Privacy & Legal Notices
Your privacy and legal rights are important to us. Our business practices and strict policies and procedures are designed to protect your personal information while giving you a personalized online experience.
- Notice of Non-discrimination Practices
- Your Rights and Protections Against Surprise Medical Bills
- Security
- Trademarks
- Website & Content Usage
Notice of Non-discrimination Practices
Portico Benefit Services complies with applicable Federal civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or gender in regard to health benefits. Portico does not exclude people or treat them differently because of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex (including sexual orientation; sex characteristics including intersex traits; pregnancy or related conditions; gender identity; and sex stereotypes). The provisions of the ELCA Health Plan do not exclude people or treat them differently because of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or sex.
Portico Benefit Services, plan administrator of the ELCA Health Plan, provides, upon request, free communication assistance services to facilitate effective communication, including:
- Telephone, email, and standard mail options
- Written information in other formats, such as large print
- Free language interpreter services to people whose primary language is not English
- Information written in other languages
- Audio recordings, or other aids
If you need these services, contact us at 800.352.2876 (TTY 711) or by calling the number on your Portico Health ID card.
Filing a Discrimination Grievance
If you believe that Portico has failed to provide these services or discriminated in another way on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or gender, you can file a grievance with our Health Services Manager.
By email
privacycontact@porticobenefits.org
By mail
Mike Imgrund
Portico Benefit Services
7700 France Ave. S., Ste. 350
Minneapolis, MN 55435-2802
If you need help filing a grievance, please call Portico at 800.352.2876.
You can also file a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights.
File online
Office for Civil Rights Complaint Portal at ocrportal.hhs.gov/ocr/portal/lobby.jsf
By phone
1.800.368.1019
1.800.537.7697 (TDD)
By mail
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue SW
Room 509F
HHH Building
Washington, DC 20201
Complaint forms are available online at hhs.gov/ocr/office/file/index.html.
Your Rights and Protections Against Surprise Medical Bills
When you get emergency care or are treated by an out-of-network provider at an in-network hospital or ambulatory surgical center, you are protected from balance billing. In these cases, you shouldn’t be charged more than your plan’s copayments, coinsurance and/or deductible.
What is “balance billing” (sometimes called “surprise billing”)?
When you see a doctor or other health care provider, you may owe certain out-of-pocket costs, like a copayment, coinsurance, or deductible. You may have additional costs or have to pay the entire bill if you see a provider or visit a health care facility that isn’t in your health plan’s network.
“Out-of-network” means providers and facilities that haven’t signed a contract with your health plan to provide services. Out-of-network providers may be allowed to bill you for the difference between what your plan pays and the full amount charged for a service. This is called “balance billing.” This amount is likely more than in-network costs for the same service and might not count toward your plan’s deductible or annual out-of-pocket limit.
“Surprise billing” is an unexpected balance bill. This can happen when you can’t control who is involved in your care—like when you have an emergency or when you schedule a visit at an in- network facility but are unexpectedly treated by an out-of-network provider. Surprise medical bills could cost thousands of dollars depending on the procedure or service.
You’re protected from balance billing for:
Emergency services
If you have an emergency medical condition and get emergency services from an out-of- network provider or facility, the most they can bill you is your plan’s in-network cost-sharing amount (such as copayments, coinsurance, and deductibles). You can’t be balance billed for these emergency services. This includes services you may get after you’re in stable condition, unless you give written consent and give up your protections not to be balanced billed for these post-stabilization services.
Certain services at an in-network hospital or ambulatory surgical center
When you get services from an in-network hospital or ambulatory surgical center, certain providers there may be out-of-network. In these cases, the most those providers can bill you is your plan’s in-network cost-sharing amount. This applies to emergency medicine, anesthesia, pathology, radiology, laboratory, neonatology, assistant surgeon, hospitalist, or intensivist services. These providers can’t balance bill you and may not ask you to give up your protections not to be balance billed.
If you get other types of services at these in-network facilities, out-of-network providers can’t
balance bill you – unless you give written consent and give up your protections.
You’re never required to give up your protections from balance billing. You also aren’t required to get out-of-network care. You can choose a provider or facility in your plan’s network.
When balance billing isn’t allowed, you also have these protections:
- You’re only responsible for paying your share of the cost (like the copayments, coinsurance, and deductible that you would pay if the provider or facility was in-network). Your health plan will pay any additional costs to out-of-network providers and facilities directly.
- Generally, your health plan must:
- Cover emergency services without requiring you to get approval for services in advance (also known as “prior authorization”).
- Cover emergency services by out-of-network providers.
- Base what you owe the provider or facility (cost-sharing) on what it would pay an in-network provider or facility and show that amount in your explanation of benefits.
- Count any amount you pay for emergency services or out-of-network services toward your in-network deductible and out-of-pocket limit.
If you think you’ve been wrongly billed, contact the No Surprises Help Desk at 1-800-985-3059.
The federal Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 was enacted on December 27, 2020 and contains many provisions to help protect all consumers from surprise bills. Contact the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (a part of the Department of Health and Human Services) to learn more about protections for consumers, understanding costs in advance to avoid surprise bills, and what happens when payment disagreements arise after receiving medical care: www.cms.gov/nosurprises/consumers
V2 09.23.2022
Our Commitment to Security
To help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and facilitate the correct use of information, we have put in place strict physical, electronic, and administrative procedures to safeguard your information.
