Information We Collect

PlainDoctor is built to keep your browsing private. We do not ask you to register, log in, or submit personal details to read any page. There is no PlainDoctor account, and we do not maintain a marketing list.

Like nearly every website, our hosting infrastructure records standard server logs when a page is requested. These logs can include your IP address, the page you viewed, the date and time of the request, your browser type, and the referring page. We use this technical information only to keep the site running, diagnose errors, and protect against abuse such as automated scraping or denial-of-service attempts.

For aggregate visitor measurement we use Umami, a privacy-respecting analytics tool that does not set cookies, does not collect personal data, and stores only site-wide totals such as page views and referrers. Your individual searches for healthcare providers stay between you and your browser, and we do not build profiles of named visitors.

Cookies and Tracking

PlainDoctor itself does not set first-party tracking cookies, and our analytics are cookieless. A small number of third-party services may set cookies in your browser when they are active on the page:

• Google AdSense uses cookies to serve and measure advertising when ads are displayed.
• Cloudflare may set a short-lived security cookie (__cf_bm) to tell humans apart from bots.
• Google services tied to advertising may measure delivery and frequency.

You can clear or block these cookies at any time through your browser settings, and most modern browsers let you reject third-party cookies by default. Blocking advertising cookies does not affect your ability to read provider data on the site.

Advertising and Third-Party Services

Contextual display advertising is how PlainDoctor stays free to read. We display ads through Google AdSense, and third-party vendors including Google may use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites. We do not sell your personal information to advertisers, and we do not share your provider searches with them.

You can opt out of personalized advertising at Google Ads Settings or through the industry tools at aboutads.info. Each third-party service operates under its own privacy policy, which governs the data it collects.

Data Sources and Provider Records

The provider information published on PlainDoctor comes from public datasets, primarily the CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) and Medicare public-use files. These records describe healthcare professionals and organizations, not the people who browse the site.

Provider records are already published by the government for public use, and we surface only fields that the source agencies make public. If you are a provider and wish to correct your underlying record, the authoritative path is to update it at the source, since we mirror, rather than control, that data.

Your Choices and Rights

Depending on where you live, privacy laws such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) may give you specific rights. Because we collect very little personal data, many requests are simple to honor. You generally have the right to:

• Know what categories of data are collected when you visit
• Request access to, correction of, or deletion of any personal data we hold about you
• Opt out of personalized advertising and the sale or sharing of personal information
• Control cookies through your browser and the ad-industry opt-out tools above
• Lodge a complaint with your local data-protection or supervisory authority

To exercise any of these rights, email us at privacy@plaindoctor.com and we will respond within a reasonable period.

Children's Privacy

PlainDoctor is a general-audience reference site and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

Data Retention

We keep technical server logs only as long as needed to operate the site, troubleshoot problems, and guard against abuse, after which they are rotated and discarded. Aggregate analytics totals contain no personal identifiers and may be retained to understand long-term traffic trends. Because we do not maintain accounts, there is no stored profile to delete when you stop visiting.

Data Security

PlainDoctor is served over encrypted HTTPS connections, and we rely on established hosting and content-delivery providers to apply industry-standard protections. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but because we collect so little personal data, the privacy exposure of using this site is intentionally minimal.

International Users

PlainDoctor is operated from, and the underlying public datasets are published in, the United States. If you visit from another country, any limited data described here may be processed in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from those in your home jurisdiction. By using the site you understand that this cross-border processing may occur.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our analytics, advertising relationships, or the legal landscape. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review the policy periodically, and continued use of the site after changes are posted means you accept the revised terms.