Privacy
What this website does with your information
The short version: this site counts visits, and it learns nothing else about you unless you type it into one of its forms or the chat's message box and press send. The counting is done by Google Analytics, which sets two cookies, and by Vercel Web Analytics, which sets none. There are no advertising or social tracking tags. The forms load a bot check from Cloudflare, and the contact page also shows a Google map, which loads from Google — the sections below say plainly what each of these involves.
This page is about the website. It is not a description of how your clinical records are handled by us — if that is your question, call or text us on (616) 747-8462 and we will answer it directly.
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What this covers
This page describes westsidechirogr.com — the pages you are reading, the forms and the chat on them, and the few places where something on a page comes from another company. It describes what the site actually does, checked against the code rather than adapted from a template.
It does not describe what happens once you're with us: your chart, your treatment notes, your billing, or anything you hand to the front desk. Those are ours to answer, and the fastest way to ask is to call or text (616) 747-8462.
Reading the site
Opening a page means your browser asks a web server for it, and that request carries the things every web request carries — the address you asked for, your IP address, and your browser's own description of itself. There is no way to fetch a web page without that, and it is the entirety of what happens when you read this site.
We add one thing to it: counting. Two analytics services record which pages are opened, so that we can see what people come here looking for. Both are described below. There is no advertising or social pixel on this site, no heatmap or session recorder, and no A/B testing tool.
Everything a page needs in order to display — its fonts, its icons, its images, its stylesheet and its own scripts — is served from this site's own address, so opening a page does not send a request to a font service, a CDN or an ad network. Three things do come from elsewhere: Google's analytics script, on every page unless your browser asks not to be tracked; the Google map on the contact page; and, on pages with a contact form, Cloudflare's bot check, described with the form.
The contact page shows a Google map of our location, and that map loads from Google as the page loads. What that means is below.
This site sets two cookies, both for Google Analytics. They are described below, along with how to switch them off. The Google map on the contact page is Google's, inside our page, and what Google does there follows Google's rules rather than ours.
The site is hosted on Vercel, whose servers receive and answer those requests. What Vercel does with the request records its own platform keeps is described in its privacy notice.
How visits are counted
Two services count visits to this site. Neither is told your name, and neither sees anything you type into the contact form.
Google Analytics. Every page loads a script from Google, which reports to Google that the page was opened: its address, the page that led you to it, your browser and type of device, and the rough area your connection is in — a city or region, worked out from your IP address. It also records a click on a link that leaves this site, such as the one to our booking page, a tap on our call, text or email links, and the fact that a contact form was sent — not what it said. To recognise a returning browser it sets two cookies, _ga and _ga_EXBY23WKE4, which hold a random identifier and the times of your visits and last up to two years. Google's advertising features are switched off for this site. Google handles what it receives under Google's privacy policy.
Vercel Web Analytics. Vercel, which hosts this site, also counts page views, with the same kind of detail: the page, the page that led you to it, your type of device and your rough area. It sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser: it tells one visitor from another by a code worked out from the request itself, which is discarded after a day.
If you would rather not be counted by Google, there are two ways. A browser that sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal is never given the Google Analytics script, so no cookie is set and nothing is reported. And Google's opt-out add-on does the same job in a browser that sends neither. Deleting or blocking the two cookies breaks nothing on this site.
What is stored in your browser
Two cookies, both belonging to Google Analytics and described above. Nothing else is saved on your device by this site. The bot check on the contact form runs in a frame belonging to Cloudflare, and what it keeps there follows Cloudflare's rules, as the Google map's frame follows Google's.
The contact form
The same form appears on the contact page and at the foot of the FAQ page, and the chat bubble's message box takes the same route. The chat's other answers come from the site itself and send nothing. A message is sent only when you fill it in and press send.
What it asks for
- Your name, and your message. Both are required.
- An email address. It is required, because a message with no way to answer it is a dead letter and the reply travels back the way the message came.
- Optionally, a phone number, if you would rather we called or texted you instead of writing back.
- Optionally, what the message is about, chosen from a short list so we can sort our inbox.
Three values travel with it that you did not type, none of them about you: which form you used, which language the page was in, and which page to return you to if your browser has JavaScript switched off. The form does not ask your browser where you are, and it adds no hidden identifier.
Where it goes
Pressing send posts it to a small form handler we run on Amazon Web Services, separate from the host that serves these pages. It reads your message and checks it, then saves it into Trust Driven Care, the patient-management system we work from. The website's own host never receives what you wrote.
Two companies handle a message between this site and us: Amazon Web Services, where the form handler runs, and Trust Driven Care, where it is saved. We also get a short email through Resend saying a message has arrived, with nothing from the message in it. What happens to your message once it has reached us is ours, not the website's.
The record saved in Trust Driven Care contains what you wrote, the contact details you gave, which page you sent it from, the language of that page and the time it arrived. Replies go to the email address you gave; if you also left a phone number, we may text or call you on it instead.
For anything about your care, your records or your bill, call or text (616) 747-8462 and we will take it from there.
