Privacy Policy & Data Protection

At Advanced Retina Care, founded by senior vitreoretinal surgeon Dr. Anina Abraham in Hyderabad, we consider patient confidentiality to be the cornerstone of ethical medical practice. This Privacy Policy details how we collect, process, safeguard, and manage patient health information (PHI) and website user data.

We operate in strict conformity with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act), the Information Technology Act, 2000, and ethical guidelines prescribed by the National Medical Commission (NMC).

Depending on your interaction with our hospital and website, we collect:

• Contact & Demographic Data: Full name, mobile number, age, gender, email address, residential address, and emergency contact details submitted during booking or hospital reception admission.
• Ophthalmic & Systemic Health Records: Chief visual complaints, prior eye surgeries, diabetic history, blood glucose reports (HbA1c), blood pressure readings, and list of current medications.
• Diagnostic Imaging & Scans: Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography (SD-OCT) profiles, Digital Fundus Photography, B-Scan echograms, and surgical videography clips.
• Insurance & Financial Identifiers: Policy numbers, TPA member cards, government health scheme cards (Aarogyasri / EHS / CGHS where applicable), and cashless pre-authorization records.

We process your data strictly for legitimate clinical, diagnostic, and administrative purposes:

• Accurate Clinical Care: Formulating surgical vitrectomy strategies, scheduling laser photocoagulation sessions, and administering timely intravitreal Anti-VEGF injections.
• Cashless Insurance Processing: Submitting itemized medical documentation, pre-authorization requests, and discharge summaries to approved TPAs and insurance underwriters.
• Post-Operative Follow-Up: Communicating essential eye drop schedules, post-operative head-positioning instructions, and reminder alerts for crucial dilated retina checkups.

Your medical details are shared strictly on a need-to-know basis with hospital clinical personnel directly involved in your examination, nursing care, or surgical procedure.

To ensure the confidentiality and integrity of digital records, our web platform uses modern security safeguards:

• SSL/TLS Transport Layer Encryption: All traffic between your browser and our server is secured with high-grade 256-bit HTTPS encryption.
• Enterprise Cloud Firestore Security: Inquiries, visitor metrics, and feedback forms are secured using role-based security rules (Firestore Security Rules) that prevent unauthorized public access, unauthorized script modification, or extraction.
• Physical & Administrative Controls: On-premises diagnostic devices and medical workstations require multi-factor clinical authentication and restricted administrative access.

In accordance with the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations and statutory hospital laws in Telangana:

• Inpatient and surgical vitrectomy records are preserved for a minimum period of 3 years from the date of admission or last treatment.
• Patients or their authorized legal representatives have the right to request verified clinical discharge summaries and diagnostic report copies in person upon presenting valid government identification.

Our website utilizes standard operational session cookies and anonymized analytics (Google Analytics 4 / Firebase Performance) solely to analyze aggregate website performance, verify uptime, measure page responsiveness, and ensure our emergency phone buttons function properly across mobile devices.

Users can manage or disable browser cookies at any time via their web browser settings without losing access to reading our educational guides.

Under the DPDP Act 2023, patients have the right to:

• Right to Information: Know what health data is recorded and how it is utilized for clinical care.
• Right of Rectification: Request correction of misspelled patient demographics or phone numbers.
• Right to Grievance Redressal: Submit a complaint regarding any data handling irregularity to our hospital compliance desk.

If you have questions regarding this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your patient rights, contact our Data Governance Officer: