Privacy Policy & Text Message Terms

Effective September 23, 2026 · Last updated October 7, 2026

District Physical Therapy is the trade name of DCPT LLC ("DCPT," "we," "our," or "us"). We are an outpatient Physical Therapy practice with a clinic on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, a clinic in Bethesda, Maryland, and an In-Home Physical Therapy service.

This is the only privacy policy for districtphysicaltherapy.com. It has two parts:

Part 1 — Website Privacy Policy. What we collect through districtphysicaltherapy.com, how we use it, and who we share it with.
Part 2 — Phone Calls and Text Messages. What we keep when you call us, how our text messaging works, and how to stop texts.

Our Terms of Service and SMS Terms are a separate page, at https://www.districtphysicaltherapy.com/terms. That page covers the rules for using this website and the full terms of our text messaging program. Our HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices is also a separate page: it describes how we may use and disclose your protected health information when you are our patient, and your rights over it. These pages are written to say the same thing; if you ever find a conflict between them about how we handle your information, this privacy policy controls, except that the Notice controls for protected health information.

If you have a question about anything on this page, contact our Privacy Officer at compliance@districtphysicaltherapy.com or 202-964-0323.

The short version

We do not sell your personal information.
No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes.
We do not record phone calls.
We do not send marketing or promotional text messages.
Agreeing to receive text messages is never a condition of treatment.
Our appointment request form does collect health information. We treat it as confidential.

Every one of these statements is explained, in full, below.

Part 1 — Website Privacy Policy

This part applies to everyone who uses districtphysicaltherapy.com, whether or not you become a patient. If you are a patient, our Notice of Privacy Practices also applies to your health information.

Information we collect

Information you give us.

Our appointment request form asks for your full name, email address, and phone number, and asks you to choose the service you are interested in. Those four are required, and so is a checkbox acknowledging that we will use what you enter to contact you, verify your benefits, and schedule your evaluation. You can also choose a preferred clinic, a preferred date and time, and add notes.

Our careers form asks for your full name, email address, phone number, and the role you are applying for, and lets you add your years of clinical experience, a LinkedIn or résumé link, and a short note about yourself. We do not accept file uploads through this website, so we do not store résumé documents submitted here.

If you email, call, or text us, we receive whatever you choose to include.

Information collected automatically. When you visit this site, our hosting provider records standard server log data: your IP address, browser type, device type, the pages you requested, the referring URL, and timestamps. We do not run any logging of our own, and we do not try to identify individual visitors from this data.

Cookies. Our own website code does not set tracking cookies. The cookies and similar identifiers stored in your browser when you use this site are placed by the third-party services described under "Advertising, analytics, and Google" and "Other companies' content on our pages" below. Some of them, including Google's advertising and analytics cookies, are stored under our own districtphysicaltherapy.com address even though Google sets and reads them. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking them will not stop you from using the site, though the embedded maps may not display.

Yes, our appointment form collects health information

We want to be straightforward about this, because an earlier version of this page was not.

The service menu on our appointment request form lists clinical categories, including Post-Surgery Recovery, Chronic Pain Management, Balance and Fall Prevention, and Dry Needling. The notes box asks you to tell us about your condition. Choosing one of those options, or describing your condition, tells us something about your health. Combined with your name, email address, and phone number on the same form, that is health information about you.

So we treat what you submit through that form as confidential. We protect it with the same administrative, physical, and technical safeguards we use for patient records, we limit access to the staff who need it to do their jobs, and we never use it for advertising. If you become our patient, your request becomes part of your medical record, and the rights described in our Notice of Privacy Practices apply to it from that point on.

Even so, please keep clinical detail brief. Ordinary email and web forms are not secure or encrypted channels. Give us enough to reach you and get you scheduled, and save the detail for your phone call or your first visit. If you would rather not type anything about your condition at all, call us at 202-964-0323 instead.

