to help confirm your identity. As a result, you may see an entry called a “soft inquiry” on your consumer report. Soft inquiries are visible only to you, will never be presented to third parties, and do not affect your credit score. The soft inquiry will be removed from your consumer report after 25 months.
• You may need to have access to your personal and consumer report information because the identity verification providers’ applications will pose questions to you based on data in their files.

8. YourHealthIdaho.org Website

Yourhealthidaho.org doesn’t collect any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) about you during your visit to our website unless you choose to provide it to us. We do, however, collect information from visitors who read, browse, or download information from our site. We do this so we can understand how the public uses the site and how to make it more helpful.

8.1 Types of information we collect

When you browse through any website, certain information about your visit can be collected. We automatically collect and store the following types of information about your visit:
• Domain from which you access the Internet
• IP address (an IP or internet protocol address is a number that is automatically given to a computer connected to the Web)
• Operating system on your computer and information about the browser you used when visiting the site
• Date and time of your visit
• Pages you visited
• Address of the website that connected you to Yourhealthidaho.org (such as google.com or bing.com)
We use this information to measure the number of visitors to our site and its various sections, and to help make our site more useful to visitors.

8.2 How Yourhealthidaho.org uses information it collects

Yourhealthidaho.org uses a variety of Web measurement software tools. We use them to collect the information listed in the “Types of information we collect” section above. The tools collect information automatically and continuously. No PII is collected by these tools.
Yourhealthidaho.org analyzes and reports on the collected data from these tools. The reports are available to YHI managers, members of the communication and Web teams, federal oversight programs, and other designated staff who need this information to perform their duties.
Yourhealthidaho.org also uses an online survey to collect opinions and feedback, however you are not required to participate. Please do not include any PII in comments you make. We analyze and use this information to improve the site’s operation and content. The reports are available only to Yourhealthidaho.org managers, members of the communications and Web teams, and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties.
Yourhealthidaho.org retains the data from our measurement tools as long as needed to support the mission of the website and organization.

8.3 How Yourhealthidaho.org uses Cookies

When you visit any website, its server may generate a piece of text known as a “cookie” to place on your computer. The cookie allows the server to “remember” specific information about your visit while you are connected. The cookie makes it easier for you to use the dynamic features of Web pages. Cookies from Yourhealthidaho.org pages only collect information about your browser’s visit to the site. They do not collect personal information about you.
There are two types of cookies, single session (temporary), and multi-session (persistent). Session cookies only last as long as your Web browser is open. Once you close your browser, the cookie disappears. Persistent cookies are stored on your computer for longer periods.

8.4 Use of Cookie To Collect Non-Personally Identifiable Information

Cookies do not collect PII. Cookies can make the site or its advertisements more useful by using this non-PII to tailor website content towards a site visitor as well as to monitor how effective the site’s advertisements are. This site may share non-PII to monitor the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but site visitors can change the browser preference settings on a device to prevent it.

8.5 How to opt out or disable cookies

If you do not wish to have session or persistent cookies placed on your computer, you can disable them using your Web browser. If you opt out of cookies, you will still have access to all information and resources at Yourhealthidaho.org. Instructions for disabling or opting out of cookies in the most popular browsers are located at https://www.usa.gov/optout-instructions.
Please note that by opting out of cookies, you will disable cookies from all sources, not just from Yourhealthidaho.org.

8.6 How we protect your personal information

You do not have to give us personal information to visit Yourhealthidaho.org. However, if you choose to receive alerts or e-newsletters, we collect your email address to complete the subscription process.
If you choose to provide us with PII through an email message, request for information, paper or electronic form, questionnaire, survey, etc., we will retain the information you provide to respond to your question or to fulfill the stated purpose of the communication.
If, to contact you, we store your personal information in a record system designed to retrieve information about you by personal identifier (name, personal email address, home mailing address, personal or mobile phone number, etc.), we will safeguard the information you
provide in accordance with the ACA, as amended, and its implementing regulations and guidance, and the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (5 U.S.C. Section 552a).

8.7 How Yourhealthidaho.org uses third-party websites and applications

Yourhealthidaho.org uses a variety of technologies and social media services to communicate and interact with consumers. These third-party website and application (TPWA) tools include popular social networking and media sites, open source software communities, and more. Examples include Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
TPWAs are not exclusively operated or controlled by Yourhealthidaho.org. Users of TPWAs often share information with the general public, user community, and/or the third party operating the website. These actors may use this information in a variety of ways. TPWAs could cause PII to become available or accessible to Yourhealthidaho.org and the public, regardless of whether the information is explicitly asked for or collected by us.
Yourhealthidaho.org sometimes collects and uses your PII if you made it available through third-party websites. However, we do not share PII made available through third-party websites. Your activity on the third-party websites we use is governed by the security and privacy policies of those sites. You should review the third-party privacy policies before using the sites and ensure that you understand how your information may be used.
If you have an account with a third-party website and choose to “like,” “friend,” follow, or comment, certain PII associated with your account may be made available to Yourhealthidaho.org based on the privacy policy of the third-party website and your privacy settings within that website. You should adjust privacy settings on your account to match your preferences.

8.8 Links to other sites

Yourhealthidaho.org links to other websites, government sites, and occasionally to private organizations. Once you leave Yourhealthidaho.org, you are subject to the privacy policy of the sites you are visiting. Yourhealthidaho.org is not responsible for the contents of any off-site web page. A link to a page does not constitute an endorsement by YHI.

9. Your Rights

You and any of your authorized representatives may see and request a copy of the personal information YHI collects and maintains about you as well as inquire as to whether the information YHI has about you is accurate.

In addition, you also have the right to ask for an accounting of the entities or people to whom YHI has disclosed your information. To do so, please contact Customer Support.

If you do not understand the information contained within YHI’s Privacy Policy, you may contact YHI for an explanation. You many also request a copy of this notice. YHI will provide translations of this notice into languages other than English at no cost to you, and YHI will provide reasonable accommodations to make this notice accessible to persons with disabilities.

YHI takes the privacy of its customers seriously. If, at any time, you choose to rescind your consent for YHI to use your personal data, please contact Customer Support. A representative will help you through the process and answer any questions you may have. Please note that when you rescind your consent for the use of personal data, you will be automatically disenrolled from your coverage on the exchange.

 

Effective Date: Updated June 21, 2024