PSYCHOTHERAPY PRIVACY POLICY.

THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW HEALTH INFORMATION MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED FOR CURRENT AND PAST PATIENTS AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.

I. MY PLEDGE REGARDING HEALTH INFORMATION:
I understand that health information about you and your health care is personal. I am committed to protecting your privacy and health information. I create a record of the care and services you receive from me in order to provide you with quality care and to comply with certain legal requirements. This notice applies to all of the records of your care generated by this mental health care practice. This notice will tell you about the ways in which I may use and disclose health information about you. I also describe your rights to the health information I keep about you, and describe certain obligations I have regarding the use and disclosure of your health information. I am required by law to:

• Make sure that protected health information (“PHI”) that identifies you is kept private.

• Give you this notice of my legal duties and privacy practices with respect to health information.

• Follow the terms of the notice that is currently in effect.

• I can change the terms of this Notice, and such changes will apply to all information I have about you. The new Notice will be available upon request, in my office, and on my website.

II. HOW I MAY USE AND DISCLOSE HEALTH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU:

The following categories describe different ways that I use and disclose health information. For each category of uses or disclosures I will explain what I mean and try to give some examples. Not every use or disclosure in a category will be listed. However, all of the ways I am permitted to use and disclose information will fall within one of the categories.

For Treatment Payment, or Health Care Operations: Federal privacy rules (regulations) allow health care providers who have direct treatment relationship with the patient/client to use or disclose the patient/client’s personal health information without the patient’s written authorization, to carry out the health care provider’s own treatment, payment or health care operations. I may also disclose your protected health information for the treatment activities of any health care provider. This too can be done without your written authorization. For example, if a clinician were to consult with another licensed health care provider about your condition, we would be permitted to use and disclose your personal health information, which is otherwise confidential, in order to assist the clinician in diagnosis and treatment of your mental health condition.

Disclosures for treatment purposes are not limited to the minimum necessary standard. Because therapists and other health care providers need access to the full record and/or full and complete information in order to provide quality care. The word “treatment” includes, among other things, the coordination and management of health care providers with a third party, consultations between health care providers and referrals of a patient for health care from one health care provider to another.

Lawsuits and Disputes: If you are involved in a lawsuit, I may disclose health information in response to a court or administrative order. I may also disclose health information about your child in response to a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful process by someone else involved in the dispute, but only if efforts have been made to tell you about the request or to obtain an order protecting the information requested.

III. CERTAIN USES AND DISCLOSURES REQUIRE YOUR AUTHORIZATION:

1. Psychotherapy Notes. I keep “psychotherapy notes” as that term is defined in 45 CFR §164.501, and any use or disclosure of such notes requires your Authorization unless the use or disclosure is:

a. For my use in treating you.

b. For my use in training or supervising mental health practitioners to help them improve

their skills in group, joint, family, or individual counseling or therapy.

c. For my use in defending myself in legal proceedings instituted by you.

d. For use by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to investigate my compliance with HIPAA.

e. Required by law and the use or disclosure is limited to the requirements of such law.

f. Required by law for certain health oversight activities pertaining to the originator of the psychotherapy notes.

g. Required by a coroner who is performing duties authorized by law.

h. Required to help avert a serious threat to the health and safety of others.

2. Marketing Purposes. As a psychotherapist, I will not use or disclose your PHI for marketing purposes.

3. Sale of PHI. As a psychotherapist, I will not sell your PHI in the regular course of my business.

IV. CERTAIN USES AND DISCLOSURES DO NOT REQUIRE YOUR AUTHORIZATION.

Subject to certain limitations in the law, I can use and disclose your PHI without your Authorization for the following reasons:

1. When disclosure is required by state or federal law, and the use or disclosure complies with and is limited to the relevant requirements of such law.

2. For public health activities, including reporting suspected child, elder, or dependent adult abuse, or preventing or reducing a serious threat to anyone’s health or safety. Reporting may include the target of the threat if believed to be necessary.

3. For health oversight activities, including audits and investigations.

4. For judicial and administrative proceedings, including responding to a court or administrative order, although my preference is to obtain an Authorization from you before doing so.

5. To coroners or medical examiners, when such individuals are performing duties authorized by law.

6. For workers’ compensation purposes. Although my preference is to obtain an Authorization from you, I may provide your PHI in order to comply with workers’compensation laws.