Two-Step Verification
You can enable two-step verification on myPortico to help you protect your account, but action is required to turn it on. Go to Your Profile on myPortico to enable two-step verification.
Two-step verification offers a second layer of protection against someone else accessing your account using a stolen or compromised password. In addition to your email and password, turning on two-step verification adds a quick second step — a code sent to you by phone call or text which you will enter during sign in — to protect your account.
Encryption Software
We use industry-standard encryption to protect your personal information when you visit our website. This technology minimizes the risk of anyone eavesdropping on your information as it passes between your computer and our systems. You can tell a page is secure when:
- The address begins with https:// instead of http://. The “s” means “secured”.
- Depending on your browser, you may see a small padlock icon in the lower-right corner.
Your personal information is never displayed or collected without robust security measures. We are committed to protecting your privacy.
What You Can Do To Protect Your Account
- Enable two-step verification on your myPortico account.
- Choose a unique password that you don’t use elsewhere.
- Do not share your password with anyone.
- Do not allow your browser to save your sign in credentials.
- Always sign out using the button at the top of the page.
- For additional security, close your browser.
If you think that your password has been compromised, change your password immediately and contact the Portico Customer Care Center at 800.352.2876.
Trademarks
Brand, product, and service names used throughout this website are trademarks of their respective owners.
“S&P 500®” is a trademark of the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., and has been licensed for use by Portico Benefit Services. The Portico S&P 500 Stock Index Fund is not sponsored, endorsed, sold or promoted by Standard & Poor’s, and Standard & Poor’s makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in the fund.
Website Content & Usage
Our primary goal in collecting information about you is to give you a meaningful and personalized website experience. The information we collect allows us to provide better service to you by tailoring our communications to match your interests.
Information You Explicitly Provide
To establish and manage your account or to participate in various online programs offered, you’ll be asked to provide certain personally identifiable information, such as your name, email address, phone number, and other identifying items. You can choose not to provide this information, but then you might not be able to participate in some of our services or offerings. If you choose to provide information and register with this website, your information will be kept on file for audit purposes for at least as long as regulatory requirements dictate. Our data retention requirements don’t expire upon cancellation or revocation of your account.
Information We Automatically Collect
We use common Internet technologies such as cookies and beacons to ensure the integrity of our website and to customize portions of the website for you.
Cookies
Cookies are small pieces of information stored by your browser on your computer’s hard drive, at a website’s request. Our cookies don’t contain any personal information, but are used primarily:
- To keep track of temporary information. For example, cookies allow us to keep track of the forms you upload and download.
- To register you in programs. Cookies allow us to remember you when you sign in to the places on our website that require membership.
- To help us understand the size of our audience and traffic patterns.
- To collect and record information about what you viewed on our website and what you viewed in our email.
- To manage and present website information and the pictures displayed on your computer.
- To deliver information specific to your interests.
Cookies and Analytics
We utilize services provided by Google Analytics to collect information about the effectiveness of our website and help improve the services we provide to users of our website. Google Analytics may use cookies, web beacons, pixels, or other technologies to collect information. These tools allow Google to track some data relating to your computer and your Internet browsing on our website or other sites that participate in Google’s networks. This data includes your computer’s IP address; the website addresses visited; the browser type used; the computer’s operating system; and the date, time, and duration of the visit to each page. We don’t permit Google to collect any personal information about you, such as your name, email, or physical address. For more information about these specialized cookies and other technologies, we suggest you review Google’s privacy policy.
We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimize this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users’ experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behavior and their devices. This includes a device’s IP address (processed during your session and stored in a de-identified form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), and the preferred language used to display our website. Hotjar stores this information on our behalf in a pseudonymized user profile. Hotjar is contractually forbidden to sell any of the data collected on our behalf. For further details, please see the ‘about Hotjar’ section of Hotjar’s support site.
Disabling Cookies
If you are uncomfortable with the collection of such information through the use of cookies, we recommend disabling these features through your browser preferences, though please understand this will limit the performance and functionality of our website. Your browser documentation should provide specific procedures for disabling cookie support.
IP Addresses
We analyze IP addresses in the aggregate for system administration purposes and to gather broad demographic information. We don’t link IP addresses to your computer’s User ID.
Communities
Some of our websites may enable you to participate in public services such as discussion boards, chats, and live events. Please use discretion when posting personal information about yourself when using these services. Be aware that when you disclose personal information at these websites, such as your name, member name, and email address, the information may be collected and used by others to send unsolicited email. The services are open to the public, and what you post there can be seen by anyone and isn’t protected. We can’t control the comments that you may receive while you participate in these services. You may find other people’s comments to be offensive, harmful, or inaccurate.
Children’s Privacy
Protecting the online privacy of children is especially important, and those under the age of 13 are protected by federal law. For that reason, we don’t knowingly permit children to become registered members of our websites. We don’t knowingly collect or solicit personal information about children. If we ever include children under the age of 13 as part of our intended website audience, those specific web pages will, in accordance with the provisions of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), be clearly identified and provide an explicit privacy notice; and we’ll provide processes to obtain parental approval, provide access to information, and allow parents to request removal of their children’s personal information.
Outside Links
Some of our websites contain links to and from other websites; we aren’t responsible for the privacy practices of those websites. We encourage you to ascertain the privacy practices of those websites.