The terms of using Maatla Care. In plain language.

1.About these terms

These Terms of Service are an agreement between you and Maatla Healthcare (“we”, “us”), the provider of Maatla Care. They apply when you use our website, patient or practice accounts, WhatsApp and SMS services, automated callbacks, and AI features.

Please read them together with our Privacy Policy and Consent and Data Management page. Practices may also sign an order form or data processing agreement with us. If those documents conflict with these terms, the signed document applies to that practice.

We have written these terms in plain language. Headings are for convenience only.

2.Accounts and eligibility

• You must be 18 or older to create an account. Care for children is managed by a parent or legal guardian through the dependants feature.
• The information you give us must be accurate, and you should keep it up to date.
• Each account is for one person. Practice staff must each have their own account. Shared logins are not allowed.
• Keep your password and one-time codes private. Tell us straight away if you think someone else has used your account.
• We may ask you to verify your phone number, identity or professional registration before you can use some features.

3.Patients, practices and our role

Maatla Care is a technology platform that connects patients with independent practices and helps those practices run. Maatla Healthcare does not provide healthcare. Healthcare is provided by the practices and clinicians you choose, and your agreement for care is with them.

• Practices set their own fees, cancellation policies and hours, and are responsible for the services they provide.
• Practice profiles, fees and availability are supplied by practices. We check clinicians’ professional registration before they can be booked, but we cannot guarantee the quality or outcome of care.
• We do not recommend or endorse a particular clinician. Search results are not a ranking of clinical quality.

4.Not an emergency service

Maatla Care is not an emergency service. In an emergency call 10177 for an ambulance, or 112 from a cell phone.

Messages, WhatsApp chats, missed calls and the AI assistant are not monitored for emergencies, and we cannot send help. Our emergency screening may point you to emergency services, but it can miss things and is not a substitute for calling for help.

5.AI features do not give medical advice

The Maatla Care assistant is automated software. It can help you book, prepare for a visit and understand instructions your clinician has approved. It does not diagnose, prescribe or give medical advice, and it is not a clinician.

• AI can make mistakes. Check anything important with your clinician.
• Do not delay seeking care, or change or stop a treatment, because of something the assistant says.
• Using AI features is optional. You can withdraw consent at any time.

How we keep AI features safe is described in Healthcare AI Safety.

6.Clinicians are responsible for clinical decisions

Clinicians using Maatla Care remain responsible for every clinical decision and for their documentation. This includes notes drafted with the AI scribe: the clinician must review, correct and approve a draft before it becomes part of the record, and approval means the clinician accepts it as their own note.

Tools such as interaction or allergy alerts and reminders support, but do not replace, professional judgement. Features that would make diagnostic or treatment recommendations are switched off until they have been clinically validated and assessed under South African medical device regulation.

7.Practice obligations

If you use Maatla Care as a practice, you agree to:

• ensure every clinician who uses the platform holds current registration with the Health Professions Council of South Africa or the relevant statutory council, and tell us promptly if that changes;
• obtain and record the consents your patients need to give, including for AI documentation and telehealth, and respect a patient’s decision to decline;
• keep your profile, services, fees and availability accurate;
• meet your obligations as the responsible party for the clinical records you create, including confidentiality, POPIA and record retention in line with HPCSA guidance;
• give staff only the roles they need, remove access promptly when someone leaves, and require each person to use their own account;
• use messaging and callback features only for the patients and purposes they are designed for, and honour opt-outs;
• comply with the laws and professional rules that apply to your practice.

Where we process clinical records for you, we do so as your operator under the data processing terms that form part of your agreement with us.

8.Subscriptions, trials and billing

• Practices pay a recurring subscription for their chosen plan. Current plans and prices are on our Pricing page.
• Most plans start with a free trial. The trial length is shown on the Pricing page. At the end of the trial, the subscription continues on the chosen plan unless you cancel.
• Subscriptions are billed in advance in South African rand, by card, through our payment provider Paystack. Our Pricing page and invoices show whether amounts include VAT.
• If a payment fails, we will tell you and allow a short grace period to update your payment method before features are limited.
• We will give you reasonable advance notice of price changes. Changes apply from your next billing period.
• Only the practice owner can change the plan or payment method.

