Privacy Statement

Sanford Health Plan acknowledges and respects any individual's right to privacy. We take your concerns related to privacy and security seriously. We therefore want you to know how we may collect, use, share, and protect your information through our website and mobile apps. In addition to this Privacy Statement, visitors to the Sanford Health Plan website should consult the Sanford Health Plan website Terms & Conditions as well as any product or service specific terms and conditions that may apply. The Sanford Health Plan Notice of Privacy Practices is a separate document which references how member medical information (Protected Health Information) may be used or disclosed.

This Privacy Statement applies to sanfordhealthplan.com and other websites under Sanford Health Plan control which we will refer to as our "website" and any Sanford Health Plan mobile apps available for both iPhone and Android.

Information We Collect and How It Is Used

Visitors can browse all Sanford Health Plan websites without providing any personal information. Certain pages contain forms that give visitors the option of providing us with contact information including name, physical address, phone, and email address and other necessary information required to process your request if you choose to contact us. Providing this information is voluntary. The information you submit is shared internally with Sanford Health Plan employees who need this information to help respond to your request or improve Sanford Health Plan operations. Information submitted may also be used to evaluate the technical functionality of our website. Information provided may also be utilized to address inappropriate use or communications associated with our website.

My Sanford Health Plan and Protected Health Information

Sanford Health Plan offers members a secure online health connection to the My Sanford Health Plan member portal. Any personal information contained or entered within the portal is considered Protected Health Information. How we collect, use, and disclose Protected Health Information is referenced in Sanford Health Plan’s Notice of Privacy Practices.

Calling, Texting, And Emailing

We may contact you about your plan and health care using the phone numbers and email addresses you provide to us. This may include using an automated phone dialing system, pre-recorded or synthetic voice messages, texting, or email. When we contact you in this manner, you will be given the opportunity to opt out of receiving similar communications going forward.

Because texts and emails are not encrypted, there is a risk that someone else could read or access these messages. We therefore take steps to limit the amount of health information that they contain. You may choose to opt out of these messages at any time.

Newsletters, Email Communications, and Other Related Services

Sanford Health Plan may offer you the opportunity to receive e-newsletters and e-publications related to Sanford Health Plan services, news and announcements. You can sign up for free and can unsubscribe at any time through the preference center contained in those communications.

Other communications that you send to us via email may be shared with a customer service representative, employee, medical expert or other Sanford Health Plan employee that is best able to respond to your inquiry. Email communications may not be completely secure or confidential. It is possible that emails may be accessed or read by other internet users. Please do not use email for communications you wish to keep protected and secure. Please use the My Sanford Health Plan member portal for secure communications.

IP Addresses

Our internet server automatically tracks the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computers that access our website, which may include third-party applications such as Google Analytics. An IP address is a number that is assigned to your computer when you access the internet. Sanford Health Plan may use this information to evaluate how visitors navigate our websites and ensure we provide the best and most relevant content.

Tracking Technologies

Sanford Health Plan, or any third-party advertising partners we choose to work with, may employ various tracking technologies such as cookies, pixels and analytics software in public locations of our website. These technologies help us provide the most relevant content to help the visitors access the most relevant care or products and are not deployed in secure locations where we communicate with members such as the My Sanford Health Plan member portal.

