Privacy Policy
Effective September 17, 2026 · Updated October 20, 2026 (chat with Dottie, videos, your content, form records)
PlanScoutUS LLC (“PlanScout,” “we,” “us”), a Florida limited liability company, operates a free, independent website that helps people compare Medicare Advantage and Part D plans using public data published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). We are not an insurance company, agency, or licensed agent, and we are not affiliated with Medicare, CMS, or any insurer. This policy explains what we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have — including choices required by the privacy laws of California and every other U.S. state that has one.
Information we collect
- Information you enter to get a comparison: your ZIP code, and optionally the medications you take, health conditions, medical equipment, and a plan contract number from your card. Some of this (medications and health conditions) is sensitive information. We use it only to run your comparison and, if you ask, to help match you to appropriate plans.
- Information you give us for a callback: if you choose “Get free help,” we collect your name, phone number, email, and your consent to be contacted. This is entirely optional and never required to use the free tool.
- Optional care-needs answers: on our Aging & Care pages you can tap a few answers about the care someone needs (for example, who it is for, how soon, and how it might be paid for). We store these answers anonymously, without a name or contact details, and keep only the first three digits of a ZIP code (if you searched one) and the date. We use them to understand what families need. If you turn on “Remember my answers,” your answers are linked to a random code that is stored only in your browser, so they are not anonymous while that code exists. Choosing “Forget my answers” deletes the answers linked to that code.
- Optional disaster check-in alerts: if you tick “Email me if a FEMA disaster is declared in my area that could let me change Medicare plans,” we store your email, your ZIP code, and when and how you agreed. We use them only to send a confirmation email and, after you confirm, at most one short check-in email per FEMA disaster declaration that covers your area. We don’t use your ZIP for anything else or share it, and every email has a one-click link to stop the alerts.
- Chats with Dottie, our AI guide: when you chat with Dottie (including “Coffee with Dottie”), we keep what you type and tap, Dottie’s replies, and basic context such as your ZIP code and the page you were on. A chat may include sensitive information you choose to share, such as medications, health conditions, or a family member’s care needs. Please don’t type names, phone numbers, Social Security numbers or Medicare numbers. Before your first message, the chat shows who handles it and asks you to click “Start chat”; nothing you type is sent anywhere until you click it and then send a message. That click, the version of the notice and when you saw it are recorded as proof of what we told you (see “How we share information”).
- Privacy requests: if you submit a privacy request, we collect the email and details you provide so we can verify and honor it.
- Automatic technical data: IP address, browser/device type, and basic usage, collected to run and secure the site.
We use only essential technologies to run the site, plus — with your consent — Google Analytics and attribution to improve PlanScout and measure our own outreach. We remove query strings before sending page locations to Google Analytics, except campaign parameters we set ourselves (such as which ad or partner link brought you here) — URL parameters such as ZIP codes, invitation tokens, and email addresses are never included. You control these technologies in our Cookie Policy, and we honor Global Privacy Control. We do not sell browsing profiles, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.
Videos: our care videos come from YouTube. Until you click play, the video page shows a picture we host ourselves and nothing is sent to YouTube or Google. When you click play, the video loads from YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com), and YouTube (Google) may then set cookies or store data on your device and receive information about your visit, under Google’s privacy policy.
When enabled and you explicitly accept marketing measurement, Meta receives PageView image beacons from our About and Press pages only. We strip query strings and omit referrers and personal parameters. Meta may receive browser network information and its existing cookies. We send no planner answers, comparison results, care questionnaires or form activity to Meta. Global Privacy Control prevents these beacons, and you can withdraw consent in Cookie preferences.
How we use information
- To run your plan comparison and show results, and to answer your questions in chats with Dottie.
- To improve information and outcomes for the community. PlanScout is a free learning and education platform. We review chats, mostly as summaries and topics (for example, which questions come up most, or where an answer was missing or unclear), to improve our guides, data and Dottie’s answers. We remove names, phone numbers, email addresses, Social Security numbers and Medicare numbers we find before chats are reviewed or used this way. We may publish aggregate findings (such as “questions about help at home doubled this month”) that never identify anyone.
- To connect you with a licensed insurance agent only if you ask us to by submitting the callback form with your consent.
- To operate, secure, debug, and improve the site, and to comply with law.
We do not use your sensitive information (medications, conditions), including anything you tell Dottie, to infer characteristics about you for advertising, we do not sell it, and we never share chats with insurers, agents or care providers.
