Privacy policy

1. The short version

If you only read one part, read this one. We collect the details you type into our forms so that we can answer you and prepare for your visit. Those details are stored in a database we control. We do not sell them, and we do not hand them to advertisers.

There are three things worth knowing beyond that:

• Our forms are the only place we ask for anything personal. This site sets no cookies of its own — not for a shopping cart, not for a login, not for preferences.
• Advertising measurement is optional. Where the law requires it, nothing is measured until you accept. You can decline and still use every part of the site.
• You can ask us to delete what you sent. One phone call or one email, and it is gone from our lead records.

2. Who we are

This website is run by Roark Orthodontics, PLLC, an orthodontic practice in Franklin, Tennessee. For the purposes of this policy, “we” and “us” mean that practice, and “this site” means roarkortho.com.

• Address: 212 E Main St, Ste 100, Franklin, TN 37064
• Phone: (615) 814-4884
• Email: hello@roarkortho.com

3. What this policy covers

It covers everything that happens on this website: the pages you read, the three forms you can fill in, the appointment booking flow, and the advertising measurement described in section 7.

It does not cover:

• Your clinical record. What Dr. Roark and the team record about your treatment lives in our practice management system, not in this website. That is covered by the HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices described above.
• Other companies’ sites. If you follow a link from here to Google Maps, Instagram or Facebook, the privacy policy of that company applies once you leave.
• Insurance and payment portals. If we send you to a third party to pay a bill or check benefits, that company’s policy governs that page.

4. What you give us through the forms

There are three places to type something into this site. Here is exactly what each one asks for — nothing hidden, nothing implied.

The contact form

On the contact page. We ask for your name, your email address, your phone number and a message. It also records which page you sent it from, so we know what you were reading when you wrote to us.

The scheduler request

The short request form that appears in panels around the site. We ask for your first name, last name, email address, phone number, who the visit is for, a preferred time of day, and any notes you choose to add. It records which page you used it from.

The full booking flow

The booking flow is the longest form, because we are trying to get the administrative work out of your first visit. It asks for:

• Your first and last name, email address and phone number.
• A date of birth — for you, if you are booking for yourself, or for each child you are booking for. We use it to match the right patient to the right appointment.
• Whether you have dental insurance, and the name of the insurer if you do.
• How you heard about the practice.
• Any notes you want us to read before you arrive.
• Whether you are happy for us to text you about the appointment.

Appointment scheduling works much better with a date of birth than without one — it is how we avoid booking two children under the same name, and how we check that a treatment plan matches the patient. If you would rather not type it, leave it blank and call the office instead; we will take it over the phone.

5. What is collected automatically

As with any website, the computers that serve these pages record basic technical detail in order to deliver them and to keep them working. That means:

• the address of the page you requested, and the time of the request;
• your IP address, and the country and city it resolves to;
• your browser and operating system, and the referring page;
• anything the server needs to distinguish a real visitor from automated traffic.

This is standard web server logging, performed by our hosting provider. It is not used to build a profile of you, and we do not attempt to link it back to a form submission except when investigating a technical fault or abuse of the site.

Our fonts are served from our own server, so loading a page here does not send a request — or your IP address — to Google Fonts or to any other font service.

6. Cookies and storage on your device

This site sets no cookies of its own. It does use your browser’s local and session storage for four small, specific jobs. These never leave your device and are never readable by anyone except this site.

You can clear any of this at any time from your browser’s settings. Clearing local storage while part-way through a booking means the form will start empty next time; nothing is sent anywhere until you press the confirm button.

7. Google Ads and your consent

We advertise the practice on Google, and we need to know whether those adverts lead to real appointment requests — otherwise we would be spending money blindly. To do that, this site loads a Google Tag Manager container that reports one event: that an appointment was requested, together with a booking reference and a value.

That event carries no patient information. No name, no email, no phone number, no date of birth and no clinical note is passed to Google. It says “an appointment happened” and nothing about who it was for.

We also do not run a separate analytics product on this site. There is no per-page behavioural profile being assembled here.

How consent works

We use Google’s consent signalling. Before any Google tag is allowed to load, the site tells it whether it may store or read anything, and that answer starts as no for visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. Those visitors see a small bar at the bottom of the screen with Accept and Decline.

• If you accept, Google may set its own cookies and use the measurement data for advertising.
• If you decline, the tag is instructed not to store anything. You can still book, call and read every page normally.
• For visitors elsewhere, including in Tennessee, consent is granted by default, because the statutes that require a prompt do not apply. You can still decline — see section 13.

