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Virginia Womens Wellness

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  • Virginia Women’s Wellness

Privacy at Virginia Women’s Wellness: Built Differently, On Purpose

Virginia Women’s Wellness protects privacy by design: paper-only records for in-person care that never touch a network, a discreet multi-tenant medical building, staff trained beyond HIPAA, Virginia laws that restrict out-of-state investigations, telehealth care kept in our own in-house system with no tracking and an in-person Anonymous Abortion option in which we never learn your name. We never confirm or deny that anyone is a patient.

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Key Facts

  • Records, in-person care : Paper only, locked cabinets - never on any computer network
  • Records, telehealth care : Our own in-house system; outside companies that host or carry the data sign HIPAA business associate agreements; video visits recorded and kept in your record; never sold or shared; no analytics or advertising tags on intake pages
  • Building : Multi-tenant medical building; discreet entry and exit
  • Records requests : Reviewed by our attorneys; disclosed only when Virginia law validly compels it
  • Highest-privacy option : Anonymous Abortion - in person only; no name on the chart
  • Contact and payment : You choose how and whether we contact you (telehealth care includes one follow-up call); self-pay means no insurance record

For many of the women we care for – especially those traveling from other states – privacy isn’t a preference. It is the deciding factor. We built this practice accordingly, and we’d rather show you the specifics than ask you to trust a slogan.

Can my medical record be hacked or leaked?

For in-person care, Virginia Women’s Wellness does not use electronic medical records. Your chart is paper. It is created by hand, stored in locked steel cabinets in our office, and never exists on a computer network – so it cannot be breached, leaked by a vendor, or stolen by ransomware, because there is nothing online to steal.

This is a deliberate, unusual choice. Healthcare is one of the most-breached industries in America, and reproductive health organizations have not been spared: cyberattacks on major providers (including the largest abortion providers in the US) have exposed the names, addresses, diagnoses, and procedures of hundreds of thousands of women. Those organizations didn’t choose to expose their patients – but they chose systems that could. We chose differently. The most private database is the one that doesn’t exist.

Concretely, for an in-person visit: no cloud vendor with your history, no data broker downstream of your visit, and no breach-notification letter in your mailbox two years from now.

How is privacy protected for telehealth care?

Telehealth is different by nature – an online intake, a recorded video visit, an electronic prescription, and (if you choose mail) a delivery address all exist electronically. So we protect them differently, and we tell you exactly how:

  • Your intake and video visit are held in our own in-house system. : Any outside company that hosts or carries that data, such as for cloud storage or video, signs a HIPAA business associate agreement with us. It is not sold, shared, or used for marketing.
  • Your video visit is recorded : The recording becomes part of your medical record and is protected like the rest of it, with access limited to staff who need it.
  • No analytics, advertising tags, or pixels run on our intake pages : What you type is not seen by an ad network.
  • Your prescription goes only to the certified pharmacy you choose : A Virginia pharmacy for pickup, or a mail-order pharmacy if you choose mail. The pharmacist sees the prescription, as with any medication. With pickup, nothing arrives at your home.
  • If you choose mail : the pharmacy sends your medication in plain packaging with no clinic name or medication name on the outside to any Virginia address you choose, including a P.O. box. Someone at a home address could see that a package came; if that is a concern, use a P.O. box or choose pharmacy pickup.
  • Your record stays with us in Virginia, : under the same legal protections and the same attorney review as every other record.

Telehealth is available to women located in Virginia; it requires your name, a photo ID, a recorded video visit, and a Virginia pharmacy or address, so it cannot be anonymous. Women who need anonymity choose in-person care.

Telehealth Abortion in Virginia | Anonymous Abortion

Will anyone know why I’m at your building?

Our office is inside a multi-tenant, two-story medical building shared by other medical practices. Women enter and exit the way anyone visits any medical office, and an observer in the parking lot has no way to know which practice, or what kind of appointment, brought anyone through the door.

When an abortion clinic is in a stand-alone building (as many are), simply walking in discloses why you’re there – to protesters, to acquaintances, to anyone watching. Here, you are one person entering an ordinary medical building among the patients of many other practices. Discretion isn’t a policy; it’s the architecture.

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What information do you collect, and who can get it?

