Cancellation & Refund Policy

Document Owner: Hospitual Management | Status: Final – Public Website Version

This Policy should be read with the applicable country addendum. The addendum identifies the responsible Hospitual entity and explains country-specific requirements. If there is a conflict, the applicable addendum takes precedence to the extent of that conflict.

1.  Purpose

This Cancellation & Refund Policy explains how cancellations, refunds, rescheduling requests, consultation attendance issues, and related payment matters are managed for services provided through the Hospitual platform.

This policy applies to the following services:

• Tele-Radiology
• Tele-Pathology
• Online Medical Consultations

This policy applies to direct-to-consumer services unless otherwise stated in a separate agreement or service-level arrangement for institutional or business clients.

2.  Non-Emergency Service Notice

Hospitual is not an emergency medical service and must not be used for urgent or life-threatening medical conditions.

If you believe you may require urgent medical attention, you should immediately contact the emergency services applicable to your location or seek urgent in-person medical care. Country-specific emergency information is provided in the applicable addendum.

Clinicians using the Hospitual platform may:

• Decline emergency or urgent cases
• Stop the review or consultation process
• Refuse to issue a report where clinically inappropriate
• Advise immediate in-person assessment or treatment

Use of the platform for emergency medical situations may result in cancellation of the request without refund.

3.  Official Clinician Acceptance

A case is considered officially accepted once a clinician formally accepts the case through the Hospitual platform.

Before clinician acceptance:

• Users may cancel their request at any time
• No payment will be collected from the user’s payment method Once a clinician accepts a case:
• Payment is collected
• The service is considered commenced
• Cancellation rights become limited
• Refund eligibility becomes restricted as described in this policy

4.  Cancellation Before Clinician Acceptance

Users may cancel a submitted request at any time before clinician acceptance.

In these circumstances:

• No payment will be collected
• No refund process is required
• The request will be closed

5.  Cancellation After Clinician Acceptance

Once a clinician has accepted a case:

• Clinical time and professional resources have been allocated
• The clinical review process is considered to have started
• Cancellations are generally not permitted
• Refunds are generally unavailable except where otherwise stated in this policy or where required by law

This applies even if:

• The report has not yet been completed
• The patient later decides not to proceed
• The patient no longer wishes to receive the service

6.  Online Consultation Attendance and Delays

6.1  Patient Delay or Non-Attendance

Patients attending online consultations may arrive up to approximately 5 minutes late. The consultation may continue within the remaining scheduled time, but additional consultation time is not guaranteed.

If a patient fails to attend within a reasonable time after the scheduled consultation start time, the appointment may be treated as missed and rescheduling or refund requests may be refused.

6.2  Clinician Delay

If a clinician joins approximately 5 minutes late, reasonable efforts will be made to continue the consultation for the equivalent additional duration where operationally possible.

Where delays become significant, patients may request either rescheduling or a full refund.

6.3  Clinician or Platform Failure

Where a consultation cannot reasonably proceed because of clinician non-attendance, clinician cancellation, significant clinician delay, platform technical failure, or system disruption attributable to Hospitual, patients will normally be offered rescheduling or a full refund.

Approved refunds are generally processed within 5-10 business days.

7.  Rescheduling

Hospitual may permit rescheduling requests for online consultations at its discretion and subject to operational availability.

Repeated, excessive, or abusive rescheduling requests may be refused. Hospitual reserves the right to refuse rescheduling where:

• Clinician availability is limited
• Misuse of the platform is suspected
• Operational limitations exist

8.  Incomplete or Unsuitable Submissions

Users are responsible for submitting accurate information, readable and appropriate imaging or pathology files, sufficient clinical history, and relevant supporting materials where required.

Where submissions are incomplete, corrupted, unreadable, clinically insufficient, technically incompatible, or outside the clinician’s expertise, Hospitual or the clinician may request additional information, delay review pending clarification, or reject the request.

Where reasonably possible, the user will be given a reasonable opportunity to provide or correct the required information or files. If the service still cannot be provided after that opportunity, any payment collected for the undeliverable service will be refunded in full.

9.  Clinician Rejection

A clinician may decline or reject a case for reasons including:

• Emergency concerns
• Insufficient information
• Poor quality or unreadable files
• Technical limitations
• Conflicts of interest
• Inappropriate use of the service
• Lack of suitable expertise

Where no clinician accepts a case, no payment will be collected. Hospitual may, where appropriate, attempt reassignment to another suitable clinician.

10.  Completed Services

Once a report has been issued, a written opinion has been delivered, a consultation has taken place, or consultation outcomes have been communicated, the service is generally considered completed and non-refundable.

11.  Clinical Dissatisfaction and Complaints

Refund eligibility is not determined solely by whether a patient agrees with a clinical opinion, expected a different outcome, receives a different opinion from another healthcare professional, or considers the findings unfavourable.

Patients may nevertheless submit complaints or clinical concerns in accordance with the Hospitual Complaints Policy.

Complaints may be reviewed by Hospitual management, technical teams, clinicians, the Medical Lead, and appropriate clinical governance personnel.

Following review, Hospitual may, at its discretion, provide clarification, arrange further review, correct administrative errors, facilitate amendments where clinically appropriate, or offer partial or full refunds in exceptional circumstances.

Submission of a complaint does not automatically entitle a user to a refund.

12.  Technical Failures and Payment Errors

Where services cannot reasonably be delivered because of platform failure, failed consultation sessions caused by Hospitual systems, duplicate or erroneous payment processing, or significant technical disruption attributable to Hospitual, users may be offered reassignment, rescheduling, a partial refund, or a full refund, as appropriate.

13.  Fraud, Abuse, and Misuse

Hospitual reserves the right to suspend, restrict, reject, or cancel services where there is abusive or threatening behaviour, harassment of staff or clinicians, fraudulent activity, misleading or false submissions, repeated misuse of the platform, unjustified chargebacks or payment disputes, or inappropriate or unlawful use of services.

In appropriate circumstances, services may be cancelled without refund and future access to the platform may be restricted.

14.  Consumer Cancellation Rights

By submitting a request through the Hospitual platform, users acknowledge and agree that clinical services may begin immediately once a clinician accepts a case and that cancellation rights may become limited once the service has commenced.

Where required by applicable consumer protection laws, users may be asked to provide express consent for immediate commencement of services.

15.  Refund Processing

Approved refunds are generally processed within 5-10 business days. Actual processing times may vary depending on banking institutions, international payment providers, card issuers, and payment processing systems.

Refunds will normally be returned to the original payment method used during payment.

16.  Audit Logs and Governance Records

Hospitual maintains audit logs and operational records relating to cancellations, refunds, complaints, consultations, clinician acceptance, technical events, payment activity, and platform interactions.

Such records may be retained for patient safety, regulatory compliance, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, legal obligations, financial auditing, and governance and quality assurance purposes.

17.  Data Protection and Retention

Requests for deletion of personal data will be managed in accordance with applicable data protection and privacy laws and the Hospitual Privacy Notice and applicable country addendum.

Certain records may continue to be retained where necessary for legal obligations, financial compliance, complaint handling, patient safety, fraud prevention, clinical governance, and regulatory or audit requirements.

18.  Policy Updates

Hospitual reserves the right to amend or update this policy from time to time in order to:

• Reflect operational changes
• Comply with legal or regulatory obligations
• Improve patient safety
• Support governance and quality assurance processes

The latest version of this policy will be published on the Hospitual website.

19.  Applicable Addenda

• Schedule 1 – United Kingdom Cancellation & Refund Addendum
• Schedule 2 – Canada Cancellation & Refund Addendum