AI disclosure
How we use AI
When you call our main number or use the chat box on this website, you are talking to a computer program, not a person. This page explains what it is, what it can and cannot do, and how your request reaches a member of our staff.
About our AI assistant
Our main phone line and website chat use an AI assistant named Eva. Eva will identify herself as an automated assistant and can answer common questions, collect information, and help you begin a request for an evaluation.
Eva is not a healthcare professional and does not provide medical or clinical advice. Questions requiring clinical judgment are referred to our office.
If you need assistance from a member of our staff, simply let Eva know and your request will be forwarded to our office for follow-up.
Scope
What the AI can and cannot do
The assistant is a receptionist, not a clinician. It is deliberately limited, and it is meant to hand you to a person the moment a question goes past those limits.
It can
- Answer general questions about the practice — what we do, who we see, and what we do not offer
- Tell you our office hours, our address, and how to get here and park
- Explain which insurance plans we take part in, and what a referral needs to say
- Take a message with your name, your phone number, and why you are calling, and pass it to the right member of staff
- Take down that you want to confirm, change, or cancel an appointment — including a reply to a reminder text — and put it in front of our staff, who will call you back to settle it
- Send you a link to our consultation request form, or help you start one
- With your permission, take the details from your insurance card and run an electronic check on your coverage
A coverage check tells you what your insurance company reports. It is not a promise of payment, and our staff confirm your benefits before your visit.
It cannot
- Give medical advice, or tell you what is wrong with you
- Diagnose anything, or say whether you have a condition
- Explain, interpret, or comment on test results, scores, or a report
- Book, move, or cancel an appointment — only our staff do that, and they will call you
- Help in an emergency, or provide crisis or mental-health support
- Give legal advice, or tell you what your bill will finally be
- Confirm details about an existing patient's care, or read anything back to you from a record
If you ask about any of these, the assistant will say it cannot help and take a message for a person instead. That is the correct behavior, not a fault.
In an emergency, do not use the AI
If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department. This practice does not provide emergency or crisis services.
The assistant cannot help you in an emergency, and no one is listening to the chat box around the clock. If someone is in danger, hang up and call 911, or go straight to the nearest emergency department.
If you are thinking about harming yourself or taking your own life, help is available at any hour, free of charge: call or text 988, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or call 911. If someone tells our assistant something of this kind, it is set up to stop what it is doing and give the emergency instruction above immediately, rather than carrying on with a message or a form.
Our AI policy in full
Calls are recorded
Calls to our main line are recorded. You will be told this at the very beginning of the call, before any information is collected, so you can decide whether you wish to continue.
We record calls to help ensure that messages are captured accurately, to monitor and improve how our automated assistant is working, and to maintain a reliable record of important information or permissions you provide, such as authorization to verify your insurance benefits.
Recordings and transcripts are stored securely and are accessible only to authorized staff. Access is logged.
If you prefer not to be recorded, simply say so. We will arrange for a staff member to call you back on a line that is not recorded.
What the AI collects, and how we protect it
During a typical call or chat, the assistant collects your name, the best phone number to reach you, and the reason you are contacting our office. It is designed to collect only the information needed to assist with your request.
If you ask us to verify your insurance benefits, the assistant may also request your date of birth, insurance company, and member identification number because this information is needed to perform an electronic benefits check. You are not required to provide this information to the automated assistant. If you prefer not to, simply say so, and our staff can obtain the necessary information and verify your benefits separately.
We also retain call recordings, written transcripts, and chat conversations, along with associated dates and times.
This information is treated as protected health information and handled in accordance with our HIPAA privacy practices, including restrictions on access and logging of access to these records. Our Notice of Privacy Practices explains how your information may be used and disclosed and describes your rights regarding that information.
We do not sell your information or use it for advertising.
The AI can get things wrong
This technology is useful, but it is not perfect. It can mishear a word, misunderstand a question, or give an answer that is out of date or simply wrong. It can also sound confident while doing so.
For that reason, nothing the assistant says is a decision by this practice. It cannot commit us to an appointment, a price, a coverage amount, or a clinical opinion.
Messages taken by the assistant are read by a member of our staff before anything is acted on, and staff review calls and chats to catch mistakes and correct the assistant. If something it told you matters to you — a cost, a date, what to bring, whether we can help with your particular question — please ring the office and have a person confirm it.
If the assistant gets something wrong, or you are unhappy with the way it handled your call, please tell us on (631) 366-3369 and ask for the Office Manager. We want to know.
Why we publish this
New York has set out how it expects AI systems that hold conversations with people to behave (General Business Law article 47, section 1700 and following): tell the person clearly and conspicuously that they are dealing with an AI system rather than a human, and keep safeguards in place, including putting suicide-prevention resources in front of anyone who shows signs of self-harm. Federal and state consumer-protection regulators take a similar view of automated systems that could be mistaken for people.
We have written this practice to that standard, whether or not every part of it is aimed at a practice like ours. Our assistant identifies itself as automated at the start of every call, chat, and text message; it never claims to be a person or a clinician; it discloses that the call is recorded before recording anything you say; and it breaks off and gives the emergency instruction if someone describes a crisis.
This page is our own policy and disclosure. It has not been reviewed, certified, endorsed, or approved by any regulator, and nothing on it is legal advice or a statement of what the law requires of anyone else.
Questions about your information, or about our texts?
Our Notice of Privacy Practices explains how health information is used and protected here, including by the automated assistant. Our SMS terms cover text messages specifically.