Keeping bots off it
The form carries Cloudflare Turnstile, a bot check. Most people never notice it: it looks at signals from your browser and passes you without a puzzle, and now and then it asks for a single click. To do that, your browser sends Cloudflare your IP address and technical details about the browser and connection — never anything you type into the form. Cloudflare uses them only to tell people from bots, under its Turnstile privacy terms. If the check cannot confirm you, nothing is sent and the form gives you our phone and text links instead. Two quieter things work behind it.
The form carries a field that no person ever sees. Automated form-fillers fill it in; people cannot. When it comes back filled, the submission is discarded on arrival — nothing is sent, nothing is stored, and the page answers the same way it would have anyway, so the sender learns nothing.
The server also keeps a short-lived count of how many messages have arrived recently, and from which network address, so that one script cannot flood the form. That count lives in the server's memory for a matter of minutes, is never written to a database, and disappears when the server process is replaced.
The referral form
The referral form is for clinicians referring a patient to us. It is on the For Providers page and inside the chat bubble, and it is sent only when it is filled in and the send button is pressed.
What it asks for
- The patient's name, date of birth and phone number, and optionally their email address and insurance.
- The referring office, its phone and fax numbers, and the referring provider.
- The chief complaint, whether there is recent spinal imaging, and optional notes.
Where it goes
Pressing send posts it to the same form handler as the contact form, on Amazon Web Services, which checks it the same way: Cloudflare's bot check, under its Turnstile privacy terms, and the same limit on how many messages can arrive from one network address. It is then saved straight into Trust Driven Care, the patient-management system we work from, as a contact with the referral attached as a note.
We also get a short email through Resend saying a referral has arrived, with none of the patient's details in it. The website itself keeps no copy.
The form handler runs on Amazon Web Services under a HIPAA business associate agreement, and the referral travels encrypted the whole way. That is what the HIPAA badge on the form refers to.
Texting and calling
(616) 747-8462 is both our phone line and our texting line, and the "Text us" buttons on this site are ordinary links to it. Pressing one opens your own messaging app with our number filled in — nothing is sent until you press send there, in your app, and the website never sees what you write.
Once you do text or call, you are talking to us directly, over your phone carrier's network. That conversation is between you and us; this website is not part of it and keeps no record of it.
The map on the contact page
The contact page shows a Google map of our location, and it loads when the page does. There is no button and nothing to agree to first, so it is worth saying plainly what that involves.
The map is a frame belonging to Google, placed inside our page. Loading it means your browser asks Google for it directly, and that request carries the things any request to Google carries: your IP address, the fact that you were on this site's contact page, your browser's description of itself, and — depending on your browser and how it is set up — any cookies your browser already holds for Google from anywhere else you have used it. Google may also set or update its own cookies for that frame. This happens on the contact page whether or not you look at the map, and Google's privacy policy governs it, not this one.
No other page on this site shows a Google map. If you would rather not load it, the same address, phone number and opening hours are printed in the footer of every page.
One thing this does not do: the map cannot see the contact form. It is a separate document from a different site, which means it has no access to this page's contents and nothing you type into the form is available to it.
Reviews
The Google reviews quoted across this site were collected once and are stored here as text. Showing them fetches nothing from Google: the reviewers' photographs are served from this site's own address rather than from Google's servers.
Those reviews are already public on our Google listing, where their authors posted them.
Links that leave this site
Following any link means the site you arrive at receives a request from your browser. Three destinations are worth naming — the first two because they are where our own business is actually done, the third because it is a company most people would rather visit knowingly:
- Booking runs on Jane. The "Book an appointment" links take you to our scheduler at janeapp.com. Everything you enter there — your name, your contact details, your appointment — you are giving to Jane, under Jane's own privacy notice. This website neither sees nor stores it.
- Directions open Google Maps. The address links on this site hand our address to Google Maps in a new page, the same as searching for it yourself would.
- The Instagram and Facebook icons go to Meta. They sit in the footer of every page on this site, and again on the About page, and they open our own profiles on Instagram and Facebook — both operated by Meta Platforms. Clicking one hands Meta a visit from your browser, under Meta's policies rather than this one, though the links ask your browser not to tell Meta which page of this site you came from. Nothing of Meta's is loaded into any page here: there is no Facebook or Instagram code on this site, and an icon you do not click sends Meta nothing.
What this site does not do
Stated plainly, because the absence of something is hard to notice. Each of these is about what this site does; the Google map on the contact page is Google's, and the section above is the honest account of it:
- No advertising tags and no remarketing pixels.
- No heatmaps, session recordings or A/B tests.
- No cookies beyond the two Google Analytics sets, and whatever Google's own map frame does on the contact page — both described above.
- No account to create, no password to keep, no login of any kind.
- No mailing list. There is no newsletter and no signup box on this site, and sending any of its forms, or a message from the chat, does not add you to anything.
- Nothing you send is sold, rented, or handed to an advertising network or a data broker.
Changes, and asking us about this
If any of this changes — if a service is added, or a form starts collecting something new — this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. There is no archive of previous versions; the date is the signal.
If something here is unclear, or you want to know what we hold about you, ask. Call or text (616) 747-8462, send us a message, or write to us at 3888 Lake Michigan Dr NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49534. A person reads it.
Questions about this page
Ask a person
The texting line is the fastest way to reach us, and it is the same number you would call. If you would rather write, the contact page has a form and the address above.
