nychearing.com Privacy Policy

Effective date: November 12, 2026
Last updated: November 12, 2026

1. Who we are

NYC Hearing Associates, PLLC (“NYC Hearing Associates,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is a hearing-care practice serving patients in the New York area, including out-of-town and international visitors. This policy describes how we collect, use, and share information through our website, nychearing.com.

This policy covers the website. It is not a substitute for a HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices. Protected health information the practice receives in the course of care is governed by the practice’s HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices, which is available on request at the office. The Notice is not posted on this website at this time.

Website forms are not for urgent medical needs. If you need immediate help, please call the office or seek emergency care.

2. Information we collect

Information you give us through forms

The website uses Gravity Forms. When you submit a form, we collect the fields you enter. Submissions are stored in our WordPress database on our website host, and an email notification is sent through our Google Workspace mail relay (smtp-relay.gmail.com) from info@nycears.com to info@nycears.com (some notifications are addressed as Info@nycears.com). We do not send you a separate automatic copy.

Forms currently shown on published pages include:

• Contact us (form 5), on the Contact Us page: name, email, optional subject and message.
• Blog request an appointment (form 13), on blog posts and the blog template: name, phone, email, and an optional message.
• Blog book an appointment (form 15), used in the blog appointment block: optional doctor and location choices, name, optional preferred date, phone, and email.
• Insurance Benefits Check (form 16), on the Check Your Insurance Benefits page: patient full name, date of birth, email, phone, optional insurance company or plan name and member ID, and required photos or PDFs of the front and back of your insurance card (jpg, jpeg, png, pdf, or heic). You must check a consent box stating that the information will be used to check insurance benefits before your appointment and may include health insurance details. Card images are stored as files in the website’s WordPress uploads folder on our host.
• “New Contact Steven” (form 11), on the Steven Malawer profile page and also on the Dr. Monica O’Rourke profile page: name, email, phone, and an optional message.

All of these forms also include a third-party bot-prevention check. That check may collect technical information (such as browser and device signals) to tell humans from automated traffic.

Some older forms still exist in our WordPress system but are turned off or are not shown on published pages, including retired intake and financing forms. They cannot be submitted through the current website.

Appointment booking (Zocdoc)

Appointments can be booked online through Zocdoc. Those booking links go to Zocdoc’s website (zocdoc.com). Information you submit there is collected by Zocdoc under Zocdoc’s own terms and privacy policy, not on a NYC Hearing Associates form.

Financing links (PatientFi)

The homepage and the hearing-aid cost article include a PatientFi financing offer and a button that goes to PatientFi’s own application at app.patientfi.com (NYC Hearing’s PatientFi page). Applying for financing happens on PatientFi’s website, not on a NYC Hearing Associates form. PatientFi’s own terms and privacy policy apply to information you submit there. We do not collect payment card numbers through the website. In-office payments may be made with major credit cards.

Automatically collected data

When you visit the site, our hosting and security providers and our analytics tool may collect standard technical data, such as your IP address, browser type, device type, pages viewed, the date and time of your visit, and referring website. See “Cookies and analytics” and “Sharing” below.

If you click a telephone link on the site, our analytics records a “phone_call” event that includes the number you clicked and the page you were on. If you submit a Gravity Form, analytics may record a “generate_lead” event with the form ID (not the contents of your answers).

Calls

The website displays our office telephone numbers, including 212-354-2360 (Midtown West, Chelsea, and the Upper West Side), 646-422-7661 (Upper East Side), and 516-408-3006 (Garden City). If you call us, we may collect the information you give us during the call in the ordinary course of scheduling and care.

Maps, video, and social links

Office pages use a “click to load” Google Maps placeholder. A map from Google is loaded only after you choose “View map.” Google may then collect data under Google’s privacy policy. The site also links to our profiles on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, and the Press page links to specific YouTube videos. Those sites have their own privacy policies. The How-To Videos page uses videos hosted on our website, not YouTube embeds. We did not find a live-chat widget, a Google reCAPTCHA, or a cookie-consent banner on the live site.

3. How we use it

We use website information to:

• Respond to appointment requests, contact messages, and insurance-benefit questions
• Reach you at the phone number or email you provide
• Operate, secure, and improve the website
• Understand how the site is used (for example, which pages are visited and whether a call link or form was used)

We do not use the website to provide urgent medical care. Please call the office or seek emergency care if you need immediate help.

