Intake Psychotherapy & Wellness, LLC

Privacy Policy

Mental Health Care takes the privacy and confidentiality of our clients very seriously. We are committed to protecting the personal information of our clients and ensuring that their privacy is respected at all times.

As part of our commitment to privacy, we adhere to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations. This means that we take all necessary precautions to safeguard patient information and ensure that it is only used for its intended purpose.

We also collect personally identifiable information (PPI) from clients and/or potential clients in order to provide the best possible care. This information is kept strictly confidential and is only shared with authorized personnel as necessary.

Our Privacy Policy outlines our commitment to protecting individuals privacy and confidentiality. We encourage all clients, potential clients, customers, and visitors of our website to review this policy and understand their rights with regard to their personal information.

If you have any questions or concerns about my Privacy Policy or how we handle client information, please do not hesitate to contact us.  We are committed to providing the highest level of care to clients while maintaining the strictest standards of privacy and confidentiality.

This document:

  • Describes the privacy policy of Intake Psychotherapy & Wellness, LLC (IPW) and its official website
  • Outlines the types of personal information we receive and collect, as well as the steps we take to safeguard information so that you can make an informed decision about sharing personal information with us. IPW strives to maintain the highest standards of respectability, fairness, and integrity in all our operations, including the protection and privacy of our therapy clients, customers, and visitors to our website. 

WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION

Personal Information in the context of Mental Health refers to any information that can be used to identify an individual's mental health status, treatment or diagnosis. This may include sensitive information such as medical records, counselling notes, therapy sessions, and medication prescriptions. 

Personal Information is protected by privacy laws, and it is important that healthcare providers and individuals handling this information ensure that it is kept confidential and secure. It is also important for individuals to be aware of their rights regarding their Personal Information and to understand how it may be used and shared. By protecting Personal Information, we can help to ensure that individuals' mental health is respected and that they receive the appropriate care and support they need.

Personal information also includes information that relates to an individual's personal characteristics (e.g., name, date of birth, home address and telephone number). Personal information is to be contrasted with business information (e.g., an individual's business address and telephone number), which is not protected by privacy legislation.

USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

The primary purpose for IPW obtaining personal information is to provide psychological assessment, counselling and consulting services to individuals, couples, and families in a responsible and professional manner. For example, information may be collected about a client’s health history, family history, physical and psychological condition, and social situation to help assess what their needs are, advise them of their treatment options and help them to receive the treatment they desire.

Rarely does IPW collect such information without the client's express consent, but this might occur in an emergency (e.g., the client is unconscious) or where it is believed the client would consent if asked, and it is impractical to obtain consent (e.g., a family member passing a message on from a client and there is no reason to believe that the message is not genuine). 

Other Related Purposes:

Obtaining personal information by IPW is to establish a baseline of health and social information. This allows identification of changes occurring over time as part of the provision of psychological services.

To advise the general public (or previous and ongoing clients) of special events, resources or services, such as trainings or new therapeutic services in development, that are available through IPW, and to make such services or resources accessible to the public. Only that personal information necessary for this purpose is collected. (For example, a first name and email address would be the only required information for a newsletter subscription. No other personal information would be necessary to receive free newsletters).

To advise the general public (or previous and ongoing clients) of resources that are independent of IPW. Previous or ongoing clients have previously given consent to receive such information.

For collecting personal information to invoice clients for services provided by IPW to process credit card payments, insurance, to collect on unpaid accounts, or charge for no shows or late cancellations. 

To advise clients that their service should be reviewed (e.g., Treatment Plan Reviews to ensure the service is still relevant to their needs).

Only individuals associated/affiliated with IPW will contact you:

In response to a question or suggestion initiated by you,

In accordance with your prior consent to be contacted, (i.e. to complete feedback evaluations about the process of counselling, or to receive newsletters or promotions for upcoming events such as workshops, etc.), or

As necessary to conduct the normal business affairs associated with the provision of services that you have initiated (i.e. scheduling matters, collecting on overdue accounts, reminders about upcoming appointments, follow-up to services being provided, etc.).

