Privacy & Policy

Confidentiality & Privacy Policy

Psychotherapy does not work unless the patient trusts that what they share will be kept in very strict confidence.

I promise I will not share information with your insurance company, employer, security clearance agents, colleagues, or family members without your expressed written permission to do so. The rare exceptions to this ethical obligation are listed below.

The law protecting the patient’s right to confidentiality prohibits a psychotherapist from releasing any information without permission to do so.

Exceptions include:

• Suspected child abuse or dependent adult or elder abuse, for which I am required by law to report this to the appropriate authorities immediately.
• If a patient is threatening serious bodily harm to another person, I must notify the police and inform the intended victim.
• If a patient intends to commit suicide or seriously harm himself or herself, I will make every effort to enlist their cooperation to ensure their safety. If they refuse to follow my recommendation for treatment, I am required by law to contact the police to bring the patient to an emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation.

Note: In the past 30 years, I have not had a single situation in which I had to contact the police and break confidentiality.

Cancellation & Payment Policies

Payments: You are responsible for the full, on–time payment of all invoices whether or not you use an insurance company for reimbursement. If you seek reimbursement by your insurance company, you should ask them to send reimbursement to you rather than to me. Please let me know if you intend to seek reimbursement from your insurance company in which case you will need a diagnosis code that we can discuss before I prepare your invoice. Invoices have all of the information required by your insurance company.

At the end of each month, I will send an invoice. Payments are due on or before the 15th of the following month. For example, payment for an invoice for the month of February is due on or before March 15th. Payments may be made by Venmo, check, Zelle or PayPal.

Cancellations: If you schedule a session and later cancel it, you will be charged for that session unless:

• You reschedule the session to a time within a week before or the week after the cancelled appointment or
• Another patient takes the time you cancelled.

Cancellations made within 48 hours of the scheduled session will be charged and cannot be rescheduled.

Group therapy sessions cannot be rescheduled and absences are charged.

HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices
To learn more about how your health information may be used and disclosed, and your rights under federal privacy regulations, please review my full HIPAA – Notice of Privacy Practices.