What happens when you submit an appointment request

Three things happen:

We save your request. It is emailed to our front desk through Google Workspace, and it is recorded in our own patient record system as a request for care so the front desk can follow up.
We send you an automatic reply. That email asks you to send back your full name as it appears on your insurance card, your date of birth, your insurance provider, your insurance ID number, and your home address, so we can verify your benefits before your evaluation.
We tell our advertising tools that a request came in. Google receives the fact that the form was submitted, and nothing else. It does not receive the service you selected, your name, your email address, your phone number, or anything you typed in the notes box.

You are never required to send insurance or identity information by email. That automated reply arrives by ordinary email, which is not a secure channel. If you would rather not answer it, call us at 202-964-0323 and we will take the information over the phone or at your first visit.

If you apply for a job

Information you submit through our careers form is emailed to our hiring team through Google Workspace and used to evaluate your application, contact you, and keep our recruiting records. It is not added to any patient record, and we do not sell it.

When an application is submitted, our website does tell Google that an application came in and which role was selected, so we can see which job postings are working. Google does not receive your name, your email address, your phone number, your LinkedIn or résumé link, or anything you typed. If you apply through a third-party job board instead, that board's privacy policy governs what it collects.

How we use information

To answer your question, verify your benefits, and get you scheduled.
To send appointment confirmations, reminders, and follow-up about your care, through the channels you have agreed to.
To operate, maintain, secure, and improve this website.
To measure whether our advertising is working, as described below.
To review and respond to job applications.
To meet our legal, regulatory, and professional obligations, and to prevent fraud or abuse.

How we share information

We do not sell your personal information. We do not share your personal information with anyone for their own marketing or promotional purposes. We do not provide your information to lead generators, data brokers, or list sellers.

We share information only in these situations:

Business associates. Vendors that create, receive, maintain, or transmit protected health information on our behalf. Today those are Prompt EMR, our clinical and practice management system; AT&T Office@Hand, our telephone and text messaging service; our own patient record system; and the hosting and email providers that carry appointment requests to our front desk, which are Vercel and Google Workspace. Before any vendor handles protected health information for us, we put a written Business Associate Agreement in place requiring it to safeguard that information and to use and disclose it only as that agreement and HIPAA allow. Those agreements let a vendor run and administer its own business and create de-identified information; they do not let it use your information for its own marketing, and they do not let it sell it. Our agreement with Google covers only the Google Workspace services Google lists as covered, including the Gmail service that carries appointment requests to our front desk. It does not cover Google's advertising, maps, or other services.
Website service providers. Companies whose services run on this website and that we do not send your form entries to: Google's advertising and measurement services, and Google Maps and Google Places for location information. Each of them may use what we give them only to perform services for us. None of them may use it for their own marketing or promotional purposes, and none of them may sell it.
Legal and safety reasons. When required by law, subpoena, or court order, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our patients, our staff, or the public.
At your direction. When you give us a signed authorization to send information to someone else. For protected health information, that authorization must meet the requirements described in our Notice of Privacy Practices, and you may revoke it at any time in writing.
If the practice changes hands. If District Physical Therapy is ever merged with, acquired by, or sold to another practice, or transfers a clinic to another provider, patient records and business records may transfer as part of that change so your care is not interrupted. Any organization receiving them would be bound by this policy and by HIPAA, and we would post notice of the change on this page beforehand. This is not an exception to anything in Part 2: your mobile phone number and your text messaging consent are never transferred to anyone for marketing or promotional purposes, in a business transfer or otherwise.

Mobile phone numbers and text messaging consent

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Information sharing to subcontractors in support services, such as customer service, is permitted. All the above categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.

Said plainly: we do not share, sell, rent, trade, or otherwise transfer your mobile phone number or your text messaging consent to third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. No mobile opt-in or text message consent will be shared with third parties or affiliates.

There is one narrow exception, and it exists only so that messages can reach your phone: we may share your Personal Data, including your SMS opt-in or consent status, with third parties that help us provide our messaging services, including but not limited to platform providers, phone companies, and any other vendors who assist us in the delivery of text messages. Those vendors may use it only to deliver our messages to you. They may not use it for their own marketing, and they may not sell it. We will not share your opt-in to an SMS campaign with any third party for purposes unrelated to providing you with the services of that campaign.

