1. Introduction
Apex Lab Group (“Apex Lab Group,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting the personal information you share with us. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard personal information when you visit our website at apexlabgroup.com (the “Site”), communicate with us, submit a dental laboratory case or prescription, purchase or receive our products and services, or otherwise interact with Apex Lab Group (collectively, the “Services”).
Apex Lab Group is a dental laboratory domiciled in the State of Texas with its principal place of business at 5400 Bosque Blvd, Suite 201, Waco, TX 76710. This Privacy Policy is governed by the laws of the State of Texas, including the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (“TDPSA”), without regard to conflict-of-laws principles.
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By accessing or using the Services, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with any part of this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Services.
2. Scope of This Policy
This Privacy Policy applies to personal information we collect or process in connection with the Services, regardless of how that information is collected (online, by phone, by mail, in person, or through third-party sources). Our principal customers are licensed dental professionals, dental practices, and dental service organizations. In the course of providing laboratory services, we may incidentally receive information about patients from our dental-professional customers. Patient information submitted by a dental practice is handled in accordance with Section 13 (HIPAA Acknowledgement) below.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to information collected by third parties, including third-party websites, products, or services that may link to or be accessible from the Services. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties.
3. Information We Collect
We collect several categories of personal information, depending on your relationship with Apex Lab Group and how you interact with the Services.
3.1 Information You Provide Directly
- Identifiers such as name, professional license number (for dental professionals), business name, mailing address, billing address, shipping address, email address, and telephone number.
- Account credentials, including usernames and passwords, if you create an online account.
- Case and prescription information, including digital impressions, intraoral scans, patient identifiers (first name or initials, case number, tooth designation, shade, material preference), and dentist’s prescription details that you submit to us for the fabrication of dental restorations or appliances.
- Payment information, including credit card or debit card number, expiration date, CVV, ACH/bank routing information, billing contact, and tax identification information for business accounts.
- Correspondence and customer-service communications, including inquiries, quality concerns, warranty requests, and feedback.
- Marketing preferences, including subscription choices for newsletters, continuing-education content, and promotional communications.
- Any other information you choose to share with us through the Site, by email, by phone, or in person.
3.2 Information Collected Automatically
When you visit the Site, we and our service providers may automatically collect certain information about your device and usage, including:
- Device and connection information, such as IP address, browser type, operating system, device identifiers, and referring URLs.
- Usage information, such as pages viewed, links clicked, time spent on pages, and approximate geolocation derived from IP address.
- Cookies, pixel tags, web beacons, and similar tracking technologies (see Section 7).
3.3 Information from Third Parties
We may receive information about you from third parties, including:
- Dental practices and dental service organizations that submit cases to us on behalf of patients.
- Payment processors, financial institutions, and credit-reporting agencies for billing, fraud prevention, and account-management purposes.
- Marketing partners, trade shows, continuing-education providers, and publicly available professional directories.
- Service providers that support our Site, email, shipping, analytics, and customer-relationship-management functions.
4. How We Use Your Information
We use personal information for the following business purposes:
- To provide the Services, including fabricating and shipping dental restorations and appliances, processing prescriptions, and responding to case-specific communications.
- To establish, maintain, and service accounts, including authenticating users and administering online portals.
- To process payments, invoices, refunds, chargebacks, and collections.
- To communicate with you about orders, shipping updates, product changes, warranty matters, service advisories, and customer-support inquiries.
- To send administrative, transactional, and – where permitted – marketing communications, including continuing-education opportunities, new product announcements, and promotions.
- To operate, secure, maintain, and improve the Site and our Services, including troubleshooting, analytics, and research and development.
- To detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, unauthorized access, and other security incidents; to enforce our terms and policies; and to protect the rights, property, and safety of Apex Lab Group, our customers, and others.
- To comply with legal obligations, regulatory requirements, subpoenas, court orders, and lawful requests from public authorities, including tax, employment, and health-related recordkeeping obligations.