4. Cookies and analytics

The site uses Google Analytics 4 (measurement ID G-SK0DRWLDBJ), added by a small plugin on our WordPress site. It is loaded with Google’s gtag.js script from googletagmanager.com. We did not find a separate Google Tag Manager container (a “GTM-…” ID) or a separate Google Ads tag (for example an “AW-…” ID) on the website.

Google signals is turned on for this Google Analytics property (as of November 12, 2026). That feature allows Google to use Analytics data for advertising features, including ads personalization and remarketing, when Google can associate a visit with a signed-in Google user who has ads personalization enabled in their Google account. Google Analytics may set cookies or use similar technologies and may collect device and usage information, including approximate location derived from IP address. Google’s use of this data is described in Google’s Privacy Policy and How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

You can opt out of Google’s ads personalization at adssettings.google.com (Google Ads Settings) and review Google’s advertising technologies page. You can also use the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on to prevent Google Analytics from collecting data from your browser.

The site does not currently show a cookie-consent banner.

Our secure third-party website hosting and security providers may also use cookies or similar technologies for security, performance, and content delivery.

5. Sharing

We do not sell your personal information.

We share information with service providers who help us run the website and practice, including:

• Secure third-party website hosting and security providers, which host the WordPress site and database (including form entries and uploaded insurance-card files) and provide content delivery, security, and the bot-prevention check on forms
• Google, for Analytics (including Google signals and advertising/remarketing features described above), Workspace email delivery of form notifications, and Google Maps if you choose to load a map
• Zocdoc, only if you leave our site and book an appointment on Zocdoc’s website
• PatientFi and its lending partners, only if you leave our site and apply for financing on PatientFi’s website

We may also disclose information if we believe it is required by law or to protect the practice or our patients.

6. Health information and HIPAA

Some website forms can include health-related information. The insurance-benefits form, for example, asks for insurance details and images of your insurance card.

Please do not use website forms for urgent medical issues or to send detailed medical records, diagnosis lists, or other sensitive health information that you would not want sent by ordinary email. Form notifications are emailed to info@nycears.com over our Google Workspace relay, and copies are stored in WordPress.

Protected health information the practice receives in the course of care is governed by the practice’s HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices, which is available on request at the office. The Notice is not posted on this website at this time.

This website privacy policy is meant to explain website data practices. It is not itself a HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices.

7. Data security and retention

We use HTTPS and secure third-party website hosting and security providers, including a bot-prevention check on forms, to help protect the site. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure.

We keep form submissions and uploaded insurance-card files only as long as needed to respond to you, schedule care, verify coverage, and meet our billing and legal recordkeeping obligations, and access is limited to authorized practice staff who need it for those purposes.

If we learn of a data incident that requires notice under applicable law, we will notify affected people and regulators as required.

8. Children

The website is intended for adults seeking hearing care and for parents or caregivers contacting us about care. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 through the site. If you believe a child has submitted information, please contact us and we will delete it.

9. Your choices and rights (including New York residents)

You can choose not to fill out a form, not to click a map, booking, or financing link, and not to call from a click-to-call number on the site. You can also use the Google opt-out tools described above.

You may contact us to ask what personal information we have collected from you through the website, to request a correction, or to ask us to delete a form submission where we are not required to keep it. We may need to verify your request and may retain information when the law or our professional record-keeping duties require it.

This practice is based in New York. New York does not currently have a general consumer privacy law identical to California’s CCPA, but we will honor reasonable requests from visitors about website information we hold.

10. Links to other sites

Our site links to other websites, including Zocdoc, PatientFi, Google Maps, and our social media profiles. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites. We encourage you to read their policies before you provide information to them.

11. Changes

We may update this policy from time to time. The updated policy will be posted on this page with a new effective or last-updated date.

12. Contact us

Questions about this policy, or requests about your website information, may be sent to:

NYC Hearing Associates, PLLC
110 West 40th Street, Suite 500
New York, NY 10018
Phone: 212-354-2360
Email: info@nycears.com

This Midtown office address is the address shown on our Midtown West location page and in the website footer. We also have offices in Chelsea (80 8th Ave, Suite 1501, New York, NY 10011), the Upper West Side (41 W 72nd St, Suite 1C, New York, NY 10023), Garden City (229 7th Street, Suite 307, Garden City, NY 11530), and an Upper East Side office coming soon; those addresses and numbers are listed on our Locations and Contact pages.