Review Guidelines

Summary

We strive to a be a trusted and transparent place for people researching care options along with care providers. We have established review guidelines to ensure that valuable information is posted on our website.

We will accept reviews submitted online (via our website) and through review cards, if applicable.

We will only accept reviews submitted by verified users, their family, or their friends. Reviews must adhere to our content standards outlined in our review guidelines.

Before publishing reviews, we will check that the reviews comply with our review guidelines. We will share all reviews with care providers who are subscribed to our services before publication so they can make a response to the published review if they wish.

The reviews submitted to our website are those of our users and do not represent our views. We accept no responsibility or liability for any such reviews, however if you see something on our website that you believe violates these guidelines, you should flag it for our review.

By submitting a review, you consent to us disclosing to the service/residence/provider you are reviewing your name and contact details. We will only disclose your details to a provider if requested by the service provider.

General

Our website allows verified users, their family or their friends to post comments and ratings of their care provider experiences (“Reviews”). The primary purpose of these Reviews is to help potential service users to find the right service to meet their care needs. The Reviews also provide service users with an opportunity to provide feedback to care providers and for care providers to use this feedback to make improvements.

Reviews cannot be submitted anonymously, and we require the name and contact information of each reviewer in order to verify and authenticate Reviews. Any personal information collected is subject to our Privacy Policy https://www.caredupon.ca/privacy-policy. The Reviews on our website are not a formal complaint procedure, and if you want to make a complaint or have serious allegations of negligence or abuse you should contact the care provider, any relevant regulatory body, or the policy.

The views, comments and opinions expressed in the Reviews do not represent our views and we accept no responsibility or liability for any such Reviews. All Reviews are subject to our Review Guidelines.

Moderation

1. The Review is posted online or it is received from a review card and then entered onto our website by us.

2. Reviews that do not comply with the Review Guidelines are not published or used in the calculation of a care provider service’s rating score.

3. We will not accept Reviews for the following reasons:

a) The reviewer is not a verified user of care provider services, a member of their family, or a friend. See who can submit reviews

b) The Review does not conform to our Content Standards

c) The Review is incomplete, e.g. missing comment, missing ratings, missing signature

If a Review is rejected, an email will be sent to the reviewer (where we have their email address) and the relevant care provider to say that the review has not been accepted. When a Review is rejected for not conforming to the Content Standards or is missing information, the email to the reviewer, states that they can amend and re-submit the Review.

4. Reviews that appear to comply with the Review Guidelines are verified by the following methods:

a) We have a number of technological checks to authenticate Reviews (multiple reviews from the same IP address or with the same email, telephone number, and contact details will be flagged for further investigation)

b) Our team may phone/email the reviewer. If the reviewer is a family member or a friend of the user of the care services, we may ask if they can provide the name of the person receiving the care service for confirmation.

c) Users who submit a review without assistance must be willing and able to speak with us to confirm the authenticity of their review.

5. If we cannot authenticate a review, an email is sent to the care provider and to the reviewer stating that the Review could not be verified. Once verified, then the Review will move to pending publication.

6. When a Review is pending publication, an email is sent to the reviewer notifying them that we aim to publish their Review within 30 days and an email is also sent to the care provider with a link to the Review. The care provider is informed that the Review will be published after 30 days unless they select one of the following options:

a) Publish Immediately. The Review will be published and email sent to reviewer and to the contact(s) of the care provider saying the Review is live.

b) Publish adding a response to the Review. We will moderate the care provider’s response (“Response”) to ensure it conforms to the terms of the Review Guidelines and then the Review will be published with an email sent to the reviewer and to the contact(s) of the care provider saying the Review is live.

7. During the moderation process, your personal details may be used by us or passed on to the care provider you are reviewing in order to contact you for the purpose of verifying/responding to your review. If you do not agree to providing your personal details for this use, we will be unable to verify and post your review.

8. We decide, in our sole discretion, whether a Review complies with the Review Guidelines.

9. We reserve the right to edit and alter Reviews to ensure that the Review complies with our Review Guidelines. As a general rule, we will only edit Reviews to remove names and other personal identifiable information from the content of the reviews and to correct spellings or basic grammar.

10. We will try to publish as many Reviews as we can but cannot guarantee that all Reviews will be published and we may reject a Review with or without giving reasons for such rejection. If we reject a Review submitted by you, if you wish, you can edit the rejected Review and resubmit it. We reserve the right to take down at any time any Review.

