Terms and Conditions

1. Who we are and what these terms are

The Health Lab platform is operated by Santos & Balêcho, Lda, a company with tax number (NIPC) 518336417, registered at OneWorld Business Center, Rua dos Pocinhos 2, sala 470, 2655-241 Ericeira, Portugal. You can contact us at geral@health-lab.pt.

These terms govern the use of the website health-lab.pt and the Health Lab application. By creating an account, you declare that you have read and accept them. If you do not agree with them, do not create an account and do not use the platform.

How we handle your personal data is not here: it is in the Privacy Policy, which forms an integral part of these terms. In the event of divergence between the two documents regarding data protection, the Privacy Policy prevails.

2. What Health Lab is, and what it is not

Health Lab is a tool for recording, organising and following health information. It lets you keep habits, metrics, questionnaires, laboratory results and documents, and see how those records evolve over time.

The platform is not a medical device and is not intended to diagnose, prevent, monitor, predict, prognosticate, treat or alleviate any disease. It does not issue diagnoses, does not classify your state of health, does not set personalised target values and does not replace assessment by a health professional.

When the application shows a reference range next to a lab value, that range is the one in the laboratory's own report, reproduced as it appears there. The comparison is one of reading, not of clinical interpretation: it is for your doctor to say what a value means in your case.

The consistency indicators the application calculates (namely what appears as "Consistency") measure adherence to the habits that you defined. They are a measure of adherence to your own routine, not a measure of your state of health.

In the event of a worrying symptom or an emergency, contact a health professional or call 112. Do not use the platform to communicate urgent situations: it is not monitored in real time.

3. Who can create an account

Account creation is reserved for people aged 18 or over. If you are a minor, you may only use the platform through an account created and supervised by your legal representative, who assumes responsibility for its use.

There are two ways in. You can sign up directly, creating an account from the website or from an invitation. Or you can come in through admission, via a link sent by a health professional before the first appointment, which opens an admission form and creates the account at the end. In both cases these terms apply in full.

You undertake to provide true information and keep it up to date, to choose a strong and unique password, not to share it, and to tell us without delay if you suspect improper access to your account. The account is personal and non-transferable.

4. Plans and what each one includes

There is a free plan and a paid plan, the latter with two billing cycles: monthly and annual. The paid plan is the same in both cycles: the period and the amount change, not the features.

The free plan has no time limit and no trial period: it is permanent. It includes habits and routines, the consistency indicator, metric recording, questionnaires, history and the rehabilitation library. It also includes the upload of one laboratory analysis; from the second onwards, a paid plan is required.

Exporting and deleting your data is available on all plans, including the free one, and will remain so. These are rights the law grants you, not features for sale.

The features of each plan may evolve. If a feature that was included in your paid plan comes to be excluded, we will give you reasonable notice and you may cancel without penalty.

5. Prices, payment and renewal

The price in force is the one shown to you at the time of subscription, before any payment, taxes included. That amount is the binding one, which is why we do not repeat it on this page, so that there is no second place stating a price that could become outdated.

Payments are processed by Stripe. Your card details are handled directly by that provider and are neither accessible to nor stored by us.

The subscription renews automatically at the end of each cycle, monthly or annual, at the amount then in force for your plan, until you cancel it. The invoice is issued in the name of the details you give us.

Founder price. If you subscribed under a condition identified as a founder price, that amount is maintained for as long as the subscription remains active and uninterrupted, with no increase applied. If you cancel and come back later, the price in force on that date applies.

Price changes. Apart from the previous case, we may change prices. Any change is communicated at least 30 days in advance, takes effect only in the following billing cycle, and you may cancel before the new condition applies. We never apply an increase to a cycle already paid.

6. Right of withdrawal

As a consumer, you have 14 days to withdraw from the contract without giving any reason and without paying any penalty, counted from the date of subscription, under Portuguese Decree-Law no. 24/2014 of 14 February.

To exercise it, simply communicate that decision to us in writing, at geral@health-lab.pt, within that period. No justification is needed. We refund the full amount paid within 14 days of receiving the communication, by the same means of payment you used.

When you subscribe, the paid service becomes available to you immediately, at your request. This does not remove the right above: if you withdraw from the contract within the 14 days, we refund the full amount, regardless of the use you made of it in that period.

7. Cancelling the subscription

You can cancel whenever you want, on your own and without speaking to us, in the application under Profile → Manage subscription, which opens the billing portal where you will also find your invoices and can change the means of payment.