7. Appointment reminders and health related benefits or services. I may use and disclose your PHI to contact you to remind you that you have an appointment with me. I may also use and disclose your PHI to tell you about treatment alternatives, or other health care services or benefits that I offer.

V. CERTAIN USES AND DISCLOSURES REQUIRE YOU TO HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO OBJECT.

Disclosures to family, friends, or others. I may provide your PHI to a family member, friend, or other person that you indicate is involved in your care or the payment for your health care, unless you object in whole or in part. This will be discussed beforehand to the best of my ability. However, the opportunity to consent may be obtained retroactively in emergency situations.

VI. YOU HAVE THE FOLLOWING RIGHTS WITH RESPECT TO YOUR PHI:

1. The Right to Request Limits on Uses and Disclosures of Your PHI. You have the right to ask me not to use or disclose certain PHI for treatment, payment, or health care operations purposes. I am not required to agree to your request, and I may say “no” if I believe it would affect your health care.

2. The Right to Request Restrictions for Out-of-Pocket Expenses Paid for In Full. You have the right to request restrictions on disclosures of your PHI to health plans for payment or health care operations purposes if the PHI pertains solely to a health care item or a healthcare service that you have paid for out-of-pocket in full.

3. The Right to Choose How I Send PHI to You. You have the right to ask me to contact you in a specific way (for example, home or office phone) or to send mail to a different address, and I will agree to all reasonable requests.

4. The Right to See and Get Copies of Your PHI. Other than “psychotherapy notes,” you have the right to get an electronic or paper copy of your medical record and other information that I have about you. I will provide you with a copy of your record, or a summary of it, if you agree to receive a summary, within 30 days of receiving your written request.

5. The Right to Get a List of the Disclosures I Have Made. You have the right to request a list of instances in which I have disclosed your PHI for purposes other than treatment, payment, or health care operations, or for which you provided me with an Authorization. I will respond to your request for an accounting of disclosures within 60 days of receiving your request. The list I will give you will include disclosures made in the last six years unless you request a shorter time. I will provide the list to you at no charge, but if you make more than one request in the same year, I will charge you a reasonable cost based fee for each additional request.

6. The Right to Correct or Update Your PHI. If you believe that there is a mistake in your PHI, or that a piece of important information is missing from your PHI, you have the right to request that I correct the existing information or add the missing information. I may say “no” to your request, but I will tell you why in writing within 60 days of receiving your request.

7. The Right to Get a Paper or Electronic Copy of this Notice. You have the right get a paper copy of this Notice, and you have the right to get a copy of this notice by e-mail. And, even if you have agreed to receive this Notice via e-mail, you also have the right to request a paper copy of it.

WEBSITE Privacy policy.

Effective Date: September 2023

The following Privacy Policy governs the online information collection practices of Fitzsimons Mental Health Counseling PLLC d/b/a Transparent Therapy (“Company,” “we” or “us”). Specifically, it outlines the types of information that we gather about you while you are using the transparentpsychotherapy.com (the “Site”), and the ways in which we use this information. This Privacy Policy applies primarily to information which we collect online.

We have created this Privacy Policy to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy and security. This Privacy Policy describes how our Company collects information from all end users of our Internet services (the “Services”), including those who access some of our Services but do not have accounts (“Visitors”) and those who may purchase Products and/or pay a service fee to subscribe to the Service (“Members”).

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By visiting and using the Site, you agree that your use of our Site, and any dispute over privacy, is governed by this Privacy Policy. In an effort to comply with changes in technology, and the adoption of new regulations and laws, we may need to change our Policy at some point in the future, in which case we’ll post the changes to this Privacy Policy on this website and update the Effective Date of the policy to reflect the date of the changes. By continuing to use the Site after we post any such changes, you accept the Privacy Policy as modified.

Introduction

We may collect and store personal or other information that you voluntarily supply to us online while using the Site (e.g., while on the Site or in responding via email to a feature provided on the Site). The Site only contacts individuals who specifically request that we do so or in the event that they have signed up to receive our messaging, or have purchased one of our products or services. The Site collects personally identifying information from our users during online registration and online purchasing. Generally, this information includes name and e-mail address for registration or opt-in purposes and name, email address, and credit card information when purchasing our products or services. All of this information is provided to us by you.