Advertising, analytics, and Google

This website loads measurement and advertising services provided by Google through the Google tag (gtag.js): Google Ads conversion measurement. These services use cookies and similar identifiers, and Google collects and processes that data under its own privacy policy.

Here is exactly what our setup sends:

Ordinary page-view and site-usage data, including the address of each page you visit. On this site those addresses can themselves be revealing: our condition, procedure, and insurance pages have addresses like /conditions/sciatica, /procedures/knee-replacement, and /insurance/medicare, and the appointment buttons on those pages carry that topic into the next address as well, for example /contact?reason=sciatica. Google receives those addresses the same way it receives any other page address. If you would rather it did not, use the opt-out options below.
When you click a phone number link anywhere on this site, the fact that a click happened and which of our numbers was dialed. Google does not learn your phone number.
When you submit the appointment request form, the fact that a submission happened, and nothing else.
When you submit the careers form, the fact that an application was submitted and which role you selected.

We do not send your name, your email address, your phone number, the service you selected on the appointment request form, or anything you type into our forms to Google Ads or to any other advertising service. Your appointment request itself does travel through Google Workspace email to reach our front desk, as described above — that is a different Google service, and it is covered by a Business Associate Agreement. We do not use information from your medical record for advertising. Using health information for marketing requires your written authorization, as described in our Notice of Privacy Practices.

We also do not build advertising audiences out of health-related browsing. We do not use remarketing, customer match, or interest-based advertising audiences assembled from the condition pages or service pages you read on this site, or from people who submit our forms, and we do not use Google Analytics Advertising Features such as Google Signals or Demographics and Interests reporting. Google treats health and medical conditions as a sensitive category and restricts their use for interest-based advertising. If that ever changes here, we will name the specific features on this page, explain how first-party and third-party Google cookies are used together, and repeat the opt-out instructions below.

We do not show a cookie banner. If you want to limit this tracking:

Block or delete cookies in your browser settings.
Install Google's Analytics opt-out browser add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Adjust ad personalization in Google's Ads Settings at https://adssettings.google.com.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control

Some browsers can send a "Do Not Track" signal, and some send a Global Privacy Control signal. There is no common industry standard for what a website must do when it receives one, and this website does not currently detect or respond to either signal. We would rather tell you that plainly than imply a protection we have not built.

What we can tell you is that we do not sell your personal information and we do not share it with anyone for their own marketing purposes, which is the outcome those signals are usually meant to achieve. The browser and Google opt-outs listed above do work, and they are the most reliable way to limit what this site's advertising and measurement tools collect about you. If we add support for Global Privacy Control, we will update this page.

Other companies' content on our pages

Google Maps. Our clinic location pages embed a Google map. When the map loads, Google receives your IP address and the page you are on. This website includes Google Maps features and content. Use of Google Maps features and content is subject to the then-current versions of the Google Maps/Google Earth Additional Terms of Service at https://maps.google.com/help/terms_maps/ and the Google Privacy Policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy.
Instagram posts. Our home page and location pages link to our Instagram account and may display our recent posts. When they do, we serve copies of the posts and their images from our own server, so your browser does not contact Instagram when the page loads. If you select a post or the follow link, you leave this site for Instagram, which handles what it collects under its own privacy policy.
Google reviews. We display publicly posted Google reviews of our clinics, including the reviewer's public name, rating, and review text. We retrieve the reviews from Google ourselves and serve them from our own server, and the clinic photos on our location pages are our own files, so your browser does not contact Google for those. The small profile picture shown next to each reviewer's name is the one exception: it loads directly from Google's servers, so Google receives your IP address and the page you are on when that picture loads.
Outbound links. Some pages link to other sites, including job listings. Those sites have their own privacy practices, and we are not responsible for them.

