Kids

CONFIDENTIALITY:

You have “privileged communication” under the laws of the State of Washington or the State of Idaho (depending on where the services are rendered). “Privileged communication” means, with few exceptions, anything you disclose in therapy, any information we obtain about you from any source, and even the information that you are a client at all, is confidential and can be disclosed to others only with your written consent. However, there are legal limits to that confidentiality. Disclosure without your authorization may be made to the extent a recipient needs to know the information, if the disclosure is:

To a current health care provider;

To a former or future health care provider, unless you request in writing that we not do so;

To immediate family members or any person with whom you have a close personal relationship, unless you request in writing that we not do so;

To public health authorities when required or when needed to protect the public;

To the courts if under a proper subpoena or court order;

To licensing/certification boards if we are under disciplinary investigation; or

To collections agencies for the purpose of collecting on unpaid debt.

Under some circumstances, reporting is mandatory:

To proper authorities if we should have reason to believe that a child, a disabled adult, or an elderly person has been abused or neglected;

To proper authorities or family members if we feel you are of danger to yourself or others.

To the local health officer, under specific circumstances, with respect to an HIV-infected individual putting partners at risk for infection.

In the case of children, the parent(s) or legal guardian holds the communication privilege. This means that the parent is entitled to information about the child and is the person who authorizes any release of information about the child. We will keep parents informed of the child's general progress and specifics if indicated. We will attempt to act in the child's best interests in deciding to disclose confidential information without the child's consent. In the case of relationship or family therapy, confidential information may be shared among participants.

When we work with couples and families (seen by the same therapist as a part of couples, marital, or family counseling) we are not bound to keep information confidential among clients in the couple or family.

We may occasionally find it helpful to discuss a case with other professionals. In these consultations, identifying information about you would be withheld, and, of course, the consultant would also be legally bound to keep any case information confidential.

We keep psychotherapy records of the services we provide to you. You may ask to see and copy those records, and you may ask to correct those records. You will be charged an appropriate fee for time and costs involved with an information request. That fee must be paid in advance of your receiving a copy of your records.

In compliance with HIPAA regulations, you are entitled to a listing of disclosures of information that we may have made. Using HIPAA’s terminology, this “right of accounting” refers to your right to receive an accounting (going back up to six years) of the date, the purpose, the name and address of the entity or entities receiving your Protected Health Information (PHI). You are entitled to one free PHI accounting per twelve-month period. This right of accounting does not pertain to the psychotherapy records. Under federal law, as a professional business, we are able to provide your PHI—without a specific release of information-- to the business associates who provide services to, or on behalf of, our business. These business associates would include entities such as our billing services and our telephone answering service. Though infrequent, it could include our attorney, our accountant, or a collection agency.