This Privacy Policy is specifically in relation to our clients’ interactions with this website. Client treatment data and personal information are covered under the Health Insurance and Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA, www.hhs.gov), and Confidentiality laws which cover the following.
The law protects the privacy of all communications between a patient and a counselor. In most situations, we can only release information about your treatment to others if you sign a written Release of Information authorization form that meets certain legal requirements imposed by HIPAA. There are other situations that require only that you provide written, advance consent. Your signature on the Informed Consent form (given separately) provides consent for those activities. You should also know that we occasionally find it helpful to consult other health and mental health professionals about a case. During a consultation, we make every effort to avoid revealing the identity of the client(s). The other professionals are also legally bound to keep the information confidential. If you don’t object, we will not tell you about these consultations unless we feel that it is important to our work together. We will note all consultations in your clinical record.
There are some situations when we are permitted or required to disclose information without either your consent or authorization. They are:
- If you are involved in a court proceeding and a request is made for information concerning our professional services, such information is protected by the counselor-client privilege law. We cannot provide any information without your written authorization, or a court order. If you are involved in or contemplating litigation, you should consult with your attorney to determine whether a court would be likely to order us to disclose information.
- If a government agency requests information for health oversight activities, we are required to provide it for them.
- If a client files a complaint or lawsuit against us, we may disclose relevant information patient to defend the practice.
- If a client files workers’ compensation claims, we shall submit a report to the Workers’ Compensation Division.
There are some situations in which we are legally obligated to take actions, which we believe are necessary to attempt to protect you or others from harm, and we may have to reveal some information about your treatment. They are:
- If you communicate intent to harm or kill yourself, we may be obligated to seek hospitalization for you, or to contact family members or others who can provide protection and necessary support.
- If we have reasonable cause to know or suspect that a child has been subjected to abuse or neglect or if we have observed a child being subjected to circumstances or conditions which would reasonably result in abuse or neglect, the law requires that we file a report with the appropriate governmental agency. Once such a report is filed, we may be required to provide additional information.
- If we have reasonable cause to believe that an at-risk adult has been or is at imminent risk of being mistreated, self- neglected, or financially exploited, the law requires that we file a report with the appropriate governmental agency. Once such a report is filed, we may be required to provide additional information.
- If you communicate a serious threat of imminent physical violence against a specific person or persons, we must make an effort to notify such person; and/or notify an appropriate law enforcement agency; and/or take other appropriate action including seeking hospitalization of the client.
- If you communicate a serious threat to national security, we must make an effort to notify an appropriate law enforcement agency.
- If you tell us of the behavior of another named health or mental health care provider that informs us that this person has either a) engaged in sexual contact with a patient, including yourself or b) is impaired from practice in some manner by cognitive, emotional, behavioral, or health problems, then the law requires us to report this to their licensing board at the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. We would inform you before taking this step. If you are our client AND a health care provider, however, your confidentiality remains protected under the law from this kind of reporting.
While this written summary of exceptions to confidentiality should prove helpful in informing you of potential problems, it is important that we discuss any questions or concerns that you may have now or in the future. The laws governing confidentiality can be quite complex, and our counselors are not attorneys. In situations where specific advice is required, formal legal advice may be needed.
Who We Are:
Our website address is: https://zioncounseling.us. We are a counseling service registered and licensed with the State of Colorado.
Comments:
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media:
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Cookies:
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Embedded Content From Other Websites:
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Who Do We Share Your Data With?
If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
How Long Do We Retain Your Data?
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What Rights Do You Have Over Your Data?
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where Is Your Data Sent?
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.