- For any other purpose disclosed to you at the time we collect your information or for which you otherwise provide consent.
5. How We Share Your Information
Apex Lab Group does not sell your personal information. We do not sell personal information in exchange for monetary consideration, and we do not exchange personal information for other valuable consideration in a manner that would constitute a “sale” under the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act or any other applicable state privacy law. We disclose personal information only as described in this Privacy Policy and only for legitimate business purposes, including the following:
- Service providers and vendors. We share personal information with companies that provide services on our behalf, including hosting providers, payment processors, shipping and logistics carriers, software vendors, analytics providers, email and communication providers, professional advisors (including accountants and attorneys), and insurance carriers. Where required by applicable law, we enter into written data processing agreements (or Business Associate Agreements, for vendors handling PHI) with these service providers that obligate them to use personal information only to perform services for Apex Lab Group, to protect the information with appropriate safeguards, and to return or delete the information at the conclusion of the engagement.
- Dental professionals. Where appropriate, we share case-related information with the dental professional or dental practice that submitted the case, and with other clinicians or technicians identified in the prescription.
- Affiliates. We may share information within our corporate family, including parent, subsidiary, or affiliated entities of Apex Lab Group, for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.
- Business transfers. In connection with any merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, bankruptcy, receivership, dissolution, or sale or transfer of all or part of our business or assets, we may share personal information with the relevant counterparties and their advisors.
- Legal and safety disclosures. We may disclose personal information when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to (a) comply with applicable law, legal process, or governmental request; (b) enforce our agreements, policies, and terms; (c) protect the security or integrity of the Services; or (d) protect the rights, property, or safety of Apex Lab Group, our customers, employees, or others.
- With your consent. We may share personal information with additional parties when you direct us to do so or otherwise consent.
6. Sensitive Personal Information
Certain information we collect may be considered “sensitive personal information” under applicable state privacy laws, including financial account information, health-related information in dental prescriptions, and, in limited circumstances, information relating to minors. We process sensitive personal information only for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, for purposes permitted by law, or with your consent where required.
7. Cookies and Tracking Technologies
The Site uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to recognize your device, remember your preferences, analyze usage, and improve your experience. We use the following categories of cookies:
- Strictly necessary cookies that enable core functionality such as authentication and secure access to account portals.
- Performance and analytics cookies that help us understand how visitors interact with the Site (for example, Google Analytics).
- Functionality cookies that remember choices you make, such as language or region.
- Marketing and advertising cookies that may be placed by us or third-party advertising partners to deliver relevant content and measure the effectiveness of campaigns.
You can control cookies through your browser settings, through opt-out mechanisms provided by specific analytics or advertising vendors, or through any cookie-preference tool made available on the Site. Disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of the Site.
Global Privacy Control. Apex Lab Group honors Global Privacy Control (“GPC”) browser signals as a universal opt-out mechanism. When we detect a valid GPC signal from your browser or device, we treat it as a verified consumer request to opt out of (a) the sale of your personal data and (b) the processing of your personal data for targeted advertising, for the browser or device on which the signal is transmitted. Because GPC operates at the browser or device level, you may need to enable GPC on each browser and device you use. The Site does not currently respond to “Do Not Track” signals.
8. Third-Party Links and Services
The Site may contain links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and services. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share information about you. We do not control, and are not responsible for, the privacy practices of those third parties, and we encourage you to read their privacy policies before providing any personal information.
9. Data Security
Apex Lab Group maintains reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information against unauthorized access, use, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. These safeguards include access controls, encryption in transit, secure data-center facilities, employee training, and contractual protections with service providers that process personal information on our behalf.
Despite our efforts, no method of electronic transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the absolute security of personal information. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please contact us immediately using the information in Section 16.
10. Payment Card and Financial Information
Apex Lab Group accepts payment by credit card, debit card, ACH transfer, check, and other methods. Payment card transactions are processed by PCI-DSS-compliant third-party payment processors. We do not store full payment card numbers or full bank-account numbers on our systems in the ordinary course of business. Payment information you submit to process a transaction is transmitted directly to our payment processor through encrypted channels, and the processor handles that information in accordance with its own privacy and security practices.
If you open a business credit account with Apex Lab Group, we may collect and share information with credit-reporting agencies, guarantors, and collections partners in the ordinary course of credit administration.
11. Data Retention
We retain personal information only for as long as is reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, to comply with our legal, tax, accounting, and regulatory obligations, to resolve disputes, to enforce our agreements, and to maintain business records. The criteria we use to determine retention periods include the nature and sensitivity of the information, the purposes for which we process it, the availability of alternative protective measures (such as aggregation or de-identification), and our legal or contractual obligations.
As general guidance, we apply the following retention ranges, subject to longer retention where required by law, litigation hold, regulatory investigation, or contractual obligation:
- Financial, tax, and accounting records: approximately seven (7) years following the end of the applicable tax year, consistent with federal and Texas recordkeeping requirements.
- Case records, prescriptions, and laboratory documentation: for the period required by applicable dental-laboratory, device-traceability, and medical/dental recordkeeping rules, and for any additional period specified in a Business Associate Agreement with the prescribing dental practice (typically a minimum of six (6) years).
- Customer account data: for the duration of your business relationship with Apex Lab Group plus a reasonable period thereafter (generally up to seven (7) years) to support warranty, audit, and legal-defense needs.
- Marketing lists and preferences: until you opt out or until the record is identified as stale, whichever occurs first.
- Site usage and analytics data: typically fourteen (14) to twenty-six (26) months, consistent with standard analytics-vendor retention settings.
When personal information is no longer needed, we will securely delete, destroy, or de-identify it in accordance with our information-security policies.
12. Children’s Privacy (COPPA)
The Services are intended for dental professionals, dental practices, and other business customers, and are not directed to children under the age of thirteen (13). We do not knowingly collect, use, or disclose personal information from children under 13 through the Services in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”).
In the dental-laboratory context, Apex Lab Group may receive limited information about a pediatric patient (for example, first name or initials, age, tooth designation, and a dentist’s prescription) as part of a case submitted by a dental professional. That information is submitted by a licensed dental professional for the purpose of fabricating a dental restoration or appliance prescribed for the patient. We do not collect that information directly from children, and we do not use that information for marketing, advertising, profiling, or any purpose other than fulfilling and supporting the dental case, as directed by the prescribing dental professional and as required or permitted by law.
If you are a parent or legal guardian and you believe that we may have collected personal information from a child under 13 in violation of COPPA, please contact us using the information in Section 16 and we will promptly investigate and, where appropriate, delete the information.
13. HIPAA Compliance & Security
HIPAA rules are set forth by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and are documented in the Privacy Rule with specific rules regarding the sharing of information between health care providers. Dental laboratories and Dentists are both considered "Health Care Providers" and as such are permitted to share patient information and treatment activities.
Furthermore, according to the ADA, the Privacy Rule states that there is no requirement for a Business Associate Agreement between the dental laboratory and the dental practice. "Protected Health Information", such as SS #'s, telephone numbers, birth dates, medical records, or information that relates the patient to their name on the work authorization or their relatives is not shared from the dental office to the laboratory. The information shared is only used to identify the materials sent to the laboratory.
The dental office does have the option of using codes rather than names if so desired.
Apex Lab Group maintains a high level of data security on-site and in transit of cases and data between our laboratory and our valued customers.
Apex agrees to amend this Agreement from time to time as is necessary to comply with the requirements of the Privacy Rule and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Public Law 104-191, HIPPA and HITECH.
14. State-Specific Privacy Rights
Depending on your state of residence, you may have additional rights with respect to your personal information. This Section 14 describes those rights for Texas residents and residents of certain other states. We process rights requests in accordance with applicable law, and we will not discriminate against you for exercising any of the rights described below.
