Privacy & Policies

When we schedule your first session, your email address will be used to pre-register you in our client portal. You will receive an email to set up your portal and complete all intake paperwork electronically. We require these documents to be completed prior to scheduling your first therapy session, diagnostic evaluations and assessments. New patient paperwork includes:

• Welcome Letter

• Services Agreement & Disclosure

• Information about our secure payment system, STAX

• Patient Health Questionnaire (Child/ Family or Adult/ Couple)

• (Optional) Release of Information

• (For Assessments) PDF and Online Rating Scales received in separate emails

• (For Assessments, Medication Management, Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy and Animal Assisted Therapy) Additional Consent Forms

Client Rights

You are entitled to receive information from me about our methods of therapy, the techniques we use, the duration of your therapy (if we can determine it), and our fee structure (see below). Please ask if you would like to receive this information. You can seek a second opinion from another therapist or terminate therapy at any time. In a professional relationship (such as ours), sexual intimacy between a therapist and a client is never appropriate. If sexual intimacy occurs, it should be reported to the Department of Regulatory Agencies, Mental Health Section. 

Confidentiality & Privacy Policy

The law protects the relationship between a client and a psychotherapist, and information cannot be disclosed without written permission. Should you request our communication with another entity for care coordination, you will be required to complete a Release of Information Document. If you are a minor, your parents may be legally entitled to some information about your therapy. I will discuss with you and your parents what information is appropriate for them to receive and which issues are more appropriately kept confidential.

Exceptions to confidentiality:

• Suspected child abuse or dependent adult or elder abuse, for which we are required by law to report this to the appropriate authorities immediately.

• If a client is threatening serious bodily harm to another person/s, we must notify the police and inform the intended victim.

• If a client intends to harm himself or herself, your therapist will make every effort to enlist their cooperation in ensuring their safety. If they do not cooperate, we will take further measures without their permission that are provided to therapists by law in order to ensure their safety.

Miscellaneous Policies 

Cancellations

We require 48 hours notice for cancellations.  Cancellations with less than 24 hours notice and no shows are charged the full session fee.  Cancellations between 24 and 48 hours are charged half the session fee.  If patients are not present within the first 15 minutes of their session, they will be considered a no show, so please communicate with your provider if you are running late. There is currently a high need for services in our community, especially after 2:00pm. If regularly scheduled sessions are frequently canceled, we will need to consider offering high demand appointment times (such as after school) to other clients waiting for services. If there have been 3 or more no call/ no shows to appointments, we reserve the right to end services and will work with you to find supports that may be a better fit.

TELEPHONE ACCESSIBILITY

If you need to contact me between sessions, please leave a message on my voice mail. I am often not immediately available; however, I will attempt to return your call within 24 business hours. Please note that Face- to-face sessions are highly preferable to phone sessions. However, in the event that you are out of town, sick or need additional support, phone sessions are available. Phone calls longer than 15 minutes will be treated like a clinical issue and the hourly rate applies. Phone calls to coordinate care with other people (physicians, teachers, etc) will require your consent through a Release of Information Document and will be subject to the rate of a typical therapy session.  If a true emergency situation arises, please see above about emergency services.

EMAIL

Electronic communication containing personal and confidential information should be sent through the Simple Practice portal.  If you choose to text or email your provider from your personal email account, please limit the contents to basic issues such as door access after hours, cancellation or change in contact information. In an effort to support confidentiality, we will not respond to personal and clinical concerns via regular email or text. Please be aware that unless we are both on land line phones, the conversation is not confidential.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND TELECOMMUNICATION

Due to the importance of your confidentiality and the importance of minimizing dual relationships, I do not accept friend or contact requests from current or former clients on any social networking site (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc). I believe that adding clients as friends or contacts on these sites can compromise your confidentiality and our respective privacy. It may also blur the boundaries of our therapeutic relationship. If you have questions about this, please bring them up when we meet and we can talk more about it. This practice maintains a professional presence on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest. This presence exists solely to provide education, inspiration and information to the public pertaining to the practice and related topics. It also assists in directing interested individuals to the official practice website for this practice. It shall be the policy of this practice to not knowingly communicate about personal information with clients via instant messaging, “chatting” or similar technologies through these sites.

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION

I cannot ensure the confidentiality of any form of communication through electronic media, including text messages. If you prefer to communicate via email or text messaging for issues regarding scheduling or cancellations, I will do so. While I may try to return messages in a timely manner, I cannot guarantee immediate response and request that you do not use these methods of communication to discuss therapeutic content and/or request assistance for emergencies.