Cancellation takes effect at the end of the cycle already paid: you keep access to the paid plan until that date and are not charged again. Outside the withdrawal period, there is no pro-rata refund of the current cycle.

Once the cycle ends, the account moves to the free plan. You lose nothing you recorded: your data stays there, and you can still export it and ask for its deletion. What becomes unavailable are the features of the paid plan.

8. Your data: export and delete

You can download everything we hold about you, in a structured, machine-readable format, under Profile → Export my data. You do not have to ask us, and it is available on all plans.

You can request deletion of the account at geral@health-lab.pt. We delete your records and the files you uploaded, except where there is a legal obligation to keep them (namely clinical records or documents with accounting and tax relevance), in which case we keep only what is required and for the period required. Deletion is irreversible: export what you want to keep first.

The periods, the legal bases and the other rights are detailed in the Privacy Policy.

9. Acceptable use

The platform is intended for following your own health. You undertake not to use it to upload third parties' health data without grounds to do so; not to attempt to access accounts, data or files that are not yours; not to circumvent plan limits or authentication or security mechanisms; not to overload or disrupt the service, namely through unauthorised automation; and not to upload unlawful content or content that infringes third-party rights.

Serious or repeated breach of these rules may lead to suspension or closure of the account. Whenever circumstances allow, we give notice first and give you the opportunity to export your data.

10. Content and intellectual property

What is yours stays yours. The records, metrics, documents and lab results you upload are yours. We acquire no ownership over them. We use them only to provide you with the service, under the Privacy Policy, which also provides, separately, for the use of aggregated and anonymised data for statistics and research.

What is ours stays ours. The application, the website, the Health Lab brand, the texts, the rehabilitation exercise library and the educational content are the property of Santos & Balêcho, Lda or of third parties who have licensed their use to us. You may use them to follow your health; you may not copy, redistribute, resell or commercially exploit them without written permission.

11. Availability and limits of liability

We strive to keep the platform available and correct, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. There may be interruptions for maintenance, through failure of providers we depend on, or for reasons beyond our control. When the interruption is scheduled and significant, we try to give notice in advance.

The information shown results, in large part, from what you record and the documents you upload. We do not guarantee the accuracy of values extracted automatically from a document: the extraction is a reading aid, the values remain available for review and correction, and it is for you to confirm them.

We are liable for damage resulting from culpable breach of our obligations, under the general rules of law. Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that the law does not allow to be excluded or limited, namely for wilful misconduct, gross negligence, or towards consumers in the cases where the law prohibits it.

We are not liable, however, for health decisions taken on the basis of the platform's information without a professional's follow-up, since, as stated in section 2, the platform is not intended for that purpose.

12. In-person appointments

The osteopathy and physiotherapy appointments advertised on this website are not provided through the platform: they are provided by Santos & Balêcho, Lda, at the Health Lab unit, licensed by the Portuguese health regulator (Entidade Reguladora da Saúde) under no. 27228. The clinical director is João Paulo Oliveira dos Santos, also the technical lead for Osteopathy (ACSS licence no. C-0032357); the technical lead for Physiotherapy is Tiago Alexandre Patrício Pereira (Portuguese Physiotherapists' Association, licence no. 734).

Booking, price, payment and the conditions for rescheduling or missing those appointments are governed by the conditions communicated at the time of booking, not by these terms, which govern the platform.

Without prejudice to section 13, complaints about the provision of healthcare may be submitted to the Entidade Reguladora da Saúde, at www.ers.pt.

13. Complaints and dispute resolution

First of all, talk to us: geral@health-lab.pt. Most situations are resolved this way, and faster.

The electronic complaints book (Livro de Reclamações) is available to you at www.livroreclamacoes.pt.

As a consumer, you may also resort to alternative dispute resolution, under Portuguese Law no. 144/2015 of 8 September. The competent body is the Centro Nacional de Informação e Arbitragem de Conflitos de Consumo (CNIACC), at www.cniacc.pt. You also have access to the European online dispute resolution platform, at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.

14. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. The version in force is identified by the date and version number shown at the top of this page.

When the change is significant (namely if it affects the price, the content of the plan or your rights), we will notify you through the available contact channels at least 30 days in advance. If you do not agree, you may cancel before the change takes effect. Continuing to use the platform after that date counts as acceptance.

15. Applicable law

These terms are governed by Portuguese law. If you are a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory provisions of the law of your country of habitual residence in the European Union, and you may bring proceedings in the courts of that country.