14.1 Texas Residents (Texas Data Privacy and Security Act)
Under the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. § 541.001 et seq.) (the “TDPSA”), Texas residents who interact with us in an individual or household capacity have the following rights:
- Right to confirm and access. To confirm whether we are processing your personal data and to access that data.
- Right to correct. To correct inaccuracies in your personal data, taking into account the nature of the data and the purposes of processing.
- Right to delete. To request deletion of personal data provided by, or obtained about, you.
- Right to data portability. To obtain a copy of your personal data that you previously provided to us in a portable and, to the extent technically feasible, readily usable format.
- Right to opt out. To opt out of the processing of your personal data for purposes of (a) targeted advertising, (b) the sale of personal data, or (c) profiling in furtherance of a decision that produces a legal or similarly significant effect concerning you.
No sale of personal data. Apex Lab Group does not sell personal data. We do not sell your personal data in exchange for monetary consideration, and we do not exchange personal data for other valuable consideration in a manner that would constitute a “sale” under the TDPSA.
No sale of sensitive or biometric data. Apex Lab Group does not sell sensitive personal data, and we do not sell biometric data.
Profiling. Apex Lab Group does not use your personal data to engage in profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects concerning you. If that practice ever changes, we will update this Privacy Policy and, where required by law, provide notice and an opportunity to opt out.
How to submit a request. To submit a consumer rights request under the TDPSA, please contact us at privacy@apexlabgroup.com with the subject line “TDPSA Request,” or by mail at the address in Section 16. You may also designate an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf. Before we fulfill a request, we may need to verify your identity (and, if applicable, your agent’s authority) using information we already maintain or reasonable additional verification steps.
Response timing and fees. We will respond to a verified consumer request within forty-five (45) days of receipt. When reasonably necessary, we may extend that period by an additional forty-five (45) days and will notify you of the extension and the reason within the initial 45-day period. We provide information in response to a consumer request free of charge up to twice annually. If a request is manifestly unfounded, excessive, or repetitive, we may charge a reasonable fee to cover administrative costs or decline to act on the request, in which case we will explain our decision.
Appeals. If we decline to act on your request, we will explain our reasons in writing and inform you of your right to appeal. To appeal, reply to our response or contact us at privacy@apexlabgroup.com with the subject line “TDPSA Appeal,” and include the original request and a brief description of the reason for the appeal. We will review the appeal and respond in writing, by email (or by mail if you prefer), within sixty (60) days of receipt, explaining the action we have taken or, if no action is taken, the reasons for that decision. If your appeal is denied, you may contact the Office of the Texas Attorney General to submit a complaint at https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection.
14.2 California Residents
If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (collectively, “CCPA”), provides rights similar to those described above, including rights to know, access, correct, delete, and limit the use of sensitive personal information, and to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information. Apex Lab Group does not sell personal information for monetary consideration and does not knowingly sell or share personal information of minors under 16 years of age. California residents may submit requests by contacting us at privacy@apexlabgroup.com.
14.3 Residents of Other States
Residents of other states with comprehensive consumer-privacy laws – including, without limitation, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Oregon, Montana, Delaware, Iowa, Tennessee, Indiana, New Jersey, and New Hampshire – may have rights similar to those described above. To exercise any such right, please contact us at privacy@apexlabgroup.com and identify the state in which you reside. We will respond in accordance with the applicable law of your state.
15. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, or legal or regulatory requirements. When we make material changes, we will update the “Effective Date” above and, where required by law, provide additional notice (for example, through a prominent notice on the Site or by email). Your continued use of the Services after the effective date of any update constitutes acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy.
16. Contact Us
If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us at:
Apex Lab Group
Attn: Privacy Officer
5400 Bosque Blvd, Suite 201
Waco, TX 76710
Email: privacy@apexlabgroup.com
Phone: (254) 772-1051
Website: https://apexlabgroup.com
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