This notice is to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This notice describes my responsibilities and your rights under this Act, including how information about you may be used and disclosed, and your access to this information.
All information revealed by you in counseling/ therapy sessions, and most information placed in your file, or held or transmitted by my office in any form (paper, electronic or oral) is considered Protected Health Information (PHI). As such, your PHI cannot be distributed or released to anyone else without your express informed and voluntary written consent or authorization.
You should be aware that I keep Protected Health Information about you in three sets of records:
The first set of records include your payment or billing records, year-end statements which may be used by you for itemizing medical expenses for income tax purposes, and which are available by request by you, and monthly invoice statements which you may submit to your insurance carrier for reimbursement, also available by request.
The second set constitutes your Case Record. This record generally includes information about your reasons for seeking counseling, psycho-social history, medications you are prescribed or substance use, information about your beliefs/faith, and what you want to accomplish/ direction you want to take in counseling as well as other information discussed in counseling. Information in this Case Record will be kept as documents in a electronic file.
This record will also contain your treatment history, copies of Authorization for the Release of Information/Records, records I may have received from other providers (records you authorized me to request from other counselors) and reports that I generated by request of yourself or another entity, such as your attorney.
You may examine and/or receive a copy of your Case Record, if you request this by email. Exceptions to this would be rare but would include circumstances in which I believe this disclosure may physically endanger you or others. Where your records make reference to another person, other than another provider, I can redact that portion of the record for your review. If I refuse your request for these Case Records, you have a right of review which I will discuss with you upon request.
I cannot re-release to you any records I have received from other providers. If you want a copy of your records from other providers you will need to contact them directly.
In addition to these records, I also keep Session Notes. These are for my own use and are designed to assist me in providing you with the best counsel I can. They would generally contain information obtained as we talk, notes about areas of further exploration, insights, questions for later discussion or other directions to take in counseling or issues to address in future sessions. These notes are usually provided to you at the end of each session for review as a summary of what was talked about and include a Challenge to be considered and discussed in our next session.
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