Terms of Use

1. About Hospice Ratings

Hospice Ratings is an independent information and review platform designed to help consumers research hospice providers.

The Services may contain information from multiple sources, including:

• the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and other government sources;
• consumer reviews and ratings;
• hospice providers; and
• other public or third-party sources.

Hospice Ratings is not a hospice provider, healthcare provider, health plan, insurer, medical professional, CMS, Medicare, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Hospice Ratings is not affiliated with or endorsed by CMS, Medicare, HHS, or any hospice provider merely because that provider appears on the Services.

2. Not Medical Advice

Hospice Ratings provides information for general informational and research purposes.

Nothing on the Services constitutes medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, legal advice, or a recommendation or endorsement of a particular hospice provider.

Ratings, reviews, search results, filters, provider information, and other information should be considered as one source of information when evaluating hospice services.

You are responsible for making healthcare decisions in consultation with appropriate healthcare professionals and based on the circumstances of the patient and family.

Do not use Hospice Ratings as a substitute for professional medical advice or emergency services.

3. Eligibility

You may browse publicly available portions of Hospice Ratings without creating an account.

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account, submit a review, manage a provider account, or purchase paid Services.

By creating an account, you represent that you meet this requirement and that the information you provide is accurate.

4. Accounts

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for activity occurring through your account.

You agree to provide accurate information and to keep applicable account information reasonably current.

You may not:

• impersonate another person or organization;
• create an account using false or misleading information;
• access another person's account without authorization;
• sell, transfer, or misuse an account;
• use an account to manipulate reviews or ratings; or
• use automated or deceptive means to create accounts or interact with the Services without our authorization.

Notify us if you believe your account has been compromised.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or that we reasonably believe present a risk of fraud, abuse, manipulation, security harm, or unlawful activity.

5. Consumer Reviews

Hospice Ratings allows eligible users to submit reviews and ratings describing genuine experiences with hospice providers.

When submitting a review, you agree that:

1. the review reflects a genuine experience that you personally had or directly observed;
2. the review represents your honest opinions and experiences;
3. factual statements you make are truthful to the best of your knowledge;
4. you will not knowingly submit false or misleading information;
5. you have the necessary rights to submit any photographs or other materials included with the review; and
6. your review complies with these Terms.

Hospice Ratings may ask reviewers to affirm these requirements when submitting a review.

6. Review Content Rules

You may describe both positive and negative experiences.

A hospice provider's disagreement with a review does not, by itself, establish that a review is false or prohibited.

You may not submit content that:

• describes an experience that did not occur;
• is knowingly false, fraudulent, deceptive, or defamatory;
• impersonates a patient, family member, employee, provider, or other person;
• is submitted by a provider employee or representative while falsely presenting that person as an independent patient, family member, or consumer;
• is submitted for purposes of improperly manipulating a provider's rating;
• contains threats, unlawful harassment, or abusive conduct;
• contains spam, unauthorized advertisements, or irrelevant promotional material;
• infringes copyrights, trademarks, privacy rights, publicity rights, or other rights of another person;
• contains Social Security numbers, financial account information, medical-record numbers, insurance identification numbers, passwords, or similar highly sensitive information;
• unnecessarily identifies another person's private medical or health information in a manner that creates an unreasonable privacy risk;
• contains photographs or documents that you do not have the right to publish;
• contains malicious software or harmful code; or
• otherwise violates applicable law or these Terms.

Reviews may discuss relevant illnesses, conditions, treatment experiences, and circumstances of hospice care. However, reviewers should respect the privacy of patients and others and avoid including unnecessary identifying or highly sensitive information.

7. Review Moderation

Hospice Ratings does not necessarily review, investigate, authenticate, or verify every review before or after publication.

Publication of a review does not mean Hospice Ratings endorses, verifies, or agrees with it.

We reserve the right, but do not assume a general obligation, to investigate, flag, reject, redact, restrict, remove, restore, or otherwise moderate content that we believe may violate these Terms, applicable law, the rights of others, or the integrity of the Services.

Moderation decisions may involve judgment and may not always be correct.

We may consider information submitted by reviewers, providers, third parties, automated systems, or other sources when making moderation decisions.

8. Flagging Reviews

Users and hospice providers may flag reviews they believe violate these Terms.

Flagging a review does not guarantee its removal.

