Terms and conditions for professionals

These terms govern the relationship between Vínculo and the psychologists who use the platform to offer their services and run their practice. You accept them when you sign up as a professional. The Third-party invoicing agreement and the Data processing agreement form part of the same contract. They are drafted in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services (the “P2B Regulation”).

1. Parties and purpose

1.1 Parties

On the one hand, Vínculo Salud Digital, S.L. (being incorporated), with tax ID (NIF) [pending: NIF] and registered office at [pending: registered office], Madrid (“Vínculo”). On the other, you, the psychologist signing up as a professional (“you” or “the professional”), acting in the course of your self-employed professional activity.

For now, Vínculo only accepts professionals practising as individuals. [pending: confirm with a lawyer — admission of professional companies and centres with several professionals]

1.2 Purpose

Vínculo offers you:

• A shop window: your profile and services, so patients can find you, message you and book.
• Practice tools: diary, payments, video room, clinical records, consent forms, questionnaires, Verifactu invoicing and tax estimates.
• Personal link: a page of your own (/p/your-name) so your patients can book with you directly.

Vínculo is an online intermediation service and an information society service provider (Spanish Law 34/2002, “LSSI”). It is not a healthcare centre, does not provide healthcare and is not a party to the contracts you enter into with your patients.

2. Nature of the relationship

2.1 You practise independently

These terms do not create an employment, partnership, exclusive agency or franchise relationship between you and Vínculo. In particular:

• You freely set your prices, services, length, therapeutic approach, hours, availability and cancellation policy.
• Vínculo does not assign you patients: they choose you. You can turn on booking on request and decline requests for professional reasons.
• Vínculo does not control your diary, impose minimum hours, targets or shifts, or give instructions on how to provide care.
• You practise from your own authorised practice, with your own means, and bear the costs and risk of your activity.
• There is no exclusivity or price parity: you can work through other channels and offer other prices there.
• Vínculo does not assess your clinical practice or penalise you for declining requests.

[pending: confirm with a lawyer — that the reliability signals used in ranking (section 14) cannot be interpreted as algorithmic control of the activity, for the purposes of case law on bogus self-employment]

2.2 Use of the brand

You always present yourself under your own name and professional details. You may not present yourself as an employee or as a “Vínculo psychologist”, or suggest that Vínculo provides the care; nor will Vínculo refer to you as “our psychologist”. You may say that your diary is available on Vínculo.

3. Requirements for joining

To publish services you must meet, and continue to meet, these requirements:

1. Be an adult with full capacity to enter into contracts.
2. Hold a qualification for healthcare psychology: Master’s in General Health Psychology, the title of Specialist Psychologist in Clinical Psychology (through PIR) or the qualification under the seventh additional provision, paragraph 6, of Spanish Law 33/2011 on Public Health.
3. Be a member of your professional association (Law 43/1979) and not be suspended or barred.
4. Practise from a practice authorised by your regional government and entered in its register of healthcare centres (Royal Decree 1277/2003), even if you only see patients online. [pending: confirm with a lawyer — exclusively online practice and home offices in each region]
5. Hold current professional liability insurance or an equivalent guarantee (article 46 of Law 44/2003 on the healthcare professions), covering online care if you offer it.
6. Be registered as self-employed for tax and Social Security purposes, with a bank account in your name.
7. Pass Stripe’s identity verification and provide the information required by DAC7 (section 11).

For now, seeing minors is not allowed. If it is enabled, the clearance certificate from the Central Register of Sex Offenders (article 57 of Organic Law 8/2021, “LOPIVI”) and any additional requirements set will be needed.

4. Verification and upkeep

4.1 Sign-up and verification

When you sign up you give us your degree, your professional association and membership number, your practice’s healthcare registration number and your insurance policy with its expiry date, and you declare that they are true. Our team checks them by hand against your association’s register, the national Register of Healthcare Professionals (REPS) or the register of healthcare centres, and may ask you for further documents or consult your association. Your profile is not published until verification is complete [pending: indicative time]. Stripe verifies your identity and payout details (KYC) when you open your payments account.