Where a request comes from a country without such a statute, no banner is shown. That is a deliberate choice to keep the site quiet for the people who use it most.

8. The map on our contact page

The map is not loaded until you ask for it. What you see first is a picture of a map with a “click to load” prompt; only when you tap it does an embedded Google Map load, and only then can Google see your request or set its own cookies. If you never tap it, Google never hears from you.

There is always a plain link to Google Maps as well, if you would rather open directions in a new tab.

9. How we use what we collect

• To reply to you. Answering a question, confirming a time, or telling you we need to move an appointment.
• To prepare for your visit. Checking benefits, requesting records, and making sure the clinical team knows what you are coming in for.
• To run the practice. Keeping a record of enquiries so that nothing is dropped, and understanding which pages and adverts actually help people.
• To keep the site working and safe. Diagnosing faults and blocking automated abuse.

We do not use your details to build advertising audiences, we do not sell them, and we do not rent our contact list to anyone. We do not send marketing email to someone who only asked a question.

10. Who else touches it

We are a small practice and we keep the list short. These are the only companies that process website information on our behalf:

Beyond those, we disclose information only when we have to:

• Because the law requires it — a court order, a subpoena, or a lawful request from a regulator.
• To protect someone — where there is a genuine risk to a person’s safety.
• If the practice is sold or merged, in which case the records would transfer to the successor practice, still bound by this policy and by the same confidentiality obligations.

11. How long we keep it

Form submissions stay in our enquiry records while they are useful: while we are arranging your visit, and for a reasonable period afterwards so that we can pick the conversation back up if you return months later. If a submission never becomes a patient record, we clear it out periodically.

If you become a patient, the details that form part of your clinical record are kept for as long as Tennessee law and our professional obligations require — which is longer than a website enquiry, and is explained in the HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices.

Ask us to delete a submission you sent through this site and we will do it, unless we are required to keep it or it has become part of your clinical record.

12. How it is protected

• The whole site is served over HTTPS, so what you type is encrypted in transit.
• Submissions are held in a database that is not publicly readable. Access requires a credential that is held by the practice, not by the website’s visitors.
• Access to enquiry records is limited to the people in the practice who need it to do their jobs.

No system is perfect, and no one can promise that a breach will never happen. If one ever affected your information, we would tell you directly and tell you what we knew.

Please do not send clinical detail — x-rays, photographs of your teeth, insurance documents — through the forms on this site. Call the office and we will give you a secure way to send them.

13. Your choices and your rights

You do not need to give a reason to exercise any of these.

• Change your mind about measurement. Open any page with ?consent=1 added to the address — for example roarkortho.com/?consent=1 — and the choice bar will appear again so you can accept or decline. Clearing your browser’s site data does the same thing.
• Ask what we hold. Call or email and we will tell you what we have from you, and where it came from.
• Ask us to correct it. If a name is misspelled or a phone number is wrong, we will fix it.
• Ask us to delete it. We will remove what came through this website, subject to the retention points in section 11.
• Opt out of texts. Say so on the form, or tell us on the phone, or reply STOP to any message. It does not affect your appointment.
• Turn off advertising measurement entirely. Declining in the bar, or using your browser’s tracker blocking, is enough. Nothing about the site stops working.

If you are in the EEA or the UK, you also have the right to object to processing, to ask us to restrict it, and to complain to your local data protection authority. We would rather you called us first — most things are sorted out in one conversation.

14. Children and teenagers

Most of our patients are children, but the forms on this site are not designed for them to fill in themselves. Bookings for a child should be made by a parent or guardian, and the details of a child should be entered by that adult.

We do not knowingly collect information through this website from a child under 13 without a parent or guardian involved. If you believe a child has sent us something, call the office and we will delete it.

Teenagers are welcome to read everything here, and welcome to ask us questions directly about their own treatment — that conversation is part of the care, and it is covered by the clinical privacy notice, not this page.

15. Changes to this policy

If we change how the site handles information — adding a form field, turning on a new measurement tool, or changing how long we keep enquiries — we will update this page and change the date at the top. We will not quietly widen what we collect without saying so here.

Material changes that affect people who have already sent us something will be described plainly in the summary at the top, not buried in the middle.

16. How to reach us

Questions about this policy, or about something you sent through this site, go to the practice directly. A person reads them — there is no ticket queue.

• Call or text: (615) 814-4884
• Email: hello@roarkortho.com
• Write to: Roark Orthodontics, PLLC, 212 E Main St, Ste 100, Franklin, TN 37064
• Office hours: Mon–Wed · 7:30am–4:00pm

If you would rather just ask your question in person, that is fine too — the front desk is the shortest route to an answer.