We also collect and store information that is generated automatically as you navigate online through the Site. For example, we may collect information about your computer’s connection to the Internet, which allows us, among other things, to improve the delivery of our web pages to you and to measure traffic on the Site. We also may use a standard feature found in browser software called a “cookie” to enhance your experience with the Site, and web beacons, to access cookies, count users who visit the Site, the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent on our site, websites visited before and after our site, IP addresses, or open HTML-formatted email messages.

We use the information we collect from you while you are using the Site in a variety of ways, including using the information to customize features; advertising that appear on the Site; and, making other offers available to you via email, direct mail or otherwise.

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily make your personal information available for viewing by third parties online – for example on message boards, web logs, through email, or in chat areas – that information can be seen, collected and used by others besides us. We cannot be responsible for any unauthorized third-party use of such information.

Some of our third-party advertisers and ad servers that place and present advertising on the Site also may collect information from you via cookies, web beacons or similar technologies. These third-party advertisers and ad servers may use the information they collect to help present their advertisements, to help measure and research the advertisements’ effectiveness, or for other purposes. The use and collection of your information by these third-party advertisers and ad servers is governed by the relevant third-party’s privacy policy and is not covered by our Privacy Policy. Indeed, the privacy policies of these third-party advertisers and ad servers may be different from ours. If you have any concerns about a third party’s use of cookies or web beacons or use of your information, you should visit that party’s website and review its privacy policy.

The Site also includes links to other websites and provides access to products and services offered by third parties, whose privacy policies we do not control. When you access another website or purchase third-party products or services through the Site, use of any information you provide is governed by the privacy policy of the operator of the site you are visiting or the provider of such products or services.

Please also note that as our business grows, we may buy or sell various assets. In the unlikely event that we sell some or all of our assets, or one or more of our websites is acquired by another company, information about our users may be among the transferred assets.

Personal Information Our Company Collects And How It Is Used

Introduction

Members may be asked to provide certain personal information when they sign up for our Products or Services including name, email address, and billing information (such as a credit card number). The personal information collected from Members during the registration process (or at any other time) is used primarily to provide a customized experience while using our Products and Services. Your information will never be disclosed, traded, licensed or sold to any third party. However, we may make limited disclosure of personal information under the specific circumstances described below.

The Types of Information We Collect and Store

Some of the information we may collect about you and store in connection with the provision and fulfillment of our services to you may include:

  • Name

  • Email Address

  • City and/or state of residence

  • Telephone Number

  • Any notes or testimonials that you provide

How We Use Your Personal Information

The above personal information may be used for the following purposes:

  • To operate, improve, or promote our Service

  • To provide customer service or support

  • To contact you

    • When you have opted in to receive email messaging

    • To respond to your email inquiries. Specifically, when Visitors or Members send email inquiries to us, the return email address is used to answer the email inquiry we receive. We do not use the return email address for any other purpose, or share it with third parties.

  • To monitor and analyze trends such as:

    • Behavior on the Site

    • Email clicks and opens

  • To market our products and services through:

    • Email marketing

    • Advertising, including retargeting via Google and Facebook

    • Notifications

  • Perform accounting, administrative and legal tasks


Who Has Access to Your Data Within Our Organization

Within our organization, access to your data is limited to those persons who require access in order to provide you with the Products and Services you purchase from us, to contact you, and to respond to your inquiries. Employees only have access to data on a “need to know” basis.

Who We Share Your Data With Outside of Our Organization, and Why

Unaffiliated Third Parties.
We will not share or transfer your data to unaffiliated third parties without your consent. We may use service providers in connection with operating and improving the Site, to assist with certain functions, such as email transmission, data hosting, managing ads, and some aspects of our technical and customer support. We will take measures to ensure that these service providers access, process, and store information about you only for the purposes we authorize, subject to confidentiality obligations, including through the execution of GDPR and CCPA-compliant Data Privacy Agreements or Addenda, as applicable.

Authorities.
We may access, preserve, and disclose information about you to third parties, including the content of messages, if we believe disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, applicable law, regulation, legal process, or audits. We may also disclose information about you if we believe that your actions are inconsistent with our Terms of Service or related guidelines and policies, or if necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of, or prevent fraud or abuse of, Company or others.