4.2 Re-verification

We repeat the verification regularly [pending: frequency, e.g. yearly] and whenever your details change. You must tell us immediately if you lose your membership or qualification, are suspended, if your practice’s authorisation changes or if your insurance expires or is cancelled.

4.3 Insurance expiry

We will remind you before your insurance expires. If it expires without you showing it has been renewed, your services automatically stop being shown and accepting bookings until you do. [pending: confirm with a lawyer — handling of bookings already confirmed; proposal: they are cancelled with a full refund if the renewal is not shown before the session]

Even while your services are suspended, you always keep access to your tools, clinical records and invoices.

5. Profile and health advertising

Your profile is advertising for a healthcare service and must comply, in particular, with Royal Decree 1277/2003, Royal Decree 1907/1996 (advertising with a purported health purpose), Law 34/1988 on Advertising and the Code of Ethics of the General Council of Psychology.

5.1 Mandatory information

Your profile always shows your full name, your qualifying degree and the country that issued it, your professional association and membership number, your practice’s healthcare registration number and region, and a link to the Code of Ethics (article 10.1 of the LSSI and article 6.2 of Royal Decree 1277/2003).

5.2 What you can publish

You must describe your training, experience and approach truthfully, offer only services covered by your practice’s authorisation and within your competence, and use real, current photos and videos. You may not:

• promise a cure, guarantee results or create false expectations;
• include testimonials, opinions or cases from patients, or images in which they appear;
• claim degrees or accreditations you do not have, or present yourself as a clinical psychology specialist without the official title;
• disparage other professionals or make misleading comparisons;
• include phone numbers, emails, links or codes for contracting outside Vínculo, except your practice’s address.

If you offer services that are not healthcare (for example, wellbeing workshops), say so and do not use terms such as “therapy” or “treatment” for them. [pending: confirm with a lawyer — whether any region requires prior authorisation of the health advertising in profiles (article 6 of Royal Decree 1907/1996)]

5.3 Content review

We review your profile by hand before publishing it and may ask you for changes or not publish content that breaks these rules, always explaining why. We may adapt the format (cropping images, adjusting lengths) without changing the meaning.

6. Services, prices and policies

6.1 Services and prices

You can offer individual therapy, a first consultation (free or paid), couples therapy and groups or workshops, online, in person or both. For each service you set the title, description, length, format, price, payment options (single session, pack or weekly subscription) and VAT category. You set your prices freely; they are shown to the patient as the final price, taxes included and with no surcharge from Vínculo.

You are responsible for the VAT category of each service. By default, healthcare psychology is shown as exempt (article 20.One.3 of Spanish Law 37/1992) and workshops and non-healthcare services at 21%; you can change it under your own responsibility.

6.2 Packs and subscriptions

If you sell packs or subscriptions, you undertake to provide the sessions sold. The patient can pause them; sessions in a pack are not lost while it is active [pending: pack validity period]; and the weekly subscription is charged in four-week cycles and can be cancelled before the next cycle. If you stop seeing a patient with sessions left or leave Vínculo, the sessions not provided are refunded to them, charged to your balance.

6.3 Cancellation policy

You choose Flexible (free cancellation or change up to 24 hours before), Moderate (48 hours) or Strict (72 hours). It is shown before payment and applied automatically:

• If the patient cancels within the period, they get 100% back or the session returns to their pack or subscription.
• If they cancel outside the period or do not turn up, the session is charged.
• If you cancel, do not turn up or are more than 15 minutes late, the patient always gets 100% back. They can report your absence or lateness within 72 hours, and we will ask for your account before deciding.

Changes of policy do not affect bookings already confirmed.

6.4 Workshops and withdrawal

For workshops and non-healthcare services, the patient has a 14-day right of withdrawal (Spanish Consumer Protection Act, “TRLGDCU”). Vínculo collects on your behalf the patient’s express request for early performance when the workshop starts sooner (article 103.a of the TRLGDCU) and processes withdrawals in your name.

7. Bookings, diary and messages

7.1 Booking modes

By default, patients book your published slots instantly, after an initial questionnaire and a notice about crisis situations. If you turn on booking on request, you must accept or decline each one within [pending: period, e.g. 48 hours]; if you do not reply, it is cancelled and the patient is refunded. You may decline requests for professional reasons (for example, because the case needs different care), never for discriminatory reasons.

