Expert agreement

This agreement governs the relationship between BÚZIOS E TARTARUGAS - LDA ("Eleva"), which operates the Eleva.care platform, and each health professional who offers services to members through the platform ("expert" or "you"). It supplements the Terms of use, the Payment policies and the Data processing agreement, which form part of it. If those documents and this agreement differ on a matter between you and Eleva, this agreement prevails.

This document is Eleva's terms and conditions for the purposes of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services (P2B Regulation). You accept it when you complete your registration as an expert.

1. Eleva's role

• Eleva is an intermediary. It provides the public profile, the calendar, bookings, online payment collection, the video call, messaging and the encrypted session record.
• Eleva does not provide healthcare. It does not employ experts and does not direct, supervise or assess clinical decisions.
• The contract for care is made directly between you and the member. You are the provider of the care and you answer for it to the member, to your professional body (Ordem) and to the authorities.
• This agreement does not create an employment, partnership or agency relationship. Eleva only acts on your behalf when it collects and transfers payments as described in section 8.
• Through a clinic. If you offer services through a clinic Team on Eleva, the clinic provides the care, invoices the member, receives the payment and is the controller of the clinical content. The clinic accepts this agreement and answers to Eleva for your obligations under it. In that case, sections 3, 4, 8 and 16 apply to the clinic.

2. Who can sell on Eleva

• Only health professionals in regulated professions with an active, unsuspended registration with their professional body (a public professional association) may offer paid services. Examples include the Ordem dos Médicos, the Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses, the Ordem dos Fisioterapeutas, the Ordem dos Nutricionistas and the Ordem dos Enfermeiros.
• Verification before publication. Before your profile is published or you accept bookings, Eleva checks your professional licence number (cédula profissional) and the status of your registration with the competent professional body, through the body's public register or by direct confirmation. Eleva may also ask for your identity document, your professional licence, proof of registration with the Entidade Reguladora da Saúde (ERS) and proof of professional liability insurance.
• Duty to keep information up to date. You must tell Eleva without delay of any suspension, cancellation or restriction of your registration, any disciplinary sanction that limits your practice, or any change to your qualifications or scope of practice.
• Eleva may check your registration again at any time. If Eleva cannot confirm it, or if the professional body states that it is suspended or cancelled, your services are no longer available for booking until the situation is resolved (section 13).
• You may only offer services that fall within your qualifications and the scope of your profession.

3. Independent professional status and regulatory duties

• You practise with technical and ethical autonomy. You set your services, prices, availability and cancellation policy from the options available.
• You are responsible for your tax and social security obligations, your professional liability insurance and compliance with your professional body's rules, including informed consent, professional secrecy and clinical records.
• ERS registration. You are responsible for your own registration in the ERS Register of Regulated Establishments (SRER), under Article 26 of the ERS Statutes approved by Decree-Law 126/2014, including for remote care (telemedicine). You are also responsible for the related duties, such as the complaints book and the regulatory fee. Where the law requires you to register, you must hold a valid ERS registration, give Eleva your registration number and display it on your Eleva profile and in your health advertising.
• Session invoicing. You issue the member the invoice (or invoice-receipt) for the session, using your own invoicing software certified by the Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira (AT). Eleva does not invoice the member for the session and does not charge VAT on it. The VAT treatment of the session (for example, the exemption in Article 9 of the VAT Code, where applicable) is your responsibility.
• Member's NIF. At payment, the member may choose to give their NIF for the invoice. Eleva collects it and makes it available to you, with the booking details, so that you can issue the invoice.
• The platform is not intended for emergencies. If a situation requires it, direct the member to 112 or to the appropriate emergency service.

4. Data protection

• Eleva is the controller of account, booking, payment and support data.
• You are the controller of the clinical content you create or receive in the course of care: intake forms, session notes, transcripts (when the member turns them on) and reports. For that content, Eleva is your processor under Article 28 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR). The processing terms are set out in the Data processing agreement, which forms part of this agreement.
• As controller, you ensure the lawful basis for processing health data (as a rule, Article 9(2)(h) GDPR and Article 29 of Law 58/2019). You also inform members, respond to requests to exercise rights over the clinical content, and comply with your duty of secrecy.
• Session records are encrypted at the application layer and kept by default for 7 years after the last session.
• You may only use members' data to provide the care contracted and to meet your legal obligations. You may not use it for marketing without the member's consent.