We collect the minimum needed to care for you safely and treat all of it under strict HIPAA protocols. Beyond HIPAA’s baseline:
  • We do not sell, share, or disclose information for any non-treatment purpose. : No marketing lists, no data partners, no analytics built on patient identities.
  • We do not volunteer information to anyone : including out-of-state officials or investigators.
  • You control your communications : Tell us how - and whether — to contact you: which phone, whether voicemail is safe, whether anything may be mailed. If it isn’t safe for us to contact you at all, tell us and we will plan accordingly. Telehealth care includes one follow-up call about two weeks after your medication; you choose the number and whether we may leave a message.
  • Pay how you’re comfortable : Women who prefer not to create an insurance record may pay directly. Fees start at $295 and are quoted before your visit. Fees

How does Virginia law protect my privacy?

Where your care happens matters, not just who provides it. Virginia has built some of the strongest privacy protections in the country for people receiving reproductive health care here, including women traveling from states with bans. Virginia laws work together to:
  • Restrict out-of-state investigations and legal demands aimed at abortion care that is legal in Virginia - including limits on cooperation with other states’ efforts to reach patients, providers, and the people who help them.
  • Limit law enforcement’s ability to obtain reproductive health data, including information from personal devices and apps.
  • Bar companies from sharing your reproductive or sexual health information without your consent.
We assert every one of these protections on our patients’ behalf, and any demand for information is reviewed by our attorneys against all of them before we respond to anything.

One honest limit: state protections are powerful against other states’ investigations, but no state law can override a valid federal legal process. That is exactly why, for our in-person patients, our paper-only records and our Anonymous Care matter so much – the strongest protection isn’t a law that makes your record hard to obtain; it’s a practice built so that a networked record of your identity never exists to be demanded.

Who is protecting my privacy?

Every member of our staff receives privacy training that goes beyond legal requirements – from front-desk discretion to how we handle calls asking whether someone is or was a patient (we don’t confirm or deny, to anyone, ever). And most of our staff have been abortion patients themselves. The person checking you in doesn’t just follow our privacy rules; she knows from her own life why they matter.

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Anonymous Abortion: the highest level of privacy we offer

For every woman treated in person, the record stays on paper and off the internet. For women who choose Anonymous Abortion, we go one step further: your name is not on that record at all, because we never learn it. You tell us at the start that you want anonymous care; we never ask for identification; you are known to us by an assigned pseudonym and a private PIN; and every protocol changes to protect an identity we don’t have. A woman who gives a fake name at an ordinary clinic will eventually reveal herself because of the processes at most clinics. Real anonymity requires the practice to change, not the patient.

Anonymous care is available to adults, in person, for abortion services, paid in cash, and must be chosen at the beginning. How it works step by step, what to bring, costs – is on its own page.

Why women choose Virginia Women’s Wellness for privacy

  • Paper records for in-person care nothing online to steal.
  • An anonymous program in which we never learn your name.
  • A multi-tenant building where no one can tell why you’re there.
  • Self-pay from $295 with no insurance record, and funding help if you need it.
abortion-in-office
  • FAQ’s

Questions Women Ask

Can I ask questions without giving my name?
Yes. Questions are free and anonymous, always.
Only how and if you tell us to. We follow your instructions exactly. Telehealth care includes one follow-up call about two weeks later to make sure the abortion is complete; you choose the number and whether we may leave a message.

Unless you consent to release your records, we will refuse to release your records to anyone else.  We disclose only when Virginia law validly compels it.  But then again, if someone demands a copy of your abortion record and uses your actual real name, and if you choose Anonymous Abortion, then we will not have any record of anyone with your name having had an abortion.  This is particularly important because several nearby states (Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, South Carolina) have all filed criminal charges against women for having abortions.  Pregnancy Justice reports “between January 2006 and June 2022, the month of the Dobbs ruling, there were at least 1,396 instances of criminalization based on pregnancy – that is, cases in which a person would not have faced criminalization but for their pregnancy.  … The arrests were overwhelmingly concentrated in southern states where judicial decisions have expanded definitions of “child” to include fetuses” 

https://www.pregnancyjusticeus.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/6-Discussion.pdf

No, but it is private. It is privacy-protected differently an intake and video visit kept in our own system with no tracking, a visit recording that is part of your medical record and protected like the rest of it, a prescription that goes only to your pharmacy, and if you choose mail. , plain packaging that can go to a P.O. box. It cannot be anonymous, because a prescription needs a name and the visit is on video. Women who need anonymity choose in-person care.

Think about whose phone, email, and shared accounts can see your plans, and use ones only you control. Reputable independent guides to digital privacy exist; ask us and we’ll point you to them.
Don’t wait – call 757-540-1595 or book online now. Women in Virginia can also start a telehealth visit

Sources

Virginia’s reproductive health privacy and interstate shield laws [counsel supplies enacted citations and effective dates]; HIPAA Privacy Rule, 45 CFR Part 164.