Our policies

Patient Bill of Rights

Ontario requires home care providers to post a Patient Bill of Rights. As a person receiving care from Rideau Home Care, you have the right to:

1. Dignity, privacy and autonomyBe treated with dignity and respect, and have your privacy and your right to make your own decisions respected.
2. Freedom from abuse and neglectBe free from physical, sexual, mental, emotional, verbal and financial abuse, and from neglect.
3. Respect for who you areHave your ethnic, spiritual, linguistic, family and cultural preferences considered and respected.
4. No discrimination, and culturally safe careBe cared for without discrimination. First Nations, Métis and Inuit patients have the right to culturally safe care.
5. Clear informationBe given clear information about your care and the services you receive, in a way you can understand.
6. A say in your care planTake part in planning your care and in decisions about it.
7. Raise concerns without reprisalRaise concerns or recommend changes about your care, or about how we operate, without fear of retaliation or of losing your services.

Privacy statement

This statement describes how Rideau Home Care handles personal information, in line with Ontario’s Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA).

Our privacy contact

Our privacy contact is the Privacy Officer at Rideau Home Care. Write to the Privacy Officer about anything in this statement, to see or correct your information, or to make a privacy complaint. Reach our office on 343-998-7591 or at info@rideauhomecare.ca.

What this website collects

The booking form on this website collects:

• Contact details: names, home address and phone numbers of the person receiving care and of the person making the request, plus the requester’s email, the relationship between you, and the date of birth of the person receiving care. The date of birth identifies the right person in our care record, and nothing else.
• An emergency contact: a name, relationship and phone number for someone to reach if the person receiving care cannot be reached.
• Service preferences: the kind of care, language preference, and access and parking notes.
• Schedule: the start date and time, visit length, how often you would like visits and how many visits a week.
• A short set of care details: how the person gets around, whether medication reminders are needed, allergies, and any condition the caregiver should know about. This is personal health information, and we ask for the least we can send a caregiver out with.

Before any payment, the website collects only the kind of care you choose.

What this website does not collect

The form does not collect a health card number, a medication list, a diagnosis history or any document. Anything beyond the short set above is taken by phone, on a call after your request arrives.

How long we keep it

Between the moment you press Continue to payment and the moment the deposit goes through, your answers rest in encrypted storage so that nothing reaches our office until the payment lands. If the payment is never completed, that copy is deleted automatically within 7 days and nobody at the agency sees it.

A request that does become a booking is deleted within 12 months if it does not become care. Where care does start, the request becomes part of the care record and is kept for as long as Ontario record-keeping rules require, then destroyed securely.

How we use it and who sees it

• We use it to contact you, confirm the service area, arrange care and schedule visits.
• When you submit the form, we email it to our office. The visit is also written to our scheduling calendar as a visit waiting to be assigned.
• The care details and the date of birth are never written to that calendar, because caregivers and schedulers share it. They travel only in the email to the office.
• Payment of the booking deposit is handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card number.
• The email that carries your request to our office is sent through Resend, an email service based in the United States. It carries your request details, including names, date of birth, address, phone numbers and the care details above.
• This website is hosted by Netlify, whose servers may be outside Canada. This is why the form asks for so little health information, and why the rest is taken by phone.
• We do not sell your information.

Your choices and complaints

You may ask to see or correct the personal information we hold about you. If you are not satisfied with how we respond, you may complain to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

Deposit and cancellation terms

The booking deposit

To book, you pay a $100 CAD non-refundable booking deposit through Stripe. It is paid once, to Rideau Home Care through Stripe. We provide care in Ottawa and Nepean only, so if the address is outside that, call the office before booking. It is non-refundable if you change your mind or cancel, and it is not credited against the cost of care.

What it secures

The deposit secures your request. It covers the work of opening your request with our office and having a member of our team call you to talk through what you need.

It does not guarantee a particular caregiver or start time, and it does not pay for any visits.

If we cannot provide the service

If we cannot provide the service you requested, we will refund the deposit.

Cancelling or changing a visit

• To cancel or change a scheduled visit, call our office on 343-998-7591 more than 24 hours before the visit is due to start. There is no charge for cancelling in that time.
• A visit cancelled 24 hours or less before it is due to start, or where nobody is home when the caregiver arrives, is charged in full, as if the care had been delivered.
• Apart from the case above, the booking deposit is not refunded if you cancel your request or decide not to go ahead.
• If we cancel a visit, we refund your deposit in full and charge nothing for that visit.

If anything here is unclear, please call us before you pay.