Privacy Policy

1. Scope; Institution

This Privacy Policy explains how Alia Healthcare Services ("Alia," "the School," "we," "us") collects, uses, discloses, and retains personal information. It applies to the website aliahealthcare.com (the "Site") and to information received in inquiries, applications, enrollment agreements, and attendance at the School's campuses in Columbus, Ohio (2800 Corporate Exchange Dr., STE 410, Columbus, OH 43231) and Cincinnati, Ohio (110 Boggs Ln, Suite 301, Cincinnati, OH 45246).

The School is registered with the Ohio State Board of Career Colleges and Schools ("SBCCS") under Registration Nos. 2272 (Columbus) and 2314 (Cincinnati). Its nurse aide training operates under the requirements of the Ohio Department of Health ("ODH") Nurse Aide Training and Competency Evaluation Program ("NATCEP"), and its Medication Aide programming is subject to the rules of the Ohio Board of Nursing ("OBN"). Practical Nursing instruction is delivered through the School's partnership with the American Institute of Alternative Medicine ("AIAM"); applicants to that program enroll at AIAM, and records created in that enrollment are governed by AIAM's own notices in addition to this policy.

This policy does not create rights greater than those provided by applicable federal and Ohio law, and nothing in it limits the rights an eligible student holds under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act ("FERPA"), 20 U.S.C. § 1232g.

2. Definitions

(a) "Personal Information" means information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is reasonably capable of being associated with an identifiable individual.

(b) "Student Records" means records directly related to a student and maintained by the School or by a party acting for the School, as that term is used in FERPA and its implementing regulations, 34 C.F.R. Part 99.

(c) "Clinical Site" means a nursing home, hospital, home-health agency, or other facility at which a student completes clinical or practicum hours required by a program.

(d) "Regulators" means ODH, OBN, SBCCS, the Ohio Attorney General, the U.S. Department of Education, and any other governmental body with authority over the School or its programs.

3. Categories of Personal Information Collected

The School limits its collection to what admission, instruction, certification, clinical placement, and legally mandated recordkeeping require. The categories are:

(a) Inquiry and contact data. Name, email address, telephone number, preferred campus, and program interest, submitted through a contact form, a registration or application form, a class-notification signup, or by telephone.

(b) Enrollment agreement data. Identity and contact details, prior education documentation (high school diploma, equivalency, transcripts, or ability-to-benefit qualification), emergency contacts, signatures, and program and campus selections collected in the enrollment agreement and related admissions documents.

(c) Student Records. Attendance, examination results and grades, skills-laboratory and clinical evaluations, progress and completion records, and certificates issued.

(d) Background-check data. For programs that require criminal background checks, the identifiers necessary to initiate fingerprint-based checks through the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation ("BCI") and the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), which include Social Security numbers. See Section 4.

(e) Health and immunization data. Immunization records, tuberculosis screening results, and comparable clearance documentation required for clinical placement. See Section 5.

(f) Payment data. Billing name and contact details and records of charges, payments, balances, refunds, and payment plans. See Section 6.

(g) Website usage data. Device and browser type, pages viewed, referral source, and related technical data collected through cookies and Google Analytics 4, described in Section 10.

4. Criminal Background Checks

Admission to certain programs, and placement at Clinical Sites, are conditioned on criminal background checks conducted through BCI and the FBI. Fingerprints and identifying data, including Social Security numbers, are submitted to those agencies or to entities authorized to transmit fingerprints on their behalf. Check results are reported under the procedures of the requesting agencies. Depending on how the check is directed at the time of your signed authorization, the School receives either the released result or the eligibility status communicated for placement purposes. The School uses background-check information only to evaluate whether program and clinical-placement requirements are met, and it discloses it only as described in Section 7 or as required by law.

5. Health and Immunization Information

Clinical Sites require documented immunization status and health clearances before a student may participate in rotations. The School collects this documentation for that purpose. It is maintained with the student's education records, and it is disclosed to a Clinical Site only to the extent the Site requires it for placement. Access within the School is limited to personnel who arrange or supervise clinical placements and to others with a defined need under Section 7.

6. Payment Information

Tuition and fee payments are processed by a third-party payment processor engaged under contract. Credit and debit card numbers are submitted to the processor's systems and are not stored on School systems. The School retains billing records, receipts, and account statements for tuition administration, refund administration under its published tuition policies, audits, and tax and accounting requirements.

7. Purposes of Use; Disclosures

The School uses and discloses Personal Information to respond to inquiries; to process applications and enrollment agreements; to deliver instruction and evaluate progress, including attendance, examinations, and clinical evaluations; to verify admission requirements, including education credentials and background-check status; to arrange Clinical Site placements; to administer tuition accounts, payments, refunds, and payment plans; to communicate about schedules, closings, and administrative matters; to operate and secure the Site; and to send promotional messages only where consent has been given, with a way to withdraw it in every message.

(a) Regulators. The School reports to and maintains records for ODH, including submission of the information ODH requires for listing a nurse aide graduate on the Ohio nurse aide registry after the graduate passes the state competency examination; to OBN where applicable to Medication Aide programming; to SBCCS for recordkeeping, compliance review, and audits; and to other government bodies as required by law.

(b) Clinical Sites. The School discloses to a Clinical Site only what placement requires: identity, enrollment status, and confirmation that health and background requirements are satisfied.

(c) Examination authorities. The School provides information to state testing authorities and their vendors as necessary to schedule and administer competency examinations.