A negative rating, criticism, disagreement regarding quality of care, or a provider's denial of an allegation does not by itself require Hospice Ratings to remove a review.

We may request additional information from the reviewer, provider, or another party when investigating a dispute.

9. Provider Responses

Hospice providers with authorized accounts may be permitted to respond publicly to consumer reviews.

Provider responses must comply with these Terms.

Providers are responsible for ensuring their responses comply with applicable privacy and healthcare laws and their own confidentiality obligations.

Providers should not disclose confidential patient information, protected health information, or other private information in a response merely because a reviewer has discussed the patient's experience publicly.

10. Ownership and License to User Content

You retain ownership of content you submit to Hospice Ratings, subject to the rights you grant us below.

By submitting a review, photograph, provider response, description, or other content (“User Content”), you grant Hospice Ratings a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to host, store, reproduce, display, publish, distribute, format, adapt for technical or presentation purposes, moderate, and otherwise use the User Content in connection with operating, improving, promoting, and providing the Services.

This license allows us, for example, to display your review on a provider page, generate an aggregate star rating from reviews, format content for different devices, and display submitted photographs.

To the extent permitted by law, the license continues for copies reasonably retained in backups, legal records, fraud-prevention systems, or other legitimate internal records after public deletion.

You represent that you have the rights necessary to grant this license.

11. Deleting Reviews

Reviewers may delete their reviews using available account functionality or other methods provided by Hospice Ratings.

When a review is deleted, it will cease to be publicly displayed within a reasonable period.

Hospice Ratings may retain limited copies or information relating to deleted content where reasonably necessary for backups, security, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, enforcement, legal compliance, or establishing or defending legal claims.

12. Provider Profiles and CMS Information

Hospice Ratings may create and maintain provider profiles using CMS information, government data, public information, information submitted by providers, and other sources.

A provider does not need to purchase a subscription for a profile to appear on Hospice Ratings.

Hospice providers may not require Hospice Ratings to delete CMS-sourced information or consumer reviews merely because the provider has not claimed its profile, does not subscribe to Hospice Ratings, or disagrees with the information.

If a provider believes CMS-sourced information is inaccurate, the provider should pursue correction with CMS or the appropriate original source. Hospice Ratings generally will not independently alter an underlying CMS data value merely because a provider disputes it.

Hospice Ratings may update its display when updated source information becomes available.

13. Claimed Provider Profiles

Hospice providers may contact Hospice Ratings to request control of a provider profile.

We may take reasonable steps to determine whether a person requesting control is authorized to represent the provider, but we cannot guarantee that every verification will detect impersonation or unauthorized access.

Authorized providers may be permitted to edit certain provider-supplied portions of their profiles, such as descriptions, photographs, services, amenities, contact information, and similar information.

Providers agree that all information they submit will be accurate and not misleading.

Hospice Ratings may correct, reject, remove, label, or restrict provider-submitted information when we reasonably believe it is false, misleading, outdated, unlawful, inconsistent with reliable information, or otherwise violates these Terms.

Provider control of a profile does not give the provider control over CMS-sourced information or independent consumer reviews.

14. Ratings

Hospice Ratings may display different categories of ratings, including government/CMS ratings and consumer review ratings.

We endeavor to identify the source or nature of ratings so users can distinguish between them.

CMS ratings are derived from government information and are not created by Hospice Ratings.

Consumer review ratings reflect ratings submitted by users and do not necessarily reflect the views of Hospice Ratings.

Hospice Ratings does not currently represent that it has created a single proprietary rating combining CMS ratings and consumer ratings unless specifically identified otherwise.

Ratings may change as source information changes or additional reviews are submitted, removed, or moderated.

15. Paid Provider Subscriptions

Hospice Ratings may offer free and paid provider account tiers.

Paid subscriptions may include features such as enhanced profile functionality, analytics, badges, profile-management tools, and other features described at the time of purchase.

Available features and subscription plans may change over time.

Automatic Renewal

Paid subscriptions automatically renew at the applicable monthly or annual interval selected at purchase unless canceled before the next renewal date.

By purchasing a recurring subscription, you authorize Hospice Ratings and its payment processor to charge the applicable subscription fees and taxes using your selected payment method at each renewal.

Cancellation

You may cancel a subscription using the cancellation methods made available by Hospice Ratings.

Unless otherwise stated at purchase, cancellation takes effect at the end of the then-current paid billing period. The provider may continue to receive paid features through that period.