9.Usage-based charges

Some features cost us money each time they are used, such as AI processing, transcription, messages and calls. Each plan includes an allowance. Usage beyond the allowance is charged at the rates published on our Pricing page at the time of use, and is shown as separate lines on your invoice.

Usage is measured by our systems, and you can see it in your practice workspace. If you think a usage charge is wrong, tell us promptly and we will look into it.

10.Cancellation and refunds

• A practice can cancel at any time. A paid subscription stays active until the end of the period already paid for, and then stops renewing. Cancelling during a trial ends the trial.
• Subscription fees are not refunded for part of a billing period, except where the law requires it or we have charged you in error.
• If we have charged you in error, we will refund the amount to the original payment method through Paystack.
• Payments patients make to practices are between the patient and the practice. Refunds for consultations are handled by the practice.

Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act or the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, where those laws apply to you.

11.Acceptable use

You must not:

• use Maatla Care for anything unlawful, harmful or fraudulent;
• pretend to be someone else, or create an account for someone without their authority;
• access, or try to access, records of people you do not have a legitimate care relationship with or authority to see;
• send spam or unwanted messages, or use callback and messaging features for marketing without consent;
• try to bypass security, safety checks or usage limits, including by trying to manipulate the AI assistant;
• copy, scrape, reverse engineer or resell the platform, or test its security without our written permission;
• upload malware, or content that is abusive, threatening or infringes someone else’s rights;
• abuse or harass practice staff, our team, or other users.

If you find a security weakness, please tell us at support@maatlahealthcare.com rather than testing it further.

12.Your information and our platform

You keep your rights in the information you add to Maatla Care. You allow us to use it only to provide and improve the service, as described in our Privacy Policy. Clinical records created by a practice are that practice’s records.

The platform, its software, design and brand belong to Maatla Healthcare or our licensors. These terms give you the right to use Maatla Care, not to own it. If you send us feedback, we may use it to improve the service without owing you anything.

13.Availability and changes to the service

We work to keep Maatla Care available and reliable, but we cannot promise it will always be uninterrupted or error-free. Planned maintenance, network or power outages, and the services of third parties such as messaging and payment providers can affect it.

Practices should keep a simple way to keep working if the platform is unavailable, such as a printed day list. We may change, add or remove features. If we remove a feature a practice is paying for, we will give reasonable notice.

14.Third-party services

Some features rely on third-party services such as WhatsApp, Twilio and Paystack. Their own terms and privacy policies also apply when you use them, and we are not responsible for their services.

15.Our responsibility to you

We want to be clear and fair about what we are and are not responsible for.

• We are responsible for loss you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms or our negligence.
• We are not responsible for clinical decisions or care provided by practices and clinicians, or for the accuracy of information practices supply.
• We are not responsible for loss caused by events outside our reasonable control.
• For practices, our total responsibility for all claims in any 12-month period is limited to the subscription and usage fees the practice paid us in that period. We are not responsible to practices for loss of profit or indirect loss.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits responsibility that the law does not allow us to exclude or limit, including for fraud or gross negligence, or your rights as a consumer under South African law.

16.Suspension and closing accounts

• You can close your account at any time from your settings or by contacting us.
• We may suspend or close an account if there is a serious or repeated breach of these terms, a risk to patient safety or platform security, a legal requirement, or (for practices) unpaid fees after the grace period. Where it is reasonable to do so, we will tell you first and give you a chance to fix the problem.
• When an account closes, we handle information as described in our Privacy Policy. Clinical records that a practice must keep by law remain available to that practice for the required period, and we will help a departing practice export its records.

17.Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, and South African courts have jurisdiction. If you have a complaint, please contact us first so that we can try to resolve it. This does not affect your right to approach a regulator or ombud.

18.Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change is material, we will tell you in advance by email or in your account. If you do not agree with the change, you can close your account before it takes effect. Each version is dated, and your account records which version you accepted.

19.Contact

• General: info@maatlahealthcare.com
• Support: support@maatlahealthcare.com
• Practices and billing: practices@maatlahealthcare.com
• Privacy and the Information Officer: privacy@maatlahealthcare.com