Data security

We use administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect the information we hold. This site is served over an encrypted connection, we limit access to workforce members who need the information to do their jobs, and vendors that handle protected health information for us are required to sign Business Associate Agreements.

No method of transmission over the internet and no method of electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Ordinary email and standard text messaging are not secure channels, which is why we ask you to keep clinical detail out of them.

How long we keep information

Treatment records, including records created from a website appointment request once you become a patient, are kept for the period required by the laws of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, by our professional obligations, and by our payer contracts.
Website inquiries that do not become patient relationships are kept while we work on your request and afterward for a reasonable period as part of our business records.
Job applications are kept for a reasonable period in case another suitable role opens.
Call logs and text messages are kept as part of our business and patient records.

We have not set a fixed automatic deletion schedule for every category above. If you ask us to delete information we hold about you, contact our Privacy Officer and we will review your request and respond. We will delete what we are not required to keep for treatment, payment, legal, regulatory, professional, or insurance reasons. Some information cannot be deleted on request, including your medical record for as long as the law requires us to keep it, and copies that remain in routine system backups and server logs until those expire on their normal schedule.

Your choices and your rights

Text messages. See Part 2. You can stop them at any time.
Email. You can unsubscribe from any marketing email using the link in the footer of that email, or by emailing us. We will still contact you about your appointments and your care unless you ask us to stop.
Cookies and advertising. See the opt-out links above.
Phone. If you would rather we not call you, tell us and we will use email instead.
Access, correction, and deletion. Whatever state you live in, you may ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Contact our Privacy Officer. If the information is part of your medical record, the broader and more specific rights in our Notice of Privacy Practices apply, and some records we are legally required to keep, as explained just above.

We will not retaliate against you, and nothing about your care will change, because you exercise any of these choices.

State privacy laws

We would rather be accurate here than impressive.

Washington, DC has no comprehensive consumer privacy statute. DC consumer protection law does apply to us, which is one reason this page says only things we can stand behind.
Virginia. The Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act exempts HIPAA covered entities, and we are one, so it does not apply to us.
Maryland. The Maryland Online Data Privacy Act reaches only businesses that handle personal data above volume thresholds we do not meet. Unlike most state privacy laws, Maryland's does not exempt health care providers as a whole. It excludes protected health information and certain other health data from its coverage, but other information we hold, such as website analytics, would fall under it if we ever crossed those thresholds. Maryland patients also have rights under the Maryland Confidentiality of Medical Records Act. Where Maryland law protects your health information more than federal law does, we follow Maryland law.
California. The California Consumer Privacy Act applies to businesses far larger than ours, and we do not believe we are subject to it. Rather than claim obligations we do not have, we have left out a California-specific rights section. The access, correction, and deletion offer above is open to residents of any state.
Breach notification. If personal or health information we hold is involved in a security breach, we will notify the people affected and the appropriate regulators as required by federal law and by the laws of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.

Visitors outside the United States

District Physical Therapy is a Physical Therapy practice in Washington, DC and Bethesda, Maryland. We serve patients in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, and this website is intended for people in the United States.

We store and process information in the United States. If you visit this site or send us information from another country, that information will be transferred to, stored in, and handled in the United States, where privacy laws differ from those in your country and may offer less protection.

We do not offer our services in the European Union or the United Kingdom and we do not target visitors there, so we do not operate under the GDPR or the UK GDPR. If you are outside the United States and want to know what information we hold about you, or want it deleted, contact our Privacy Officer and we will help you.

Children's privacy

This is a general-audience website. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 through it. If you believe a child under 13 has given us information here, contact our Privacy Officer and we will delete it.

We do treat pediatric patients. Intake paperwork, consent, and communication for a patient under 18 are handled with a parent or legal guardian, and those records are governed by HIPAA, state law, and our Notice of Privacy Practices rather than by this website policy. The separate 18-and-over rule for text messages is in Part 2.