After the paid period ends, the provider account may revert to the then-available free tier.

Failed Payments

If a payment cannot be processed, we may retry the payment, suspend paid functionality, or downgrade the account to a free tier.

Refunds

Except where required by law or expressly stated otherwise, subscription payments are non-refundable and we do not provide refunds or credits for partially used billing periods.

Nothing in this section limits rights that cannot lawfully be waived.

16. Paying Does Not Buy a Better Rating

Purchasing a Hospice Ratings subscription does not entitle a hospice provider to:

• a higher CMS rating;
• a higher consumer review rating;
• deletion or suppression of legitimate negative reviews;
• preferential review moderation;
• alteration of consumer ratings;
• alteration of CMS-sourced data; or
• an editorial recommendation from Hospice Ratings.

Paid features may affect the amount or presentation of provider-supplied information and provide additional tools or functionality, but payment does not purchase a better underlying CMS or consumer review rating.

If Hospice Ratings introduces sponsored or paid placement in the future, such placement may be identified as sponsored, promoted, or otherwise paid where appropriate.

17. Badges

Hospice Ratings may display badges or indicators relating to account or profile characteristics.

Unless expressly stated otherwise, a badge indicating that a profile is claimed, verified, subscribed, or enhanced refers only to the characteristic described by that badge and does not constitute an endorsement of the provider's clinical quality or services.

Providers may not alter, misuse, or falsely reproduce Hospice Ratings badges.

18. Review Solicitation and Manipulation

Hospice providers may invite patients, family members, caregivers, or other people with genuine experience to leave reviews, provided the provider does not improperly control the content or sentiment of those reviews.

Providers and other businesses may not:

• create or purchase fake reviews;
• submit reviews through fictitious identities;
• have employees impersonate patients or family members;
• condition compensation or incentives on a review expressing a particular positive or negative sentiment;
• pressure a reviewer to provide a particular star rating;
• manipulate ratings through coordinated or fraudulent submissions;
• use threats, intimidation, knowingly false accusations, or groundless legal threats to improperly cause legitimate negative reviews to be removed or changed;
• offer benefits through Hospice Ratings in exchange for suppression of legitimate criticism; or
• otherwise attempt to deceptively manipulate the integrity of Hospice Ratings' review system.

Providers may respond appropriately to criticism and may flag content they genuinely believe violates these Terms.

19. Provider Listings Are Not Endorsements

The appearance, ordering, availability, or inclusion of a hospice provider on Hospice Ratings does not by itself constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Hospice Ratings.

Similarly, claiming a profile or purchasing a subscription does not mean Hospice Ratings has independently evaluated or approved the provider's quality of care.

Users should conduct their own research when choosing a hospice provider.

20. Third-Party and Government Information

Hospice Ratings relies in part on information obtained from third parties and government sources.

Although we seek to provide useful information, we cannot guarantee that all information is complete, accurate, current, or error-free.

Government datasets may contain errors, delays, omissions, or information that later changes.

Provider-submitted information is generally the responsibility of the provider that submitted it.

User reviews represent the views of their respective authors.

21. Prohibited Uses

You may not use the Services to:

• violate applicable law;
• commit fraud or impersonation;
• manipulate reviews, ratings, rankings, or account systems;
• scrape, harvest, copy, or systematically extract substantial portions of the Services without authorization, except as permitted by law;
• interfere with or disrupt the Services;
• attempt to gain unauthorized access to accounts, systems, or networks;
• introduce malware or malicious code;
• abuse reporting or flagging systems;
• harass users, reviewers, providers, or Hospice Ratings personnel;
• infringe intellectual-property or privacy rights;
• use the Services to build or improve a competing review database through unauthorized systematic extraction; or
• assist another person in doing any of the foregoing.

22. Hospice Ratings Intellectual Property

Except for User Content, government information, third-party materials, and other content expressly identified as belonging to others, the Services and their design, software, branding, logos, graphics, compilation, and original content are owned by or licensed to Hospice Ratings and are protected by applicable intellectual-property laws.

These Terms do not transfer ownership of Hospice Ratings intellectual property to you.

23. Copyright Complaints

If you believe content on Hospice Ratings infringes your copyright, you may contact us with sufficient information to identify the copyrighted work, the allegedly infringing material, your contact information, and the basis for your claim.