How we share information
- If you request a callback: we share the contact details and consent you provide with a licensed insurance agent or agency (and, where applicable, a lead partner) so they can call you. Depending on your state’s law, this transfer may be considered a “sale” or “sharing” of personal information. You can opt out at any time — see “Your choices.”
- Service providers (hosting, database) who process data on our behalf under contract. For chats with Dottie, after you click “Start chat”:
- AI providers. MiniMax, our main AI provider, receives each message when you send it (not as you type), with the conversation so far, your ZIP code and the page you’re on, to write Dottie’s answer. TypeSafe (its Jev model) receives your latest message, with names, numbers, medicines and health conditions removed, or a short typed answer to one of Dottie’s quick questions, to give fast answers. When MiniMax is too busy, a backup AI provider we have under contract may answer that message instead and receives the same chat; the chat names it before you start whenever one is turned on.
- Kapture (operated for us by KX21) keeps consent and proof records. Its script loads only after you click “Start chat”, and never if you chose “Essential only” in Cookie preferences or your browser sends Global Privacy Control. When the chat ends (you close it, leave the page, or after two minutes without activity), we send Kapture which version of the chat notice you saw, when it was shown, when you clicked “Start chat”, the topics, and the chat with names, phone numbers, email addresses, Social Security numbers and Medicare numbers removed. Kapture also makes a session recording of the page, but the chat panel is left out of it, so it does not capture what you type to Dottie or her answers. Kapture may set its own identifier in your browser.
- Form records (Kapture): on some forms, Kapture (operated for us by KX21) keeps a record of what you type, as proof of your request. It loads only after you tick the Kapture box shown above the form’s first field; it then makes a session recording of that page (passwords and the story and review text boxes are left out) and sets an identifier (kap_vid) that we store with your submission, along with the consent wording and time, a one-way hash of your IP address and your browser type. The box is required to submit suggest-an-update requests, caregiver stories, reviews, the agent application and agent profile edits, introduction requests to an agent, invites to a colleague and partner-organization bulk invites, because the record is how we verify who sent them; if you prefer not to be recorded, email [email protected] instead. On the agent-callback request and the partnership inquiry the box is optional and the request works without it. A ticked box is a specific yes for that one form, so it applies even if you chose “Essential only”; with Global Privacy Control on we hide optional boxes, and a required box loads Kapture only for the submission you tick it to send.
- Legal/safety: when required by law or to protect rights and safety.
- We do not otherwise sell or share your personal information, and we never sell your sensitive information.
Your privacy rights
Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of these rights: to know/access the personal information we hold, to correct it, to delete it, to obtain a portable copy, to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of your information and of targeted advertising, to limit the use of sensitive information, to not be discriminated against for exercising a right, and (in states such as Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, Oregon, Montana and others) to appeal a denied request. These rights are provided under the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended (CCPA/CPRA) and the comprehensive privacy laws of Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Montana, Florida, Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Indiana, Tennessee, Minnesota, Maryland, Kentucky, Rhode Island, and other states as they take effect, and (for opt-out of sale) Nevada.
Global Privacy Control: we treat a valid GPC browser signal as a request to opt out of sale/sharing and targeted advertising for that browser.
How to exercise your rights: use our Do Not Sell or Share My Information page (which also handles access, deletion, correction, and limiting sensitive information), or email [email protected]. We will verify your request using the email or phone you provide and respond within the timeframe your state’s law requires (generally 45 days). You may use an authorized agent where the law allows. California residents may also request the categories and specific pieces of information collected (“right to know”).
Data retention & security
We keep chats with Dottie for up to 24 months to improve information for the community, then delete or de-identify them. You can ask us to delete your chats at any time (see “How to exercise your rights”). The “Delete my chats” link in the chat immediately deletes, from our database, the chats saved from that browser; a deletion request also does this, and we ask Kapture to delete its copy of your chat records as part of handling it.
We keep comparison inputs only as long as needed to provide the service and callback records as long as needed for the requested contact and legal recordkeeping (for example, consent evidence), then delete or de-identify them. We use reasonable administrative and technical safeguards; no method of transmission is 100% secure.
Changes
We may update this policy; the “Effective” date will change and material updates will be posted here.
Contact
Questions or requests: [email protected], or by mail: PlanScoutUS LLC, 5180 West Atlantic Avenue, Suite 105, Delray Beach, FL 33484.