Why We Store Information We Collect From You

We retain certain information that we collect from you while you are a member on the Site, and in certain cases where you have deleted your account, for the following reasons:

  • So you can use our Site;

  • To ensure that we do not communicate with you if you have asked us not to;

  • To better understand the traffic to our Site so that we can provide all members with the best possible experience;

  • To detect and prevent abuse of our Site, illegal activities and breaches of our Terms of Service; and

  • To comply with applicable legal, tax or accounting requirements.

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your information, we will either delete or anonymize it.

Cookies and Tracking Tools

We use cookies to help you make using our website easier, such as:

  • To remember your country and language preferences

  • To deliver information that matches your interests

  • To help us understand our audience and traffic patterns

  • To manage and present site info displayed on our website that will be specific to you

We use Google Analytics data to help us build a better website to match our visitors’ needs.

Advertiser Disclosures

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics Advertiser Features to optimize our business. Advertiser features include:

  • Remarketing with Google Analytics

  • Google Display Network Impression Reporting

By enabling these Google Analytics Display features, we are required to notify our visitors by disclosing the use of these features and that we and third-party vendors use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) or other first-party identifiers, and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) or other third-party identifiers together to gather data about your activities on our Site. Among other uses, this allows us to contact you if you begin to fill out our check-out form but abandon it before completion with an email reminding you to complete your order. The “Remarketing” feature allows us to reach people who previously visited our Site, and match the right audience with the right advertising message.

You can opt out of Google’s use of cookies by visiting Google’s ad settings and/or you may opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.

Data Security and Data Privacy Regulation

Commitment to data security

We implement a variety of administrative, managerial, and technical security measures to help protect your personal information. Our practice has various internal control standards which relate specifically to the handling of personal information. However, while we strive to protect your personal information, you must also take steps to protect your information. We urge you to take every precaution to protect your personal information while you are on the Internet.

Additionally, while we make every effort to ensure the integrity and security of our network and systems, we cannot guarantee that our security measures will prevent third-party “hackers” from illegally obtaining this information. If we do discover a security breach affecting your data, every effort will be made to provide a notification within 72 hours of our team learning of the occurrence.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

The CCPA took effect on January 1, 2020, and is intended to protect the data of California residents.

If you are a resident of California, you have certain rights with respect to your data. We respond to all requests that we receive from individuals who wish to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws. You can contact us by sending an email to info@transparentpsychotherapy.com.

Rights that you may have, include:

  • Requesting deletion of your information.

    • If you request that your account be deleted, you will lose access to all of our programs in which you are actively registered.

  • Opting out from the sale of your information to third parties.

  • Requesting disclosure of the personal information we have collected about you and the types of third parties with whom it has been shared.

  • Requesting the portability of your information.

  • Opting out from receiving marketing communications that we send you at any time. You can exercise this right by selecting the “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” link in the marketing emails we send you. Additionally, you may update your email preferences by changing the settings in your account.

  • Every effort will be made to respond to a verified request within a reasonable time, or the time-frame required by law.

Children’s Privacy Statement

This children’s privacy statement explains our practices with respect to the online collection and use of personal information from children under the age of thirteen, and provides important information regarding their rights under federal law with respect to such information.

  • This Site is not directed to children under the age of thirteen and we do NOT knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen as part of the Site. We screen users who wish to provide personal information in order to prevent users under the age of thirteen from providing such information. If we become aware that we have inadvertently received personally identifiable information from a user under the age of thirteen as part of the Site, we will delete such information from our records. If we change our practices in the future, we will obtain prior, verifiable parental consent before collecting any personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen as part of the Site.

  • Because we do not collect any personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen as part of the Site, we also do NOT knowingly distribute such information to third parties.

  • We do NOT knowingly allow children under the age of thirteen to publicly post or otherwise distribute personally identifiable contact information through the Site.

  • Because we do not collect any personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen as part of the Site, we do NOT condition the participation of a child under thirteen in the Site’s online activities on providing personally identifiable information.

Revisions to this policy

Our Company reserves the right to revise, amend, or modify this policy, our Terms of Service, and our other policies and agreements at any time and in any manner, by updating this posting.

Where to direct questions about our privacy policy

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the practices described herein, you may contact us through the contact information provided on this website.
info@transparentpsychotherapy.com