5. Profile and health advertising

• Your profile, your services and any communication you publish on Eleva are health advertising under Decree-Law 238/2015. You are the party in whose favour it is made and you are responsible for its content. Eleva takes part in its dissemination.
• Your profile must state, truthfully and completely, the information required by ERS Regulation 1058/2016: your name, your licence number and the professional body that issued it, your professional qualifications, your ERS registration number (where applicable) and, for in-person services, the address where you provide them.
• The following are prohibited, among other practices in Article 7 of Decree-Law 238/2015:
  • promising or guaranteeing a cure or results, or treatments without adverse effects;
  • using technical or scientific claims without evidence, or presenting a service as innovative or pioneering without prior assessment by the competent bodies;
  • encouraging unnecessary care or care without a prior individual assessment;
  • presenting a service as "free", "discounted" or "on promotion" in a misleading way;
  • offering health acts or services as prizes in contests, draws or competitions.
• You use information accepted by the technical and scientific community and write in a clear and understandable way.
• If you use Eleva's writing-assistance or translation tools, you remain responsible for the published text. See the AI processing notice.
• Eleva may refuse, ask you to correct, or remove content that is illegal or that breaches this agreement. When it does, it sends you the statement of reasons under section 13.
• Licence to show your profile. You give Eleva a free, non-exclusive licence, while your profile is live, to host, display, translate and format your profile content and photo on Eleva and in its listings and search results. The licence ends when you remove the content or your profile, except for copies Eleva must keep by law.

6. Eleva's fees

• Individual expert: Eleva charges a service fee of 15% of the booking price, including VAT where due. Example: on a €100 booking, the fee is €15 and you receive €85. There are no other deductions.
• Payment processing fees are paid by Eleva out of its fee.
• Clinic bookings: there is no per-booking fee on bookings made through a clinic on Eleva. The clinic pays a per-seat subscription, under the terms of its plan.
• Top Expert subscription (€29 per month): the service fee is 8% instead of 15%, and your profile appears first when members sort by Top Expert (section 11). You can cancel the subscription at any time; the 15% fee applies again from the end of the paid month.
• Any other paid plan shows its terms before you join, and those terms apply.
• Eleva invoices you for the service fee. The invoice identifies the session it relates to.
• The price you set is the final price the member sees, in euros.

7. Promo codes

• Eleva promo codes are funded by Eleva. They never reduce what you receive.
• Your share is always calculated on the list price of the service. Example: for a €100 service with a €20 code, the member pays €80, you receive €85 and Eleva covers the discount.
• Campaigns comply with Article 7 of Decree-Law 238/2015: the advertised discount is real and the member does not pay more than the price shown.

8. Payments and transfers

• Members pay on Eleva through Stripe Checkout (card, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, Link and MB WAY). Eleva collects the payment on your behalf through Stripe and transfers your share to your Stripe Connect account.
• To get paid, you must accept Stripe's connected account agreement and complete Stripe's identity verification.
• Transfer timing: your share becomes available on the later of 7 days after payment and 24 hours after the end of the session, and is released at 04:00 (Lisbon time). After that, Stripe pays it out to your bank account according to your account's payout schedule.
• Eleva may hold a transfer while there is an open dispute, a pending refund, a suspension because your registration has not been verified, or missing information required by sections 15 and 16.
• Amounts you owe Eleva under this agreement (for example, refunds for sessions you did not provide, or disputes lost for sessions not provided) are set off against your next transfers. If the transfers are not enough, you pay the difference when Eleva asks you to.