11. We cannot guarantee how quickly Reviews will be posted on our site. We try to process the Reviews as quickly as we can, but on occasions, it can take up to 30 days for them to be Published or deemed non-compliant with our Review Guidelines.

12. The moderation process is identical for care providers we have a commercial relationship with and for those we do not. Care providers must not reference their commercial relationship with our website when commenting on reviews to the moderation team. Any such reference will be disregarded by the moderation team in considering whether a review is compliant or not.

13. We endeavour to ensure that any Reviews posted on the site are fair and that care providers always have an opportunity to provide their own point of view and to make clear where they disagree with anything being said by a reviewer. By engaging with us in this process care providers acknowledge that the Reviews and associated material published together constitute a fair and balanced set of opinions about their services.

Care Provider Responses

We verify all Responses before publication to check they comply with the Content Standards. Responses must not reveal specific personal information about the reviewer, the resident/service user or a third party (e.g. the person’s diagnosis or treatment) as this may breach privacy legislation and would also be likely to breach the care provider's duty of confidentiality to the reviewer or service user. Responses must be submitted within 3 months of the submission date of the relevant review. We try to verify all Responses within 5 business days but we cannot guarantee this.

Notice & Take Down Procedure on our website

If you believe that a Review or Response on our website does not comply with our Review Guidelines you can alert one of our moderators by clicking on the link provided to report a Review. You will need to provide your email address and/or telephone together with a short explanation why you believe the Review or Response does not comply with our Review Guideline. Reporting a Review or Response will not automatically remove it, but will ensure we look at it as soon as possible. The moderators may suspend the Review or Response during the investigation and then will decide whether to remove it permanently or reinstate it. We reserve the right to take down any Review or Response at any time. We stay neutral in all cases of dispute, and we are not a formal complaint procedure.

If you have submitted a Review or Response and wish for it to be taken down from our website, you can contact one of our moderators by clicking on the link provided to report a Review or Response. You will need to provide your email address and/or telephone and to state that you previously submitted the review and now wish for it be removed.

Who can submit Reviews?

Reviews of care providers can only be submitted by users of the care provider services or their family/friends.

Reviews are not accepted from:

• Employees and/or management of the care provider
  
• Anyone with a professional connection to the care provider, such as doctors, pharmacists, nurses, etc.
  
• Potential residents and their family/friends
  
• Visitors of the care provider

We will remove any Review where we have evidence that the reviewer was incentivized or coerced into leaving a Review.

For Reviews submitted on review cards (not submitted online), assistance can be given to service users by their family/friends but NOT by staff members connected to the care provider. The family/friends must provide their name, connection and contact details on the review card for the verification process. Residents/service users must sign the review card if they are physically able to, and be willing and able to give all of the information for the review. The connection is published next to the review which clearly states assistance has been given in preparing the Review.

People under 18 should get permission from a parent or guardian before posting on our site.

Each reviewer is allowed one published Review, per care provider, per year

Content Standards

Reviews should:

• Be accurate and truthful, we encourage reviewers to include pros and cons to provide a balanced review.
• Be relevant to the care services provided, so that it can inform others on their choice to choose a care provider.
• Be civil and respectful of others.
• Be first-hand personal experiences.
• Be based on an experience of the provision of care services, if the care provider services were cancelled prior to any services being provided it would not be appropriate to leave a review.
• Be a maximum of 1,000 characters (with spaces) in length, which is approximately 150 words.
• Be written in English and comply with reasonable standards of spelling and grammar
• Be submitted in a reasonable time frame - the reviewer must have used the care provider services within the last 12 months.
• Be complete, please fill out all fields.
• Comply with the laws applicable in Canada and in any country from which it is posted

Reviews will be removed if they contain:

• Accusations of negligence, abuse or criminal activity
• Defamatory remarks of any individual or organization
• Obscene, offensive, profane, hateful, threatening, abusive, and inflammatory language
• Malicious intent or be made as part of a campaign to sully the reputation of the care provider
• Language that promotes discrimination based on ethnic origin or race, nationality, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or age, or other characteristics that is associated with systemic discrimination (stereotypes).
• The name, address, telephone, mobile or fax number, e-mail address or any other personal information
• Any reference to the Review Score of the care service provider being reviewed
• Any references to other specific Reviews
• Name any care service providers/businesses other than the care service provider that is being reviewed
• Infringements on any copyright or trade mark of any other person
• References to a past or ongoing civil, court or tribunal proceedings or investigations/proceedings by regulatory bodies.
• References to matters that are the subject of ongoing civil, court or tribunal proceedings or investigations/proceedings by regulatory bodies.