Terms of Service

1. What DocLien does

DocLien is a coordination platform for personal-injury cases. It helps law firms refer injured clients for medical treatment on a lien basis, helps medical providers accept referrals, schedule visits and share records and bills, lets patients sign forms electronically, and tracks the status of each case and lien.

2. What DocLien is not

• DocLien is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. It is not a lawyer referral service, and it does not recommend or choose attorneys for anyone.
• DocLien is not a health care provider and does not give medical advice, diagnose or treat anyone. All medical decisions are made by the treating provider and the patient.
• DocLien is not an emergency service. In an emergency, call 911.
• DocLien is not an insurer, lender or collection agency, and does not hold settlement funds or client trust money.
• DocLien does not guarantee the outcome of any case, that any lien will be paid, or that a provider will be available.

3. Professional independence and patient choice

Providers keep full, independent medical judgment over the care they give. Attorneys keep full, independent professional judgment over their clients’ cases. Nothing in the Service, and nothing DocLien says, directs either.

Patients are free to choose, and to change, their medical providers and their attorney. When DocLien suggests a provider, the suggestion is based on things like location, specialty and availability, and the patient and the patient’s attorney may decline it.

4. No payment for referrals

No one may pay or receive anything of value through DocLien in exchange for referring a patient or a client. This includes California Business and Professions Code section 650, California Insurance Code section 750, the California Rules of Professional Conduct (including rules 5.4 and 7.2), Business and Professions Code sections 6152 and 6155, and any federal law that applies.

Any fees for DocLien’s services are set in a separate written agreement with your Organization. They are for services DocLien actually provides, at fair market value, and are never based on the number or value of referrals. DocLien will give at least 30 days’ notice before introducing or changing any fee.

Each Organization is responsible for its own compliance with the laws and professional rules that apply to it, including lien, fee-agreement, advertising and solicitation rules.

5. Who may use DocLien

• Law firms must be led by an attorney licensed by the State Bar of California and in good standing. Medical providers must hold the licenses their services require and a valid National Provider Identifier (NPI).
• DocLien may verify any information you give us, including licenses, NPI and State Bar status, and may refuse or end any account. Providers do not receive referrals until DocLien verifies them.
• You must tell DocLien promptly if your license, State Bar status or NPI changes, is suspended or is limited.

6. Your account and sign-in

• Each person needs their own login. Never share passwords, sign-in codes or devices that are signed in.
• Two-step sign-in is required. Keep your password and authenticator app secure.
• You are responsible for everything done with your login and your Organization’s accounts.
• When someone leaves your Organization or no longer needs access, remove their access, or ask DocLien to, within one business day.
• Tell DocLien right away at privacy@doclien.com if you think someone has used an account, or seen patient information, without permission.

7. Protecting patient information

DocLien holds sensitive medical and personal information about injured people. Protecting it is a condition of using the Service. Everyone who uses DocLien agrees to:

• Look only at the cases you are working on, and only at the information you need for that work.
• Use patient information only to provide care to, or represent, that patient in that matter, and never for marketing, solicitation or any other purpose.
• Not copy, download, print, screenshot or share patient information outside DocLien unless your work for that patient requires it, and then keep it secure (for example, not on personal email, personal devices or unsecured messaging).
• Never put patient details in emails, text messages or chat tools that are not secure and approved by your Organization for patient information, and never paste patient information into public AI tools.
• Keep any copies only as long as you need them and as the law or your professional rules require, then destroy them securely.
• Tell DocLien within 48 hours of learning of any loss, theft, or use or disclosure of patient information from DocLien that these Terms do not allow, and help DocLien respond.

Medical providers. Under HIPAA, providers are "covered entities" and DocLien is their "business associate". The Business Associate Agreement between DocLien and each provider is part of these Terms and controls how DocLien handles the provider’s patients’ health information. Providers remain responsible for their own HIPAA and California obligations, including giving patients their Notice of Privacy Practices and answering patients’ requests for their records.

Law firms. Law firms receive a client’s medical information because the client has signed an authorization and the firm represents the client. Law firms must keep it confidential under their professional duties and California law (including Civil Code section 56.13, which forbids passing it on further without a new authorization or legal permission), and may use it only to represent that client.

Authority to share. By adding information about a person to DocLien, you confirm that you are allowed to share it for the purposes of the Service, for example because the person is your client or patient and has given any authorization the law requires.

Access records. DocLien records each time anyone opens a case file and may review those records to protect patients. DocLien may suspend access immediately if it suspects patient information is being misused.

8. Information you add

You and your Organization keep ownership of the information you add to DocLien. You give DocLien permission to store, process, display and share it as needed to provide the Service to the people on each case, to keep the Service secure, and as the law requires. For patient health information, the Business Associate Agreement and the law set further limits.

DocLien may create de-identified or aggregate information (which does not identify any person, following HIPAA’s de-identification standard) to measure and improve the Service and the provider network, and may use that information after these Terms end.

You are responsible for the accuracy of what you add, including referral details, insurance and coverage information, records, bills and balances.

