Privacy Policy

Effective Date August 15, 2026

This policy explains what information Vascular Wellness Institute collects through this website, what we do with it, and what choices you have. It applies to vascularwellnessinstitute.com and to any page or form hosted under it.

1. This is not our HIPAA notice

There are two different sets of rules at work, and it helps to keep them separate.

Your medical record — everything created in the course of your care with us — is protected health information under HIPAA. How we handle it is described in our Notice of Privacy Practices, which is a separate document you receive as a patient. That notice governs your medical information, and nothing in this policy changes it.

This policy covers the website: what happens when you visit a page, fill in a contact form, or click one of our ads. That is ordinary website information, and it is not the same thing as your medical record.

2. Information you give us

When you use a form on this site to contact us or request an appointment, we collect what you enter — typically your name, phone number, email address, and which office you are interested in.

Please do not use website forms to send us detailed medical information, test results, photographs of a wound or a limb, insurance identifiers, or your Social Security number. Website forms and email are not secure channels. Use the patient portal or call the office for anything of that kind.

3. Information collected automatically

Like most websites, this one collects some information automatically when you visit:

  • Your IP address and approximate location, usually to the city level
  • Your browser and device type, and your operating system
  • Which pages you visited, in what order, and how long you spent on them
  • The site or ad that sent you here, if any

4. Cookies and tracking technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies — small files and pieces of code placed on your device — for three purposes: to make the site work, to understand how it is used, and to measure our advertising.

The specific services we use are:

Google Tag Manager

The container that loads the other tags below. It does not itself collect information about you.

Google Analytics 4

Measures how the site is used — which pages people visit, how they arrive, and where they leave. Google receives this information.

Google Ads conversion tracking and conversion linker

Measures whether our search advertising leads someone to contact us, and preserves click information across pages so that measurement works. Google receives this information.

JotForm

Provides some of the forms on this site and processes what you enter into them.

Google reCAPTCHA

Protects our forms from automated abuse. Subject to Google’s own privacy terms.

We do not run a Meta Pixel, a remarketing tag, a heatmap or session-recording tool, or a chat widget on this site.

Developer: this list matches the Google Tag Manager container as configured. Nothing is to be added to the container without Lori’s approval — adding a tag silently makes this page untrue. If any script is deployed outside GTM, say so before this publishes.

5. Advertising

We advertise on Google, Facebook, and Instagram. The measurement described above tells us whether an advertisement led someone to contact us. That is the whole of what we do with it.

We do not build remarketing audiences. We do not retarget you with advertising after you leave this site. We do not create audiences based on any medical condition, symptom, treatment, or diagnosis, and we do not give any advertising platform information about your health.

Our advertising landing pages are deliberately kept separate from the clinical pages on this site, and those pages are not indexed by search engines or linked from anywhere else on the site.

6. Your choices

You can limit or stop most of this tracking:

  • Your browser settings let you block or delete cookies. Blocking them may stop parts of the site working.
  • Google offers a browser add-on that stops Google Analytics collecting your activity.
  • Facebook and Instagram let you control advertising preferences in your account settings, including how advertisers can reach you.
  • Many browsers and extensions send a Global Privacy Control signal. We honour it where our systems can receive it.
  • You can ask us to delete the contact information you have submitted to us through this website. Call either office or email us and we will do it.

7. How we use what we collect

We use information from this website to respond to you, to schedule and confirm appointments, to answer questions, to keep the site working properly and securely, to understand how the site is used so we can improve it, to measure our advertising, and to meet legal and regulatory obligations.

8. Who else sees it

We do not sell your information. We do not trade it. We do not give it to anyone for their own marketing.

We do share information with the companies that provide services to us — the ones named in Section 4, our website host, our email provider, and our practice management and electronic health record systems. They handle it on our behalf, under contract, and they are not permitted to use it for their own purposes. Where a vendor handles protected health information, we have a business associate agreement in place with them as HIPAA requires.

We will also disclose information where the law requires it, or where it is necessary to protect the safety of a person.

9. Text messages

If you are a patient and you have given us your mobile number, we may send you appointment reminders by text. These are sent through our electronic health record system, eClinicalWorks, not through this website. Enrolment happens at the practice, not here.

We send appointment reminders only. We do not send marketing or promotional text messages, and we have no plans to.

Reply STOP to any reminder to stop receiving them, or tell any member of staff and we will turn them off. Message and data rates may apply depending on your mobile plan. Your mobile number is used for reminders and for contacting you about your care. We do not sell it and we do not share it with anyone for their own marketing. Receiving text reminders is never a condition of receiving care.

10. Links to other sites

This site links to other websites — hospitals, professional societies, patient resources, and our patient portal. Those sites are not ours, and this policy does not cover them. When you follow a link away from here, the other site’s privacy policy applies.

11. Security

This site uses encryption in transit, and we restrict access to submitted information to staff who need it. We keep our systems patched and monitored.

No website is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee that information sent over the internet will never be intercepted. That is the reason for the request in Section 2 about what not to send through a form.

12. How long we keep it

Contact form submissions are kept as long as we need them to respond to you and to keep a record of the enquiry, and then deleted. Analytics and advertising data is retained according to the retention settings of the services named in Section 4. Medical records are governed by our Notice of Privacy Practices and by Florida law, not by this policy.

13. Children

This site is intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has submitted information to us, contact us and we will delete it.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. When we do, we will change the date at the top of the page. If the change is significant, we will say so on the page rather than making it quietly.

15. Contact us

If you have a question about this policy, or you want us to delete information you have submitted through this website, contact either office.

Sarasota

1215 S East Ave, Suite 307, Sarasota, FL 34239 · (941) 312-6196

Bradenton

6220 Manatee Ave W, Suite 203, Bradenton, FL 34209 · (941) 795-6370