7.2 Diary and messages

Only publish slots you will actually see patients in and keep your availability up to date; you can sync it with Google Calendar or Outlook. Reply to messages within a reasonable time [pending: indicative period, e.g. 48 hours]. The chat is not an emergency channel: set up your automatic replies and agree with each patient the rules for contact between sessions. If a message reveals a risk situation, act on your professional judgement and refer to emergency resources (112 and 024).

7.3 Video room

Online sessions take place in Vínculo’s video room, encrypted and never recorded. You may not record them by any means. At the start, verify the patient’s identity and where they are joining from, as recommended by the General Council of Psychology’s telepsychology guide.

8. Payments with Stripe

8.1 Payments account

Payments are processed with Stripe Connect. You open a connected account with Stripe Payments Europe, Ltd. and accept its connected account agreement, which is a contract between you and Stripe. The patient pays when booking, and Stripe credits the amount to your account and transfers it to your bank on its schedule [pending: payout schedule]. Vínculo does not hold patients’ funds. [pending: confirm with a lawyer — type of Stripe Connect charge (direct, or destination with on_behalf_of) and how it fits Royal Decree-law 19/2018 on payment services]

On each payment, Stripe deducts Vínculo’s fee (section 9) as the platform commission. Vínculo bears the card processing costs. Payments completed on Vínculo release the patient from their payment obligation to you.

8.2 Refunds and disputes

Refunds are calculated automatically according to your policy and these terms. If a payment is refunded in full, Vínculo also returns its fee to you and, if it included the new patient fee, that fee becomes pending again. [pending: confirm the rule for returning fees on partial and full refunds]

If a patient opens a dispute with their bank, you will cooperate by providing the necessary information, without clinical data. If it is resolved against you for reasons attributable to you, the amount will be deducted from your balance.

9. Plans and fees

9.1 Plans

Amounts exclude VAT. As they are intermediation and software services, not healthcare, they carry 21% VAT, which you will not be able to deduct if all your activity is exempt; that is why your dashboard also shows the cost including VAT.

9.2 New patient fee

• It applies only once per relationship with each patient who comes through the marketplace (Vínculo’s search, profile or assistant).
• It is taken from the first payments in that relationship and never exceeds the amount of each payment, so you never pay it out of your own pocket. If the first consultation is free, it is taken from the next paid session.
• It does not apply to groups and workshops, which have their own commission.
• The patient’s origin is set when the relationship is created and does not change afterwards.

9.3 Your own patients

Your own patients are those who arrive through your personal link (attribution lasts 30 days from their visit to the link, using a cookie) and those you invite or import. You never pay the new patient fee for them. If you take their payments through Vínculo, only the recurring commission applies, covering collection, payment processing and the automatic invoice. If you do not take payment through Vínculo (for example, they pay you by bank transfer), there is no commission.

9.4 Examples

21% VAT is added to these figures: €26.75 in fees comes to €32.37 including VAT, and €3.00 to €3.63. [pending: confirm whether the commission on workshops subject to VAT is calculated on the price including VAT (current calculation) or excluding it]

9.5 Collection and invoicing of fees

Fees are deducted, excluding VAT, from each payment. Each month, Vínculo issues you an invoice with its fees for the period plus 21% VAT, generated with a Verifactu-compliant system. The VAT is collected [pending: confirm mechanism — deduction from the Stripe balance or a charge to your payment method]. All the invoices are in your dashboard.

9.6 Pro plan

The Pro plan costs €19 a month plus VAT (€22.99 including VAT), is paid monthly and has no minimum term. You can cancel it whenever you like: it takes effect at the end of the paid period and you move to the Free plan. If you then have more than 10 of your own active patients, you keep all their data and clinical records, but you will not be able to activate new patients of your own until you are back under that limit. [pending: confirm product behaviour]

9.7 Changes to fees

We will tell you about any change to fees or plans at least 15 days in advance (section 18). If you do not agree, you can leave at no cost before it takes effect.