9. Cancellations, no-shows and refunds

• Policy per service. Each service has a cancellation policy that you choose: Flexible, Moderate or Strict. The policy shown at the time of booking applies to that booking. Refunds to the member follow the Payment policies.
• Cancellation by the member. The member is refunded according to the policy. You receive the percentage the policy keeps of your share, calculated on the list price under section 7. For example, if the policy refunds 50% on a €100 service, you receive €42.50.
• Member no-show. If the member does not attend and has not cancelled, the no-show is treated as a cancellation at the session start time. Under all three policies, this means the member gets no refund and you receive your share, as for a session that took place.
• Expert cancellation or no-show. If you cancel a confirmed booking, at any time, or do not attend, the member receives 100% of the amount paid, including Eleva's fee, and Eleva offers them a new booking. You receive nothing for that booking. If the transfer has already been made, the amount is recovered under section 8.
• Request to book. For services that need your acceptance, you have 24 hours to accept a request, or until the session starts if that is sooner. Declining a request, or letting it expire, refunds the member in full and you receive nothing for it.
• If you have to cancel, tell Eleva at support@eleva.care as early as possible. Do not ask the member to cancel for you.
• Illness or another serious reason. If a member shows that illness or another serious reason stops them attending, you move the booking once, free of charge, to a time you have available; the payment and your share carry over. Members are told this in the Payment policies.
• Proof of attendance. For online sessions, Eleva uses the video call join and leave logs to establish who attended. For in-person sessions, Eleva may ask both parties for information.
• Repeated cancellations or no-shows on your part may lead to restriction or suspension of your account, with a statement of reasons, under section 13.

10. Payment disputes (chargebacks)

• If a member disputes a payment with their card issuer, Eleva handles the dispute with Stripe.
• If the session was not provided because you cancelled or did not attend, Eleva accepts the dispute and the amount is recovered from your share, under section 8.
• If the session was provided, or the member did not attend, Eleva contests the dispute with the booking records, the video call attendance logs and the relevant communications. You must cooperate and send the information requested within the deadline given.
• The transfer for a disputed payment may be held until the decision.

11. Ranking in results

Under Article 5 of the P2B Regulation, these are the main parameters that determine the order of experts in Eleva's listings and searches:

• Eligibility: only active profiles of experts whose registration Eleva has verified appear.
• Filters chosen by the member: area of care, language, country of practice and how the session takes place (online, by phone or in person).
• Text search: relevance of the name and profile text to the search terms.
• Default order: without a text search, alphabetical order of the display name. The default order is never influenced by payment.
• Sort by price: when the directory lists enough experts, members can also sort from the cheapest published service to the most expensive.
• Top Expert first: when the directory lists enough experts, members can also sort so that experts with an active paid Top Expert subscription appear first, then the others in alphabetical order. Members see this order labelled "Top Expert first (paid plan)". This is the only form of remuneration that influences ranking.

Eleva receives no other remuneration to improve an expert's position. If the parameters change, this text is updated under section 19.

12. Access to data

• You have access to your bookings, the member contact details needed to provide the care, the session records you create, and your payment and transfer history.
• Eleva has access to platform operating data and uses it, in aggregate form, to operate, protect and improve the service. Eleva does not share your data with other experts.
• Before and after termination, you can export your data and the session records for which you are the controller, under the Data processing agreement.

13. Restriction, suspension and termination

• By you: you may terminate this agreement at any time in your account settings or by email to support@eleva.care. Future bookings must either take place or be cancelled. If you cancel, the member gets a 100% refund.
• Restriction or suspension by Eleva. Eleva may hide your profile, block new bookings or hold transfers when:
  • your registration with the professional body cannot be confirmed, or is suspended or cancelled;
  • there is a breach of this agreement, including the health advertising rules;
  • there are repeated cancellations or no-shows;
  • there is fraud, an attempt to circumvent payments, or a risk to members' safety;
  • the verification data required by Stripe or by sections 15 and 16 is missing;
  • the law or an authority requires it.
• Statement of reasons. Under Article 4 of the P2B Regulation and Article 17 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act), Eleva emails you the specific facts and reasons for the decision, before or at the time the measure takes effect.
• Termination by Eleva. Eleva may terminate this agreement with 30 days' notice, sent by email with a statement of reasons. Eleva may terminate without notice when it is subject to a legal or regulatory obligation (for example, loss of your registration with the professional body), when there are compelling reasons (illegal content, member safety, fraud) or in case of repeated breaches.
• You can clarify the facts through the complaints process in section 14. If the decision is reversed, Eleva restores your profile without delay.
• After termination, amounts owed by either party are settled and DAC7 reporting for the period covers the bookings already made.
• Your session records after termination. On your documented instruction under the Data processing agreement, Eleva keeps the session records you control for 7 years after the last session, so you can meet your record-keeping duty and members keep access to the reports already shared with them. You can ask for an export at any time, and Eleva deletes them at the end of that period.

