MUST KNOW! What Your MH Therapist Needs to Know About His Obligation to Provide Your Treatment Recs

MUST KNOW! What Your MH Therapist Needs to Know About His Obligation to Provide Your Treatment Recs

If you (MH) fail to comply with a HIPAA request executed by your patient/client, here is where the client/patient, or someone else who sees the violation, may file a Complaint to the Office of Civil Rights. Yes, it is a violation of Civil Rights at the federal level, unfortunately: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/filing-a-complaint/what-to-expect/index.html?language=es

HHS explain not only your obligation to provide records with Patient request, including mental health, but that you are certainly also ALLOWED (but not required) to provide psychotherapy notes: https://www.hhs.gov/guidance/document/faq-546-does-hipaa-privacy-rule-permit-covered-entity-disclose-psychotherapy-notes-or NOTE the difference so you don't get yourself into a jam: You are OBLIGATED to provide the RECORD set, you are NOT OBLIGATED to provide the brief section if you have one, with your psychotherapy notes HOWEVER, you are certainly allowed to respect your patient/client's authorized wishes and do so.

Now, here is an example where a PATIENT privately sued for the remiss provider's failure to provide records in the time and manner it was required to under law - what is signficant here is that the patient NEED NOT rely only on OCR and its slow if ever, wheels of justice when a patient's rights to access have been violated. This type of case can really illustrate that when the wallet of a provider is hit, that provider may just take better care to not allow such violations going forward: https://www.ebglaw.com/insights/providers-may-be-liable-in-negligence-for-a-failure-to-timely-and-completely-respond-to-patient-requests-for-medical-records/

Important memo from HHS with relevant information and link to HHS videos explaining a patient/client's access rights: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/righttoaccessmemo.pdf Note that references to YouTube videos the OCR had put out a decade ago are both obsolete potentially in their information details, and clearly not kept up to day. Go figure, that is a shame. That said, here is a great place to start: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance/access/index.html

Here is a diddy HHS put out about their initial investigations and the settlements paid by Access violators: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/compliance-enforcement/agreements/sjhmc/index.html

Oops, and here, more enforcement: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/compliance-enforcement/agreements/2021-right-of-access-initiative/index.html

As always, all statements in this video and elsewhere online are general information only, do not constitute legal advice and do not create an attorney client privilege. To obtain legal advice, retain a lawyer. Visit us at http://joydisability.com

Stephanie Joy has been practicing Social Security Disability law EXCLUSIVELY, no legal dabble elsewhere, since 2005.

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