Changes to this policy

We may update this page. The "Last updated" date at the top tells you when we last changed anything on it. The "Effective" date tells you when the current version took effect. If we make a material change, we will say so here. Changes to our Notice of Privacy Practices are governed by the "Changes to this Notice" section on that page.

Part 2 — Phone Calls and Text Messages

Phone calls

We do not record calls

We do not record phone calls. We do not capture or store call audio, and we do not create transcripts of calls. Our systems were deliberately built without the ability to download call recordings. If we ever change this, we will update this page and tell you at the start of the call.

What we do keep about a call

Our telephone service is AT&T Office@Hand. For each call to or from the practice, we keep a log entry recording the phone number on the other end, whether the call was incoming or outgoing, the date and time, how long the call lasted, the outcome (for example answered, busy, missed, or sent to voicemail), and which staff extension handled it. When the number matches a patient chart, the log entry is filed in that chart.

That is a record that a call happened, not a record of what was said.

When you call, our system may show the staff member answering your number and, if it matches, your chart, so we can help you without making you repeat yourself.

Our phone system takes voicemail. If you choose to leave a message, the phone system stores it so that we can call you back. We do not pull voicemail audio or voicemail transcripts into the medical record.

Text messages (SMS)

This section describes how District Physical Therapy handles text messages and mobile phone numbers. It governs any text message we send or receive.

Our SMS Terms and Conditions, at https://www.districtphysicaltherapy.com/terms, cover the same program. Where this page describes how we handle your information, the Terms describe how the program itself works. The two documents are written to say the same thing.

Current status

We are setting up a text messaging program of our own and have registered it with the mobile carriers. Messages from us come from one of five numbers registered to District Physical Therapy: our main number, 202-964-0323; our Capitol Hill clinic, 202-455-8644; our Bethesda clinic, 301-246-2244; our In-Home Physical Therapy service, 771-208-8833; and our billing office, 771-208-8782. Every message identifies District Physical Therapy by name. The program is not sending yet, and nobody has been signed up for it automatically.

If you are already a patient, you may already receive an appointment reminder by text or email the day before your visit. Those reminders come from the clinical software our clinics use, based on the consent you signed in your intake paperwork. They follow the same rules below: you can stop them at any time, and they do not carry clinical detail.

What our text messages are about

If you consent to receive text messages from District Physical Therapy, you may receive text messages about scheduling, appointment reminders and confirmations, intake paperwork and check-in links, follow-up about your care, and billing or administrative questions you ask us. We also reply by text to messages you send us.

We do not send promotional or marketing text messages. We do not text you on behalf of anyone else.

How you sign up

We text you only if you have given us permission. Today, permission comes from one of these:

The consent you sign in your intake paperwork. Our Consent to Treat form includes a section, which you sign, consenting to receive email, text messages, and calls from us for appointment reminders and other health care communications, at the phone numbers you give us at intake, including your wireless number. That form tells you that your wireless carrier may charge you for such messages, that messages may be generated by an automated dialing system, and that you may revoke your consent at any time.
The consent box on our appointment request form. When you request an appointment on this website, there is an optional checkbox, unchecked by default, agreeing to receive text messages at the number you entered. It states the message types, that frequency may vary, that message and data rates may apply, and how to stop. Leaving it unchecked has no effect on your request or your care.
Texting us first. If you start a conversation with us by text, we will reply by text about that conversation. Starting a conversation does not sign you up for appointment reminders. If we think reminders would help you, we ask first and wait for you to say yes.

Giving us your phone number on the appointment request form on this website is not, by itself, consent to receive text messages. That form asks for a phone number so a person can call you back about your request. We add a number from that form to our text message program only if you also check the consent box described above. That box is separate, it is never checked for you, and you do not have to check it to book an appointment.

Consent is not a condition of anything

Consent to receive text messages is not a condition of receiving treatment from us, of being scheduled, or of any purchase. You will get the same care whether or not you agree to be texted, and we will reach you by phone or email instead. You may revoke your consent at any time.