10. Invoicing and Verifactu

10.1 Invoices to your patients

Vínculo issues invoices to your patients in your name and on your behalf, with your own series, in accordance with article 5 of Royal Decree 1619/2012 (the Invoicing Regulation). The conditions are in the Third-party invoicing agreement, which you expressly accept when signing up and can revoke whenever you like. In short: full invoices by default (with the patient’s tax ID if they provide it) or simplified ones up to €400 including VAT; the statement “Operación exenta de IVA según el artículo 20.Uno.3º de la Ley 37/1992” (VAT-exempt transaction) where applicable; neutral descriptions, with no diagnoses; corrections only through corrective invoices; and a copy of every invoice in your dashboard from the moment it is issued.

10.2 Verifactu

Invoices are issued with a system that complies with Royal Decree 1007/2023 and Order HAC/1177/2024, in VERI*FACTU mode: each invoice generates a record that is sent to the Spanish Tax Agency through a certified provider [pending: Invopop or Verifacti], for which you grant us representation through social collaboration. It is compulsory from 1 July 2027 for self-employed professionals (1 January 2027 for companies). You remain the taxpayer and are responsible for your invoices.

If your tax domicile is in the Basque Country or Navarre, the regional systems (TicketBAI and equivalents) apply instead of Verifactu. [pending: TicketBAI solution — in the meantime, automatic invoicing is not offered in those territories]

10.3 Vínculo’s invoices

Vínculo invoices you its fees each month with 21% VAT, using its own Verifactu system (compulsory for Vínculo from 1 January 2027).

11. Tax obligations and DAC7

11.1 Your taxes

Your tax and Social Security obligations remain yours: income tax (IRPF, including Modelo 130), VAT where applicable (for example, for workshops or services from foreign providers) and RETA contributions, among others. The Modelo 130 estimates, RETA bracket and tax calendar you see on Vínculo are indicative: they are not tax advice and do not replace your accountant, and Vínculo does not file returns on your behalf. As your patients are private individuals and Vínculo does not pay for your services, no income tax is withheld from your payments.

11.2 DAC7

Vínculo is a platform operator required to report to the Spanish Tax Agency (Law 13/2023 and Royal Decree 117/2024, transposing Directive (EU) 2021/514, “DAC7”). For that reason:

• we collect and verify your name, address, tax ID, date of birth, IBAN and the other information the rules require;
• every January we file Modelo 238 with what you have been paid through Vínculo in each quarter of the previous year, the number of transactions and the fees charged by Vínculo;
• we give you the information reported about you within the legal deadline;
• if you do not give us the information after two reminders, the rules require us to suspend your account or withhold your payouts until you do.

[pending: confirm whether the 30 transactions / €2,000 threshold applies to services — designed as if everything were reportable]

12. Clinical records and data

12.1 Your clinical records

You are responsible for creating, safeguarding and keeping your patients’ clinical records (articles 14 to 17 of Law 41/2002) for the legal period: at least five years from the discharge of each episode of care, and longer if your region requires it. Vínculo gives you the tools: encrypted notes, separate subjective annotations, an access log, deletion blocked during the retention period and export at any time.

Before the first session you must obtain written informed consent, including the particulars of online care. We offer editable templates and electronic signature with an audit trail; they are a starting point that you must review and adapt to your practice.

12.2 Who does what

• Your patients’ clinical and care data (including communications after the first paid session): you are the controller and Vínculo the processor, under the Data processing agreement, which forms part of these terms (article 28 of the General Data Protection Regulation).
• Platform data (accounts, searches, bookings, payments, messages before the first paid session, reviews, security and fraud prevention) and your data as a professional: Vínculo is the controller, as explained in the Privacy policy.

You must tell your patients how you handle their data (you can adapt our templates), deal with their right of access to the clinical record (subject to your subjective annotations) and protect your access with strong credentials.