9. Things you must not do

• Break any law or professional rule, or help anyone else do so.
• Add false information, fake patients or referrals, or anything you do not have the right to share.
• Use DocLien to solicit patients or clients, or use runners, cappers or anyone paid to find cases.
• Use DocLien in connection with insurance fraud or any false or inflated claim or bill.
• Try to see information you are not allowed to see, get around security, or test the Service’s security without DocLien’s written permission.
• Copy, scrape, resell or reverse engineer the Service, or use it to build a competing product.
• Upload viruses or harmful code, or overload or disrupt the Service.

10. Electronic signatures and records

You agree to do business with DocLien electronically. Signatures made in DocLien (typed or drawn), and records kept in it, have the same effect as paper signatures and records under the federal E-SIGN Act and California’s Uniform Electronic Transactions Act. DocLien keeps a record of each signature, including the time, the document version and a fingerprint of the signed document.

11. Emails and text messages

DocLien sends service messages by email and text, such as sign-in links and codes, and notices that there is an update to sign in and view. These messages never include patient details. You can choose which notices you receive in Settings, but DocLien may still send messages needed for security or for your account.

Text messages: message and data rates may apply; message frequency varies. Reply STOP to stop texts or HELP for help. DocLien does not send marketing texts.

12. Other companies’ services

DocLien uses other companies to run the Service, such as hosting, database, email and text-message providers. They are listed in our Privacy Policy. Those that handle patient health information do so under a business associate agreement with DocLien. Links to other websites are for convenience; DocLien is not responsible for them.

13. Changes to the Service

DocLien may change, add or remove features. Some features may be marked as early or beta and may change more often. DocLien aims to keep the Service available but does not promise it will always be available or free of errors.

14. Suspension and ending

Your Organization may stop using DocLien at any time by telling us. DocLien may suspend or end access, with notice when practical, if these Terms are broken, if a license or verification lapses, to protect patients or the Service, or if the law requires it. DocLien may also end the Service for any reason with 30 days’ notice.

When access ends, DocLien handles patient information as the Business Associate Agreement and the law require. Cases already in progress may need to be handed over; DocLien will work with you so patients’ care and liens are not disrupted. Sections that by their nature should continue (including 4, 7, 8, 15 to 18 and 20) continue after these Terms end.

15. Disclaimers

Except as stated in these Terms or required by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available". DocLien makes no other promises, express or implied, including that it is fit for a particular purpose, merchantable or uninterrupted. Balances, status labels, suggestions and reports in DocLien are tools to help coordinate cases; check important figures before relying on them.

16. Limits on liability

To the extent the law allows: (a) neither DocLien nor your Organization is liable to the other for lost profits, lost fees, lost data, or indirect, special, consequential or punitive damages; and (b) each party’s total liability under these Terms is limited to the greater of the fees your Organization paid DocLien in the 12 months before the claim, or $1,000.

These limits do not apply to a party’s indemnity duties, to fraud, gross negligence or willful misconduct, to a party’s breach of its duties to protect patient information, or where the law does not allow them.

17. Responsibility for claims (indemnity)

Your Organization will defend DocLien and its people against, and pay the costs of, claims by others that arise from: the medical or legal services your Organization provides; information your Organization adds; your Organization’s breach of these Terms or the law; or an unauthorized use or disclosure of patient information by your Organization or its people.

DocLien will defend your Organization against, and pay the costs of, claims by others that arise from an unauthorized use or disclosure of patient information caused by DocLien’s breach of these Terms or the Business Associate Agreement.

The party asking for a defense must tell the other promptly, let it control the defense, and cooperate. Neither party may settle a claim in a way that admits fault for the other without its consent.

18. Disagreements

California law governs these Terms, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

If a disagreement arises, first email legal@doclien.com (or, for DocLien, your account email) and try in good faith to resolve it for 30 days. If it is not resolved, it will be decided by confidential, binding arbitration by JAMS under its Comprehensive Arbitration Rules, before one arbitrator, in Orange County, California. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court that has jurisdiction.

Claims must be brought individually, not as a class, collective or representative action. Either party may bring a claim in small claims court if it qualifies, and either party may ask a court for an urgent order to protect patient information, confidential information or intellectual property. Both parties give up the right to a jury trial for anything covered by this section.

19. Changes to these Terms

DocLien may update these Terms. For important changes we will tell you in advance by email or in DocLien, and ask you to accept the new version the next time you sign in. The version and date are shown at the top of this page, and DocLien keeps a record of which version each person accepted.

20. General

• These Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Business Associate Agreement (for providers) and any signed agreement about fees are the whole agreement about the Service. If they conflict, the Business Associate Agreement controls for patient health information, and a signed fee agreement controls for fees.
• Your Organization may not transfer these Terms without DocLien’s written consent. DocLien may transfer them as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of its business, and the new owner must keep the same protections for patient information.
• Neither party is responsible for delays caused by events outside its reasonable control.
• If part of these Terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies. Not enforcing a right is not giving it up.
• DocLien and your Organization are independent; neither is the other’s employee, partner or agent. No one else gets rights under these Terms.
• Notices to DocLien go to legal@doclien.com. Notices to your Organization go to the email on its account.

21. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email legal@doclien.com. Privacy or security concerns: privacy@doclien.com.