(d) Service providers. Contractors performing functions for the School under contract include hosting and IT providers; the payment processor described in Section 6; email delivery (Mailgun) and text-messaging (Twilio) providers for messages connected to an inquiry or enrollment; Rollbar, which receives technical error diagnostics from the Site; and Google, which provides form abuse prevention (reCAPTCHA) and the optional page-translation widget (Google Translate). Service providers may use Personal Information only to perform their functions.

(e) AIAM. An inquiry about the Practical Nursing program may be referred to AIAM, where enrollment occurs. AIAM's notices govern the records it creates.

(f) Funding sources. Where a student pursues funding through a partner institution or funding agency, the School provides the documentation that program rules require.

(g) Legal process and transfers. The School discloses Personal Information in response to lawful process, and in connection with a proposed or completed sale, merger, or change of ownership of the school, subject to the approvals such a transaction requires and to this policy.

The School does not sell Personal Information and does not share it with third parties for those parties' own direct marketing.

8. Education Records and Student Rights

FERPA, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g, and 34 C.F.R. Part 99 apply to the records of eligible students. An eligible student may inspect and review, and obtain copies of, his or her own education records; request correction of records the student believes are inaccurate, misleading, or in violation of privacy rights, and, if the request is declined, a hearing and the right to place a statement in the record; and file a complaint concerning FERPA with the Student Privacy Policy Office, U.S. Department of Education. Requests to inspect or correct records should be directed in writing to the Privacy Officer at either campus address below; the School responds within a reasonable period, not exceeding the 45 days FERPA allows.

These remedies are independent of one another. A student is not required to raise a concern with the School, or to exhaust any internal process, before filing a complaint with a Regulator, and this policy does not condition any external complaint right on the School's internal procedures.

9. Record Retention

Student Records, including enrollment agreements and completion documentation, are retained for as long as required by Ohio administrative rules applicable to career colleges and to NATCEP programs, and are then destroyed by secure means. Inquiry and admissions-prospect data is retained for a reasonable period for admissions follow-up and then deleted or de-identified. Website analytics data is retained for the period configured in the analytics service, which is shorter than the periods applied to Student Records. Copies retained in routine backups are deleted on the backup rotation.

10. Cookies, Analytics, and Advertising

(a) Strictly necessary cookies. These support sessions, login, load balancing, and form security. They do not require consent and cannot be switched off without breaking those functions.

(b) Analytics cookies. The Site uses Google Analytics 4. Measurement is off until the visitor accepts cookies in the Site's consent banner; the banner sets Google Consent Mode defaults to denied for analytics and advertising storage before any measurement loads. Where IP anonymization is enabled in the analytics configuration, Google truncates IP addresses. Analytics data is used to understand which pages serve visitors well and is not merged with Student Records.

(c) Marketing and advertising cookies. These are set only after consent and are used to measure advertising. Where advertising is served through Google AdSense, Google and its partners may use cookies to serve ads based on prior visits to this or other websites. Visitors may opt out of personalized advertising at adssettings.google.com or www.aboutads.info/choices.

The consent choice is stored in the browser's local storage so the banner does not reappear. Any visitor may also block or delete cookies through browser settings; the method varies by browser and is described in the browser's help materials. Declining analytics and advertising cookies does not limit use of the Site. Forms are protected by Google reCAPTCHA, whose use is subject to Google's privacy policy and terms of service.

11. Security

The School restricts access to Personal Information to personnel whose duties require it, maintains physical controls over paper records such as enrollment agreements and health documentation, and applies authentication and role-based access controls to electronic systems. These measures are designed to be appropriate to the sensitivity of the information held. No method of transmission over the internet and no method of electronic storage is completely secure, and the School cannot guarantee absolute security. It treats the safeguarding of student information as an operational obligation and reviews its practices as systems and legal requirements change. Suspected misuse of Personal Information should be reported to the Privacy Officer; the School notifies affected individuals and authorities as required by applicable federal and Ohio law.

12. Children's Privacy

Alia's programs admit applicants who hold a high school diploma or equivalency, or who qualify through a state-approved ability-to-benefit pathway. The Site is therefore not directed to children under 13, and the School does not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under 13 within the meaning of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501–6506, and 16 C.F.R. Part 312. A parent or guardian who believes a child has provided information to the Site may contact the Privacy Officer, and the School will delete that information.

13. Changes to This Policy

The effective date appears at the top of this policy. When the School revises the policy, it posts the revision on this page with a new effective date and identifies material changes here. Where a revision materially affects enrolled students, the School also provides notice through its ordinary channels of communication with students, such as email or notice within the student account area of the Site.

14. Contact; Complaints Outside the School

Questions, inspection requests, correction requests, and complaints may be directed to:

ATTN: Privacy Officer
Alia Healthcare, Columbus Campus, 2800 Corporate Exchange Dr., STE 410, Columbus, OH 43231, 614-847-3617
Alia Healthcare, Cincinnati Campus, 110 Boggs Ln, Suite 301, Cincinnati, OH 45246, 513-771-3900
[email protected]

A person who is not satisfied with the School's handling of a concern may also contact the relevant Regulator directly. Depending on the subject matter these include ODH's NATCEP program office for nurse aide training matters, SBCCS for matters within its jurisdiction over registered career colleges, and the Ohio Attorney General for consumer matters. Contact information for each is available on the agency's official website; the School does not publish those numbers here because agencies revise them.

Nothing in this policy requires a person to complete the School's internal process before contacting any Regulator.