13. Your obligations

In addition to what is set out in the other sections, you undertake to:

1. Comply with healthcare regulations and the Code of Ethics of the General Council of Psychology, including professional secrecy.
2. Provide your services diligently and competently, within your field, and refer patients when the case requires it.
3. Obtain written informed consent before the first session.
4. In online care, verify the patient’s identity, know their location so you can act in an emergency and work from a private space.
5. Keep and safeguard the clinical record for the legal period.
6. Keep your professional membership, qualification, practice authorisation and insurance current, and tell us about any change.
7. Follow the health advertising rules in section 5.
8. Publish real availability and attend sessions on time.
9. Reply to messages within a reasonable time.
10. Not ask marketplace patients for contact or payments outside Vínculo before their first paid session.
11. Not discriminate on grounds of origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age or any other personal or social circumstance.
12. Not record sessions or allow third parties to be present without the patient’s consent.
13. Meet your tax and Social Security obligations.
14. Not use Vínculo for illegal activities or for services you are not qualified to provide.

14. Ranking in search

In accordance with article 5 of the P2B Regulation, these are the main parameters that decide the order of profiles in search results and in the suggestions of the “Help me choose” assistant.

14.1 Parameters

1. Match with the search (main parameter): the reasons for consultation you work with, format, location and distance for in-person sessions, languages, price and availability, compared with what the patient is looking for.
2. Reliability signals: availability published for the coming days, response time to messages, few cancellations and no-shows on your part and a complete profile.

Reliability signals are calculated over a recent period [pending: calculation window, e.g. 90 days]. They help patients find professionals who can see them; they do not assess your clinical practice. Patient reviews are not used for ranking.

14.2 Payment never has any influence

No payment influences ranking. The Free and Pro plans are ranked exactly the same, we do not sell featured positions or ads in the results, and Vínculo does not offer therapy services of its own that compete with yours (article 7 of the P2B Regulation). Any change to these parameters will be communicated to you at least 15 days in advance.

14.3 Access to data

In accordance with article 9 of the P2B Regulation, you have access to the data on your bookings, payments, invoices and patients, your aggregate reviews and private comments and your profile statistics. Vínculo uses aggregated, pseudonymised data to improve the service, search and security, without sharing it with other professionals, and does not access clinical content except under the terms of the Data processing agreement.

15. Reviews

After each session, the patient can answer closed questions about their experience (whether they felt listened to, how clearly you explained how you would work, their comfort and trust, punctuality and whether they feel the therapy is helping) on a four-point scale, and leave you a private comment. Only patients with a verified booking on Vínculo can review, within 30 days of the session. Your profile only shows aggregate percentages when there are at least three responses, never free text or individual answers.

You may not reply publicly (it would reveal the therapeutic relationship and breach professional secrecy), offer benefits in exchange for reviews or put pressure on patients to leave them. If you believe a response is fraudulent, you can ask us to review it, providing evidence.

16. Contact outside Vínculo

Until the first paid session, Vínculo automatically hides phone numbers, emails and links in the chat. Until then, do not ask marketplace patients to contract or pay outside Vínculo, or try to get around the hiding.

After the first paid session, the relationship is yours: you can share contact details and freely decide whether to keep taking payment through Vínculo, with no penalty if the patient continues outside it. We want you to keep using Vínculo because it saves you work (payments, invoices, diary, clinical records), not because you have to.

If it is shown that you diverted a marketplace patient away from Vínculo before their first paid session, Vínculo may invoice you the corresponding new patient fee and, if it happens again, apply the measures in section 17. [pending: confirm rule]

17. Suspension and termination

17.1 Leaving

You can leave whenever you like from your dashboard, at no cost and without notice. Beforehand, see or cancel with a full refund your confirmed bookings and tell your patients with packs or subscriptions, who will be refunded for the sessions not provided. The Pro plan continues until the end of the paid period.

17.2 Measures by Vínculo

In accordance with article 4 of the P2B Regulation:

• Ordinary termination: with at least 30 days’ notice and an explanation of the reasons.
• Restriction or suspension: we will tell you the reasons before the measure takes effect or at that moment.
• Immediate measures: without notice when a law or an authority requires it, or in the event of serious or repeated breaches, such as loss of professional membership or qualification, suspension from practice, an unauthorised practice, expired insurance, unlicensed practice, false information in verification, payment fraud or a risk to patients’ safety. Even then we will give you the reasons, unless the law or an authority prevents it.