We may request additional information necessary to evaluate or process the request.

24. Suspension and Termination

Hospice Ratings may suspend, restrict, or terminate access to an account or particular features when we reasonably believe:

• these Terms have been violated;
• an account is being used fraudulently;
• review manipulation has occurred;
• continued access creates a security or legal risk;
• payment obligations have not been satisfied; or
• suspension or termination is otherwise reasonably necessary to protect the Services, users, providers, or third parties.

Termination of a provider account does not necessarily remove the provider's public listing, CMS information, or consumer reviews.

25. Changes to the Services

Hospice Ratings is an evolving service.

We may add, modify, suspend, or discontinue features, account tiers, search functionality, analytics, profile features, or other aspects of the Services.

Where required, changes affecting paid subscriptions will be handled in accordance with applicable law and any specific commitments made at purchase.

26. Disclaimer of Warranties

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.”

HOSPICE RATINGS DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, TO THE EXTENT SUCH WARRANTIES MAY LAWFULLY BE DISCLAIMED.

WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT:

• THE SERVICES WILL ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE;
• PROVIDER INFORMATION WILL ALWAYS BE COMPLETE, ACCURATE, OR CURRENT;
• REVIEWS ARE ACCURATE OR REPRESENTATIVE;
• A PARTICULAR PROVIDER WILL MEET A USER'S NEEDS;
• SEARCH RESULTS WILL IDENTIFY EVERY AVAILABLE PROVIDER; OR
• USE OF THE SERVICES WILL PRODUCE A PARTICULAR HEALTHCARE OR BUSINESS OUTCOME.

Nothing in these Terms excludes warranties or rights that cannot lawfully be excluded.

27. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, HOSPICE RATINGS AND ITS OWNERS, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AGENTS, AFFILIATES, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, OR SIMILAR LOSSES ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THE SERVICES.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, HOSPICE RATINGS' AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THE SERVICES OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID DIRECTLY TO HOSPICE RATINGS DURING THE TWELVE MONTHS PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM OR (B) $100.

THESE LIMITATIONS APPLY REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY AND EVEN IF HOSPICE RATINGS HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations of liability, so some limitations may not apply to you.

28. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Hospice Ratings and its owners, officers, directors, employees, contractors, agents, and affiliates from claims, liabilities, damages, judgments, losses, costs, and reasonable attorneys' fees arising from or relating to:

• User Content you submit;
• your violation of these Terms;
• your violation of applicable law;
• your infringement or violation of another person's rights; or
• your misuse of the Services.

Hospice Ratings reserves the right to control the defense of a matter subject to indemnification, in which case you agree to reasonably cooperate with us.

29. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles, except to the extent another law must apply and cannot lawfully be waived.

30. Dispute Venue

Unless applicable law requires otherwise, disputes arising from or relating to these Terms or the Services that are brought in court will be brought in an appropriate state or federal court located in or serving Suffolk County, Massachusetts.

You and Hospice Ratings consent to the personal jurisdiction and venue of those courts, subject to applicable law.

These Terms do not currently require binding arbitration.

31. No Waiver of Non-Waivable Rights

Nothing in these Terms is intended to waive, limit, or disclaim a right or remedy that cannot lawfully be waived, limited, or disclaimed under applicable law.

If a provision of these Terms conflicts with a non-waivable legal requirement, that requirement controls to the extent of the conflict.

32. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in effect to the maximum extent permitted by law, and the affected provision will be interpreted or modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable where permitted.

33. No Waiver

Our failure to enforce a provision of these Terms does not waive our right to enforce it later.

34. Assignment

You may not assign your rights or obligations under these Terms without our prior written consent.

Hospice Ratings may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization, financing, sale of assets, change of control, or similar business transaction, subject to applicable law.

35. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time.

When we do, we will update the “Last Updated” date.

For material changes, we may provide additional notice when required by law. Changes will apply prospectively from their effective date unless applicable law permits otherwise.

Your continued use of the Services after revised Terms become effective constitutes acceptance of those revised Terms to the extent permitted by law.

36. Entire Agreement

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any additional terms presented for a particular paid product or feature, constitute the agreement between you and Hospice Ratings concerning your use of the Services.

37. Contact

Questions about these Terms may be sent to:

Hospice Ratings
Boston, Massachusetts
privacy@hospiceratings.com