If you choose at any time to provide personal information such as your name, contact information (i.e. email address or telephone number) or any other personal information via email, online form, paper-and-pencil format, or otherwise, be assured that this information will never be given out, sold to advertisers, or used for any purpose other than what you intend.

Our website may collect and use your personal information for the following purposes:

  • To run and operate our site.
  • To display content on the site correctly.
  • To improve customer service.
  • To help us respond to your customer service requests and support needs more efficiently.
  • To personalize your user experience.
  • To understand how our users as a group use the services and resources provided on our site.
  • To improve our site.
  • To improve our products and services.
  • To run a promotion, contest, survey or other site feature.
  • To send information to you that you agreed to receive about topics we think will be of interest to you.
  • To send periodic emails, which may include electronic newsletters and/or autoresponder series of emails.
  • To respond to your inquiries, questions, and/or other requests.

IPW does not collect any private, personally identifiable information about you without your knowledge. Our official website collects only the personal information you provide and only uses that information for the purpose you provided it (e.g., to respond to email, to register for a course, to subscribe to a newsletter, to provide feedback about progress, etc.). No personal information whatsoever is required or requested in order for you to access the information and services on our official website. No one accessing this website will ever be required to subscribe to any newsletters or services.

Non-Personal Identifiable Information

We may collect non-personally identifiable information about you whenever you interact with our website. Non-personally identifiable information may include the browser name, the type of computer and technical information about your method of connecting to our site, such as the operating system and the Internet service provider you used, and other similar information

Privacy Protection for Children

This website is directed to adults. It is not directed to children under the age of 18. We operate our site in compliance with current regulations. Anyone under the age of 18 must provide parental consent to use this site. We do not knowingly collect or use personally identifiable information from anyone under 18 years of age.

Use of Third-Party Agencies and Organizations

IPW uses a several  platforms, organizations and agencies that may, in the course of their duties, have limited access to the personal information held by IPW.  These platforms, organizations, and/or agencies include bookkeepers and accountants, credit card merchants, insurance billers, and/or marketing platforms. As much as reasonably possible, IPW restricts their access to any personal information held in confidence by IPW, and has acquired a BAA (Business Associates Agreement) to ensure that they will follow appropriate privacy principles

METHOD OF COLLECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION

Personal information is collected from clients of IPW or from members of the general public by various means including verbal exchange (i.e. over the telephone or video conferencing calls), voicemail, email, and online forms submitted to us from Hushmail, our website, or online store (i.e. order forms, contact forms, online questionnaires, intake forms, etc.).

Our website may collect personally identifiable information from you in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, when you visit our site or fill out a form, and in connection with other activities, services, features or resources we make available on our site.

If you subscribe to our newsletter, we will ask you for your first name and your email address.

If you complete a form on our website, we will require your name and your email address, and will ask for information relevant to the purpose of the form.

If you submit content to us, we will ask for your name, phone number, and email address. Details you include in your submission may personally identify you.

If you purchase a product or service from us, we will collect your name, email address, billing address, and credit card number along with relevant information to the purpose of your request.

You can always refuse to supply personally identifiable information and visit our site anonymously. However, it may prevent you from engaging in certain site-related activities.

If we make material changes in the collection of personally identifiable information, we will inform you by placing a notice on our site. We will use personal information received from you for internal purposes only and will not sell it or provide it to third parties.

We also collect each visitor's IP address, which helps us combat spam and fraud. We do not use IP addresses for any other purpose.

Our website contains links to helpful resources and platforms used for promoting IPW that may interest you and leads to other websites. However, once you leave our website, we do not have any control and we are not held liable for other websites. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information you provide while visiting such sites. These sites are not governed by this privacy statement. Always exercise caution by reviewing the privacy statement of the website in question before continuing to use it.

 

ABOUT COOKIES

A cookie is a string of information that our website stores on your computer, which your browser provides to our website each time you return to the site. We use cookies to help us identify and track visitors, their use of our website, and their website access preferences.

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