Confidentiality
Dear Doctor,
I would like to see someone in your profession about a personal matter. I have insurance, but I am afraid what I talk about will be stored somewhere and shared if someone or a smart lawyer goes snooping. Do you have any advice about this for someone like me?
Cautious
Dear Cautious,
Let me begin by saying I do not blame you for your trepidation. Our country, it seems to me, is beset with violations of privacy, snooping, and a kind of hypocritical judgment of others by media, government, and heaven knows who else.
However, there are ethical principles which control your private information. Take this matter up very directly with the individual you chose to see professionally. Make it clear that the details of your conversations are never to be revealed to anyone.
Most therapists keep clinical notes. These consist of diagnoses, a treatment plan, and the like. A clinical record should not contain private notes from your meeting. It is my policy, for example, to write many things in code without any details. Secrets deserve to be secrets and privacy should mean that the professional you consult should take what you say as sacred, and that means forever.
Only in cases involving clear threats, possible child abuse and the like is a therapist committed to violate such trust. The provisions of the health insurance privacy and portability act (HIPPA) support privacy. A judge, usually in camera, might access some kinds of private data.
"Smart lawyers" are probably out of luck. By the way, managed care companies sometimes do a "clinical review" of a case. The details, especially sensitive matters of a private nature, should be kept with the therapist. This goes, in my mind, for children and what they chose to reveal or for spouses, who might share information the other does not know. Parents are not entirely entitled to a child’s view of the parent.
Wives, even ones with lawyers, are not entitled to hear about a husband’s therapy and vice versa. Check it out before you tell everything.
Tags: confidentiality, family matters confidentiality, personal security, secret advice, snooping, violations of privacy
Leave a Comment