  • Cookies
    • When you visit our website, we may place a few small files known as "cookies" on your computer or device you use to browse the internet. These cookies are small text files that help us and many other websites enhance your experience online. They enable a range of useful features, like keeping track of your preferences, facilitating interactions on social media, analyzing how you use our website to improve it, offering personalized content, integrating social sharing tools provided by third parties, and showing you images or videos hosted on other sites. Please note that some parts of our website won't work as intended without cookies. Additionally, we might associate the information collected by cookies with any other data you provide us while you're on our website.
    • We may use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. A session ID cookie expires when you close your internet browser. A persistent cookie is stored on your computer. Cookies enable us to track and target the interest of our visitors to enhance your experience on our website. You can learn how to remove persistent cookies by following the directions provided in the "Help" portion of your internet browser.
  • Pixels
    • Just like cookies, pixels are another tool we use on our website to improve your browsing experience, but they work a bit differently. Pixels are tiny, invisible images—often just a single pixel—that are placed on a webpage or in an email. When you visit a webpage or open an email containing a pixel, it sends information back to us or our service providers. This information can include details about how you interact with our website or emails, such as which pages you visit, the links you click on, or even the fact that you’ve opened an email from us.
    • We use this data to gain insights into how our website and emails are being used, helping us to tailor more relevant content, measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns, and enhance overall user experience. Pixels can also facilitate targeted advertising, ensuring that the advertisements you see online are more aligned with your interests. They play a crucial role in helping us understand the effectiveness of our marketing efforts by tracking actions like conversions or leads.
  • Third-Party Tracking Technologies
    • Just as we utilize cookies and pixels to enhance your online experience, our website also employs third-party tracking technologies. These are tools provided by external service providers that help us understand your behavior across the internet. Unlike cookies and pixels, which we manage directly, third-party tracking technologies are operated by outside organizations that gather data about your online activities across various websites over time.
    • These technologies are instrumental in analyzing how you interact with content not just on our website, but across the internet, enabling us to deliver advertisements and content that are tailored to your interests. Third-party tracking technologies do not directly identify you unless you have provided the third party with your personal information.
  • Location Tracking
    • An IP address (also called Internet address) must be assigned to devices that access the internet. IP addresses are used to make the connection between your device and the websites and services you use. You can’t prevent a website or app from getting the IP address of your device. Your IP address includes some general information about your device location, and we use that information to display your approximate location in the website and mobile app user experience. We identify your device’s approximate location from your IP address, which is provided to us when you visit our website or use the Sanford mobile app. We do this to provide you a customized experience on our website and mobile app, including the display of location-based information that is relevant to you and your care.
    • With your permission, we may collect your precise device location using technologies like GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, to help you find a facility, doctor, or directions within a facility, or to provide you with timely notices when you visit a facility.
    • Please note for mobile apps, you may opt in or out of location-based services by changing the location permission settings on your device.

Analytics Software

We, and any third-party tracking utilities we deploy, may use log files on our website to gather certain information automatically and store for analytical purposes. This information includes internet (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and activity on our digital properties. We use this information to track and compile non-personal information to analyze trends, monitor visitor traffic within our website content, and gather aggregate demographic information about our visitors. We may combine this log file information with other information we collect from or about you to help improve the services we offer, our marketing, analytics or website functionality.

Social Media Features and Widgets

Our website may contain various features that allow visitors to interact with our website content via their chosen social media platform, such as the Facebook "Like" or "Share" buttons. Use of these interactive widgets on our website is voluntary. These services are provided to enhance your browsing experience and ability to communicate information from our website to the audience of your choice. These social media features are hosted by a third party and governed by the Privacy Statement of the company providing those services.

We may provide you with the opportunity to share information from our website with a friend or make a referral by providing an email address or other contact information for that person. We will use that contact information to provide information about Sanford Health Plan services.

Links to Other Websites

Our website content may contain links to external websites not owned by Sanford Health Plan. These third-party websites have different privacy notices and practices. If you submit any information to those websites, your information is governed by the Privacy Statement published on that website. We encourage you to carefully read the Privacy Statement for any website you visit.

Public Forums

Our website may offer publicly accessible blogs, community forums or message boards. Be aware that any personal information you disclose in those public forums may be collected and used by others outside the control of Sanford Health Plan. Please contact the posted administrator of a particular forum to request removal of your personal information. In some cases we may not be able to remove your information.

Legal Disclosure

We reserve the right to disclose personal information as required by law, such as to respond to a subpoena or other mandatory legal process. We may disclose personal information when we believe in good faith that the disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, to protect the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to government requests.

Data Retention

We will retain your information for as long as needed to provide you services, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

Sharing Information with Third Parties

We do not share personal information with third parties unrelated to Sanford Health Plan, except when required to for legal purposes or investigations. We may share your personal information with third parties who we have contracted with to help us provide services. We will ensure that these third parties have agreed not to use or disclose your personal information except to help us provide the services.

Security of Your Information

Sanford Health Plan provides reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect our website content and any personal information you may provide against foreseeable hazards. When you enter sensitive information (such as a credit card number) on our forms, we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). When you come across a web page that is secured, your browser will likely display a "closed lock" or other symbol to inform you that SSL has been enabled. The web address should start with "https://" rather than "http://". SSL allows a secure connection between your web browser and a web server. No computer system or information, however, can ever be fully protected from every possible threat or hazard and therefore we cannot warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.

Protecting Children's Privacy

Sanford Health Plan is committed to protecting children's privacy on the internet. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13.