14. Complaints and mediation

• Internal complaints. You can complain free of charge about any decision or issue related to Eleva, including suspensions, ranking, fees and technical problems, by email to legal@eleva.care. Eleva reviews each complaint and replies to you individually within a reasonable time, taking into account the importance and complexity of the case, and tells you the outcome.
• Mediation. For disputes not resolved through the internal complaint, Eleva is willing to mediate in good faith through the P2B mediation services of CEDR — Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (cedr.com/p2b), or through the mediation service of the Centro de Arbitragem Comercial in Lisbon (centrodearbitragem.pt), or through another independent mediator agreed by the parties. Eleva pays a reasonable share of the costs of each mediation. Using mediation does not prevent you from going to court.

15. Expert traceability

Before you offer services, you give Eleva the following, in line with Article 30 of the Digital Services Act:

• your name, address, phone number and email;
• an identity document or electronic identification;
• your payment account details (collected through Stripe);
• your company name and commercial registration number, if you practise through a company;
• a statement that you only offer services that comply with Union law and Portuguese law.

Eleva checks this information against official sources, such as your professional body's register. If Eleva has reason to believe that it is incorrect or incomplete, it asks you to correct it and suspends bookings until you do. Eleva makes available to members the identification and contact details that the law requires.

16. Reporting to the AT (DAC7)

Eleva is a reporting platform operator under Directive (EU) 2021/514 (DAC7), transposed by Law 36/2023 of 26 July, which amended Decree-Law 61/2013. Providing personal services is a relevant activity, so experts who sell on Eleva are reportable sellers.

• Data collected and reported to the AT:
  • individuals: name, primary address, NIF (or foreign tax identification number) and the country that issued it, date of birth and VAT number, if any;
  • entities: company name, primary address, NIF, VAT number, commercial registration number and whether there are permanent establishments in the EU;
  • the identifier of the bank account to which transfers are made, and the name of the account holder, if different;
  • per quarter: the total amount paid or credited, the number of paid bookings, and the fees and commissions withheld or charged by Eleva.
• Eleva reports by 31 January of the following year. By the same date, Eleva sends you the information reported about you. The AT may exchange it with the tax authority of the Member State where you are resident.
• If you do not provide the data after the initial request and two reminders, and at least 60 days have passed since the request, Eleva may close your account and prevent you from registering again, or hold transfers until you provide it.
• Eleva processes this data on the basis of a legal obligation.

17. Conduct

• Do not misrepresent your identity, credentials or qualifications, and do not act outside the scope of your profession.
• Do not circumvent the platform's payments for bookings made through Eleva.
• Treat members with respect and comply with the law, your professional body's code of ethics and this agreement.

18. Liability

• You are solely responsible for the care you provide, for clinical decisions and for meeting the obligations of your profession. You indemnify Eleva for losses and costs resulting from third-party claims caused by your professional practice or by your breach of this agreement.
• Eleva is responsible for the operation, security and compliance of the platform, as provided by law.

19. Changes to this agreement

• Eleva tells you about any change by email at least 15 days in advance, or longer if the change requires significant technical or commercial adjustments on your part.
• You may terminate the agreement before the change takes effect. Changes never have retroactive effect.
• The notice period does not apply when the change results from a legal or regulatory obligation, or is needed to address an unforeseen and imminent danger to the safety of members or of the platform.

20. Governing law and courts

This agreement is governed by Portuguese law. Without prejudice to the mediation in section 14, disputes are resolved by the competent Portuguese courts.

Contacts

BÚZIOS E TARTARUGAS - LDA (Eleva.care), NIPC 515001708, Rua Gil Vicente 2, 2775-198 Parede, Portugal. Support: support@eleva.care. Legal notices and complaints: legal@eleva.care. Data protection: privacy@eleva.care.

If the language versions differ, the Portuguese version prevails.