The reasons will refer to specific facts or circumstances. You can clarify them or challenge the decision through the complaints system (section 19); if the measure proves unjustified, we will lift it without delay.

17.3 Effects

No suspension stops you from accessing or exporting your clinical records and invoices. If the relationship ends, bookings after the effective date are cancelled with a full refund to patients.

18. Changes to the terms

We will notify you of any change to these terms, including fees, on a durable medium such as email, at least 15 days in advance, or longer if it requires significant technical or commercial adjustments on your part (article 3 of the P2B Regulation). You can end the relationship at no cost before it takes effect, or waive the notice period by an express statement or a clear affirmative action. We will never apply changes retroactively. The notice period does not apply to changes imposed by a legal obligation or needed to address an unforeseen and imminent danger, such as fraud or a security risk.

19. Complaints and mediation

19.1 Internal complaints system

You can complain about breaches of these terms, technical problems or measures that affect you (for example, a suspension) at legal@vinculo.app. We will handle your complaint diligently and reply clearly and individually [pending: response time]. Although article 11 of the P2B Regulation exempts small enterprises from this obligation, we offer this system voluntarily and will publish information on how it works.

19.2 Mediation

In accordance with article 12 of the P2B Regulation, we designate as mediators: [pending: designate at least two mediators; article 12 also exempts small enterprises]. Mediation is voluntary, Vínculo will bear a reasonable share of its costs and it does not prevent either party from going to court.

20. Liability and insurance

20.1 Each party’s liability

You alone are responsible for the services you provide, the content of your profile and compliance with your legal, ethical and tax obligations, and you will hold Vínculo harmless against third-party claims, including penalties, arising from your services or breaches.

Vínculo is responsible for providing the platform services with reasonable diligence and meeting its obligations. We do everything reasonable to keep the platform available at all times, without guaranteeing that it will work without interruptions or errors [pending: availability commitment]. We are not liable for your content unless we have actual knowledge that it is illegal and fail to act diligently (articles 16 and 17 of the LSSI).

20.2 Limitation of liability

Except for wilful misconduct or gross negligence, and without prejudice to the Data processing agreement and the Invoicing agreement, Vínculo’s total liability to you is limited to the fees you have paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to it, and does not include loss of profit or indirect damage. [pending: confirm with a lawyer — validity and amount of the cap and how it fits with article 82 GDPR]

20.3 Insurance

You must keep your professional liability insurance (section 3) and check that it covers online care and patients from other regions. Vínculo will take out general liability insurance and cyber-risk insurance. [pending: confirm policies and cover]

21. Intellectual property

You keep all rights to your content (text, photos, videos and materials). You grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence, limited to the duration of the relationship, to reproduce, display, adapt the format of and communicate it publicly on the platform and its apps and when promoting your profile (for example, in search engines or in previews of your link). To use your image or content in Vínculo advertising campaigns we will ask for your specific consent. You guarantee that you hold the necessary rights and that your content does not include patient data.

Vínculo and its licensors own the platform, software, brand and designs. We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable right of use for the duration of the relationship. You may use and modify the templates we provide for your practice.

22. Confidentiality

Both parties will keep the other’s non-public information confidential, including specific financial terms and technical information, except where required by law, including after the relationship ends. Your professional secrecy is independent of this duty and always prevails. Vínculo staff with access to platform information are bound by confidentiality obligations.

23. Leaving and export

You can export at any time, and especially when leaving, your clinical records in a structured, readable format (with consent forms and questionnaires), your invoices and invoicing records, and your patients’, diary and payment data.

After you leave we will keep your access for exporting for [pending: period, e.g. 90 days]. As safeguarding the clinical record is your responsibility, you must export it within that period and keep it for the legal period; alternatively, you can ask Vínculo to keep it blocked for the remaining period, under the terms of the Data processing agreement. After that period, Vínculo will delete the clinical data unless there is a legal obligation to keep it. Data that Vínculo handles as controller (for example, its invoices or DAC7 data) is kept for the legal periods.

24. Law and jurisdiction

These terms are governed by Spanish law. For any dispute, the parties submit to the courts of [pending: Madrid], without prejudice to the mediation in section 19.2. If any clause is void, the rest remains in force.