Services by electronic means, including but not limited to telephone communication, the Internet, facsimile machines, and e-mail is considered telemedicine by the State of California. Under the California Telemedicine Act of 1996, telemedicine is broadly defined as the use of information technology to deliver medical services and information from one location to another. If you and your therapist chose to use information technology for some or all of your treatment, you need to understand that:
(1) You retain the option to withhold or withdraw consent at any time without affecting the right to future care or treatment or risking the loss or withdrawal of any program benefits to which you would otherwise be entitled.
(2) All existing confidentiality protections are equally applicable.
(3) Your access to all medical information transmitted during a telemedicine consultation is guaranteed, and copies of this information are available for a reasonable fee.
(4) Dissemination of any of your identifiable images or information from the telemedicine interaction to researchers or other entities shall not occur without your consent.
(5) There are potential risks, consequences, and benefits of telemedicine. Potential benefits include, but are not limited to improved communication capabilities, providing convenient access to up-to-date information, consultations, support, reduced costs, improved quality, change in the conditions of practice, improved access to therapy, better continuity of care, and reduction of lost work time and travel
costs. Effective therapy is often facilitated when the therapist gathers within a session or a series of sessions, a multitude of observations, information, and experiences about the client. Therapists may make clinical assessments, diagnosis, and interventions based not only on direct verbal or auditory communications, written reports, and third person consultations, but also from direct visual and olfactory observations, information, and experiences. When using information technology in therapy services, potential risks include, but are not limited to the therapist's inability to make visual and olfactory observations of clinically or therapeutically potentially relevant issues such as: your physical condition including deformities, apparent height and weight, body type, attractiveness relative to social and cultural norms or standards, gait and motor coordination, posture, work speed, any noteworthy mannerism or gestures, physical or medical conditions including bruises or injuries, basic grooming and hygiene including appropriateness of dress, eye contact (including any changes in the previously listed issues), sex, chronological and apparent age, ethnicity, facial and body language, and congruence of language and facial or bodily expression. Potential consequences thus include the therapist not being aware of what he
or she would consider important information, that you may not recognize as significant to present verbally the therapist.Social media

This practice maintains a professional presence on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest. This presence exists solely to provide education, inspiration and information to the public pertaining to the practice and related topics. It also assists in directing interested individuals to the official practice website for this practice. It shall be the policy of this practice to not knowingly communicate about personal information with clients via instant messaging, “chatting” or similar technologies through these sites.

telepsychology

The laws that protect the confidentiality of medical information also apply to telemedicine, performed via Zoom or Doxy in this practice. Please be aware that the providers of this practice are licensed to practice in the state of Colorado. If you or your provider are not physically within the state of Colorado during a telepsychology session, therapy is subject to the licensing laws of that state. We encourage you to only communicate through a computer that you know is safe, i.e. wherein confidentiality can be ensured. Be sure to fully exit all online counseling sessions and emails. If we are unable to connect or are disconnected during a session due to a technological breakdown, please try to reconnect within 10 minutes. If reconnection is not possible, email to schedule a new session time.

session video recording

This is a training facility and we occasionally wish to record a video of a session for internal training and supervision. Recordings are deleted within one month and are not shared or utilized for any external purposes.

Session audio recording

Your clinician uses a digital Note Taker to create an accurate and timely record of your care. Instead of writing notes by hand, the session will be recorded which allows clinicians to give you their undivided attention during your time together. This means better care and more meaningful conversations between you and your clinician. Some states have two-party consent for audio recordings, so it's important for you to know that your voice and conversation with your clinician are recorded to document the appointment. As soon as the audio is transcribed (usually a few seconds after the appointment ends), the audio recording is permanently deleted. The recording process complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). If you still have any questions or concerns, your clinician would be happy to discuss this with you. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time (even temporarily).

TERMINATION

Ending relationships can be difficult. Therefore, it is important to have a termination process in order to achieve some closure. The appropriate length of the termination depends on the length and intensity of the treatment. I may terminate treatment after appropriate discussion with you and a termination process if I determine that the psychotherapy is not being effectively used or if you are in default on payment. I will not terminate the therapeutic relationship without first discussing and exploring the reasons and purpose of terminating. If therapy is terminated for any reason or you request another therapist, I will provide you with a list of qualified psychotherapists to treat you. You may also choose someone on your own or from another referral source.

Should you fail to schedule an appointment for three consecutive weeks, unless other arrangements have been made in advance, for legal and ethical reasons, I must consider the professional relationship discontinued.

Emergency services

This practice does not provide 24 hour emergency service. In the case of a life-threatening emergency, please choose choose the best option from below:

1. Call Colorado Crisis Services at (844) 493-8255 or text TALK to 38255 (available 24/7). For more information click here.

2. Go to nearest Crisis Walk-In Center or emergency room. (available 24/7)

CRISIS WALK-IN CENTERS (ColoradoCrisisServices.org; 844-493-8255)

Aurora: 2206 Victor Street, Aurora, CO 80045

Denver: 4353 E. Colfax Ave., Denver, CO 80220

Littleton: 6509 S. Santa Fe Drive, Littleton, CO 80120 

3. Call 911, specify it is a mental health emergency, and request a Mobile Crisis Unit.

Divorce and custody litigation

If you are involved in a divorce or custody litigation, we are unable to provide guidance, conduct investigations, or engage in evaluations regarding custody or parental fitness. As mental health providers, it is not within the scope of our role to make recommendations to the court concerning custody or parenting issues. The court can appoint professionals who have no prior relationship with family members to conduct an investigation or evaluation and to make recommendations to the court concerning parental responsibilities for parenting time in the best interest of the family's children.

By signing this Disclosure Statement, you agree not to subpoena your providers to court for testimony or disclosure of treatment information in such litigation; and you agree not to request that your providers write any reports to the court or to your attorney, making recommendations concerning custody. The court can appoint professionals who have no prior relationship with family members to conduct an investigation or evaluation and to make recommendations to the court concerning parental responsibilities for parenting time in the best interest of the family's children.