Website Terms of Use

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of brightsidecounseling.org and any other pages that link to these Terms (the “Site”), operated by Brightside Counseling LLC (“Brightside,” “we,” “our,” or “us”).

By accessing or using the Site, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Site.

These Terms apply to the Site only. Your use of the Brightside Patient Portal is governed separately by the Patient Portal Terms of Use.

1. The Site Is Informational Only

The Site provides general information about Brightside, our clinicians, and the services we offer. Its content is for general informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical, psychological, or professional advice, and it is not a substitute for evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment by a qualified professional who knows your circumstances.

Never disregard or delay seeking professional advice because of something you have read on the Site.

Using the Site, reading its content, submitting a form, or emailing us does not create a provider-patient relationship. A provider-patient relationship begins only after you complete intake and a Brightside clinician accepts you for care. Nothing on the Site is a guarantee of appointment availability, insurance coverage, acceptance for treatment, or any particular outcome.

2. Emergencies

Do not use this Site in an emergency. If you or someone else is in danger, in crisis, or thinking about self-harm, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. You can also call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day. The Site is not monitored continuously, and messages submitted through it are not reviewed on any guaranteed schedule.

3. Eligibility and Permitted Use

You must be at least 18 years old to submit information through the Site. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to access and use the Site for your own personal, non-commercial purposes. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

4. Intellectual Property

The Site and all of its contents — including text, clinician biographies, photographs, images, graphics, logos, blog posts, page design, layout, and the selection and arrangement of content — are owned by Brightside or its licensors and are protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws. “Brightside Counseling” and our logo are our marks.

Except as these Terms expressly permit, you may not copy, reproduce, republish, distribute, sell, license, modify, create derivative works from, frame, mirror, or publicly display any part of the Site without our prior written permission.

5. Automated Access, Scraping, and AI Training

You may not use any robot, spider, scraper, crawler, or other automated means to access, monitor, copy, index, or extract data from the Site, except that general-purpose search engines may index the Site for ordinary search results.

You may not use any part of the Site — including text, photographs, clinician biographies, and blog posts — to train, fine-tune, benchmark, or evaluate any machine learning or artificial intelligence model, or for text or data mining, without our prior written permission. We expressly reserve these rights and do not grant them by making content publicly accessible.

6. Prohibited Conduct

You agree that you will not:

• Use the Site for any unlawful purpose or in violation of these Terms;
• Submit false, misleading, defamatory, harassing, or abusive information;
• Impersonate any person or misrepresent your affiliation with anyone;
• Upload or transmit viruses, malware, or other harmful code;
• Probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Site, or breach or circumvent any security or authentication measure;
• Interfere with or place an unreasonable load on the Site or its infrastructure;
• Collect or harvest information about other users or our staff;
• Use the Site or any contact information on it for commercial solicitation, marketing, or recruiting.

7. Your Submissions

If you send us feedback, comments, suggestions, reviews, testimonials, ideas, photographs, or employment application materials through the Site (collectively, “Submissions”), you grant Brightside a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, fully paid, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, and display those Submissions, in whole or in part, in any media now known or later developed, for any lawful purpose, without compensation or attribution to you.

You represent that you own or have the necessary rights to your Submissions and that they do not violate any law or third-party right. We treat Submissions as non-confidential.

This Section does not apply to protected health information or to clinical information about your care, which is governed by HIPAA and our Notice of Privacy Practices rather than by these Terms.

8. Employment Applications

Materials submitted through the Site’s careers page are not an application for a specific position unless we say so, and submitting them does not create an employment relationship, an offer, or any commitment to interview or hire. We may retain application materials. Where permitted by law, employment with Brightside is at will.

9. Third-Party Sites and Services

The Site links to services we do not operate or control, including the Patient Portal host, our online intake application, mapping services, and social media. We provide these links for convenience only. We do not endorse and are not responsible for the content, products, privacy practices, availability, or security of any third party, and your dealings with them are solely between you and them.

10. Availability and Changes to the Site

We may modify, suspend, or discontinue the Site or any part of it at any time, with or without notice, and without liability to you. We do not guarantee that the Site will be available, uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free, or that any defect will be corrected.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

12. Limitation of Liability

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limitations of liability, so parts of this Section may not apply to you; in those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the greatest extent permitted by law. Nothing in these Terms limits liability for gross negligence, willful misconduct, or personal injury to the extent that limitation is prohibited by law.

This Section applies to the Site only. It does not apply to claims arising out of clinical care or treatment provided by Brightside clinicians, which are governed by applicable law and by any separate agreements between you and the practice.

13. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Brightside and its owners, members, officers, employees, clinicians, contractors, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, and expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, arising out of or related to your use of the Site, your Submissions, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any law or third-party right.

14. Dispute Resolution and Arbitration

Please read this Section carefully. It affects how disputes are resolved and limits your rights.

14.1 Informal resolution first

Before starting an arbitration or lawsuit, you agree to contact us using Section 19 and describe the dispute, and to give us 60 days to resolve it informally. This step is a condition of bringing a claim.

14.2 Binding individual arbitration

If we cannot resolve a dispute informally, any dispute arising out of or relating to the Site or these Terms will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, rather than in court. Arbitration will take place in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, or, at your election, by telephone, video, or written submission. The arbitrator’s decision is final and may be entered as a judgment in any court of competent jurisdiction.

14.3 Class action and jury trial waiver

You and Brightside each waive the right to a jury trial and agree that claims may be brought only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, consolidated, or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate claims or preside over any form of representative proceeding.

14.4 Exceptions

This Section does not apply to: (a) claims that qualify for small claims court, which either party may bring individually; (b) claims for injunctive or other equitable relief to protect our intellectual property or enforce Section 5; or (c) claims arising out of clinical care or treatment, which are excluded from this arbitration agreement.

14.5 Opting out

You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by sending written notice to the address in Section 19 within 30 days of first using the Site, stating your name and that you opt out of arbitration. Opting out does not affect the rest of these Terms.

14.6 Severability of this Section

If the class action waiver in Section 14.3 is found unenforceable as to a particular claim, that claim will be severed and heard in court, and the remainder of this Section will continue to apply to all other claims.

15. Governing Law and Venue

These Terms and any dispute relating to them or to the Site are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. For any matter not subject to arbitration, you consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the state and federal courts located in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

16. Termination

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Site at any time, for any reason or no reason, without notice or liability. Sections 4 through 7 and 9 through 19 survive any termination.

17. Changes to These Terms

We may revise these Terms at any time. Revised Terms take effect when posted to the Site, and we will update the “Last updated” date above. Your continued use of the Site after a revision is posted constitutes acceptance of it. Please review these Terms periodically.

18. General

• Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it will be limited or removed to the minimum extent necessary and the remaining provisions will remain in full force.
• No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it.
• Assignment. We may assign these Terms, in whole or in part, without restriction. You may not assign them without our prior written consent.
• Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and Brightside regarding the Site and supersede any prior understandings about it.
• No third-party beneficiaries. These Terms create no rights in any third party.
• Headings. Headings are for convenience only and do not affect interpretation.

19. Contact Us

Brightside Counseling LLC
681 Harleysville Pike, 2nd Floor
Harleysville, PA 19438
Phone: (215) 264-2272
Email: brightsidecounselingpa@gmail.com