Mobile Apps

Sanford Health Plan offers mobile apps to access your health information within your My Sanford Health Plan member portal. These are the limited ways our mobile apps interact with our information.

  • When you choose to add a profile photo to our mobile apps, you may select an existing photo on your device or take a new photo using the camera app on your device. If you select an existing photo on your device, we store a copy of your chosen photo in app-private storage on your device. If you use the camera app on your device to take a new photo, the photo you take is first saved to your camera app and then also saved to app-private storage on your device. If you remove the photo from your profile or delete our mobile apps, the copy of the photo is deleted from the app-private storage, but the photo saved to your camera app remains available in your camera app until you choose to delete it. The app does not interact with any photos stored in your medical record.
  • When you choose to include a photo or video in a message you send to a provider using our mobile apps, you may select an existing photo or video from your device or take a new photo or video using the camera app on your device. If you use the camera app on your device to take a new photo or video, it will be saved to your camera app. Any photo or video saved to your camera app remains available in your camera app until you choose to delete it.
  • Telehealth visits may be offered using our mobile apps. When you join a visit with your provider, we will ask for permission to access your device’s video and audio functionality to make the telehealth visit possible. We do not record or store video of audio data from these visits.
  • When you choose to use Apple’s HealthKit or Google Fit, we create encrypted identifiers to identify recipients of your Apple’s HealthKit or Google Fit data and store them on your device in app-private storage. If you choose to stop using Apple HealthKit or Google Fit or delete our mobile apps, the identifiers are deleted.
  • When you choose to view documents from Sanford Health Plan (such as letters or images) using our mobile apps, to make the files viewable for you we temporarily store copies on your device in app-private storage. The temporary copies are deleted when you close your session on our mobile apps.
  • If choose to enable automatic appointment arrival, we temporarily store identifiers and times for your upcoming appointments in app-private storage to detect when you arrive for an upcoming appointment. If you choose to stop using our mobile apps or disable automatic appointment arrival, those identifiers are deleted. 
  • If you wish to use location-based check in for in-person appointments, or to find healthcare providers or locations near you, you may choose to allow our mobile apps to interact with your location data for those purposes. We do not store your location data.
  • While you use our apps, we collect non-identifying information so we can provide customer service to you and understand how people use our mobile apps so we can improve our products. This information includes the time you began using the app, any error messages or codes, the model of device used and its operating system, and the version of our mobile app used. If you use Android devices, we also collect your connection type (cellular or Wi-Fi) during an error.
  • You may contact us through the methods listed on our website. If you contact us, we may keep a record of the communication. You can decide how much information you want to share with us in those cases.

FOR ANDROID USERS – REQUIRED GOOGLE PLAY DISCLOSURES FOR CERTAIN HEALTH APPS

Google has determined our mobile apps are subject to their COVID-19 apps requirements. As a result, we are required to provide the following information so we can make our mobile apps available to you in the Play store.

  • Our mobile apps interact with your microphone only if you choose to use your microphone to navigate our mobile apps. Our mobile apps interact with your camera roll only if you choose to add a profile photo to a profile in our mobile apps. This information is not used in connection with COVID-19.
  • Our mobile apps were not created specifically for the COVID-19 pandemic. They existed before the COVID-19 pandemic to allow you to access your health information. You can access COVID-19-related vaccination information, laboratory test results, and documents with illness-related information using our mobile apps. You may choose if or how you want to access, display, or use the information – just like you can make those decisions about health information relating to other conditions, services, tests, or vaccinations.
  • Our mobile apps access, collect, use, and share your information (including video, audio, images, files) as stated above in the section titled, “Mobile Apps”. We also prominently highlight these uses, describe the type of data being accessed, and obtain your consent for these purposes as you use our mobile apps.
  • You may use our mobile apps to communicate health information to us and to conduct telehealth appointments with our healthcare providers. Any health information you provide through our app or exchanged during telehealth appointments is collected in accordance with Sanford Health Plan’s Notice of Privacy Practices.

Changes to the Privacy Statement

We may change or update our Privacy Statement over time. Notification of material changes will be on our website. This Privacy Statement was last updated on December 3, 2025.

Contact information

If you have questions regarding this Privacy Statement you can contact us at privacyoffice@sanfordhealth.org or via mail at:

Sanford Health Chief Privacy Officer
PO Box 5039
Sioux Falls, SD 57117-5039