Message frequency

Message frequency may vary. It depends on how many appointments you have scheduled and on any conversation you start with us. For appointment reminders, expect roughly one message per scheduled visit.

Message and data rates

Message and data rates may apply. We do not charge you for text messages, but your mobile carrier may. Check your plan.

How to stop receiving text messages

Reply STOP to opt out. We also honor STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, and QUIT when sent as the whole message. We record your opt-out against your patient record. If you text STOP from a number we do not have on file for you and you still receive a message, call us at 202-964-0323 and we will stop them.

One thing worth knowing: our system reads the single word CANCEL as "stop texting me." If you want to cancel an appointment, call us at 202-964-0323 or write a full sentence rather than texting the word CANCEL by itself.

You can also stop texts by calling us at 202-964-0323, by telling any member of our staff, or by emailing frontdesk@districtphysicaltherapy.com. Our intake consent form also lists compliance@districtphysicaltherapy.com, which reaches our Privacy Officer; either address works. Opting out of text messages does not affect your care, your appointments, or your ability to call or email us.

We do not use a keyword to turn text messages back on. If you opt out and later change your mind, call us at 202-964-0323 or tell us at your next visit.

How to get help

Reply HELP for help. Before our text messaging program begins sending, an automatic HELP reply will be in place. It reads: "District Physical Therapy: for help call 202-964-0323 or email frontdesk@districtphysicaltherapy.com. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to unsubscribe." At any time you can also reach a person by calling us at 202-964-0323 or emailing frontdesk@districtphysicaltherapy.com.

What our text messages contain

A text message is not a secure or encrypted channel, so our messages are deliberately thin: your first name, the appointment date and time, and the clinic. They do not contain your diagnosis, the body part being treated, your clinician's specialty, or other clinical detail. If we need to discuss anything clinical, we call you or talk with you at your visit. Please keep clinical details and insurance numbers out of the texts you send us, too.

Text messages you send us

Text messages you send to our clinic number are saved in full, along with the number they came from and the time they arrived. When the number matches a patient chart, the message is filed in that chart as part of your record, the same way a phone note would be.

We never share your number or your consent

This is the part we want to be unmistakable.

We share information only with the service providers and business associates named in Part 1, for the legal and safety reasons named in Part 1, and at your direction. No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Information sharing to subcontractors in support services, such as customer service, is permitted. All the above categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.

Said plainly: we do not share, sell, rent, trade, or otherwise transfer your mobile phone number or your text messaging consent to third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes, and we will not share your opt-in to an SMS campaign with any third party for purposes unrelated to providing you with the services of that campaign.

The one exception exists only so the messages can reach you: we may share your Personal Data, including your SMS opt-in or consent status, with third parties that help us provide our messaging services, including but not limited to platform providers, phone companies, and any other vendors who assist us in the delivery of text messages. Those vendors act on our instructions, may use the information only to deliver our messages, and where they handle protected health information they are required to sign a Business Associate Agreement.

Nothing anywhere else on this page, and nothing in the treatment, payment, health care operations, and business associate language of our Notice of Privacy Practices, permits us to share your mobile number or your text messaging consent for marketing or promotional purposes.

Age and delivery

You must be 18 or older, or have a parent or guardian's permission, to sign up for text messages from us. A parent or legal guardian may sign up to receive messages about a child's care.

Text message delivery depends on your mobile carrier and your device, and messages can be delayed or fail to arrive for reasons outside our control. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. If something is time-sensitive, we will also call.

Contact our Privacy Officer

District Physical Therapy (DCPT LLC)

Attn: Privacy Officer

Mail: PO Box 34056, Washington, DC 20043

Capitol Hill clinic: 1301 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Suite 100, Washington, DC 20003

Phone: 202-964-0323

Email: compliance@districtphysicaltherapy.com

We also have a clinic in Bethesda, Maryland and an In-Home Physical Therapy service. The contacts above cover all of them.

For general questions about scheduling or about this website, email frontdesk@districtphysicaltherapy.com or call 202-964-0323.