CONFIDENTIALITY & LIMITS TO THE PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Everything that you share with us during our sessions is confidential. No information we obtain about you can be released to anyone without your expressed written consent. However, there are some limits to confidentiality that are true for all health care providers in Ontario. These few exceptions are designed to ensure your safety and the safety of the general public. They are as follows:

• If you give us reason to believe that you are at risk of harming yourself or someone else, we have a duty to share whatever information is necessary to ensure that you and/or others are safe
• If you give us reason to believe that a child is being abused, we have a duty to report that information to the Children’s Aid Society
• If you tell us that you have been sexually abused by a health professional, we have a duty to report that information to the relevant regulating organization for that However, your name cannot be included in the report without their written consent.
• Is required to do so by a court of Counsellors’ files are not “privileged” documents. A court of law could subpoena your records. In such cases, your counsellor will make every effort to satisfy the subpoena with a letter that will be discussed with you before submitting the requested records.

As part of our ongoing professional development, we may consult with other health and mental health professionals about a case. During a consultation, no identifying information about patients is revealed. The other health professionals are also legally bound to keep the information confidential. All consultations will be documented in the clinical file.

As the counsellors at Radiant Mind are also pre-licensed Psychotherapy Interns, the Supervising Psychotherapist may review your clinical file and will discuss your case with us at regular intervals as required by the CRPO, for the purpose of providing us with the mandated clinical supervision. It is also possible that we may occasionally have the support and presence of our Supervising Psychotherapist in the session with us. This provides both support in their learning, and also further assistance to you. The Supervising Psychotherapist also maintains the above confidentiality policies.

Please be aware that submitting a mental health invoice for reimbursement to a third party such as an insurance provider may carry a certain amount of risk to confidentiality, privacy or to future capacity to obtain health or life insurance. The risk stems from the fact that mental health information is likely to be entered into and stored in the insurance companies’ computer system. Accessibility to companies’ computer systems is always in question as they are inherently vulnerable to hacking and unauthorized access. It is the client’s responsibility to become familiar with the privacy and data security policies of their own insurance provider, and Radiant Mind bears no responsibility for any losses occasioned by any data breaches/losses of/by said providers.

RETENTION AND DESTRUCTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

 We retain personal information for some time to ensure we can answer any questions clients might have about the services provided and for our own accountability to external regulatory bodies. We retain client information for a minimum of 10 years after the last contact so we can reference the records from previous assessment or treatment services provided for clients who seek services on an ongoing basis. The CRPO also requires the retention of client records for ten years.

As a health information custodian, Radiant Mind must ensure that, during the period of retention of records, client date remains usable and unaltered, despite aging record media. This may require storing records in a controlled environment and may require transferring records to fresh or and/or different media from time to time. Such transfers will only be done after confidentiality is assured. We destroy electronic information by deleting it and, when the hardware is replaced or discarded, we ensure that the hard drive is physically destroyed. All paper information is destroyed through shredding.

You Can Look at Your Information

With only a few exceptions, you have the right to see what personal information we hold about you. All you have to do is ask. However, your request to access your own health record must be refused if:

• Personal health information pertaining to another person would be simultaneously disclosed and that other person has not consented to that disclosure
• If you or someone else may be harmed as a result of permitting access, as determined by a healthcare professional under the provisions of the Mental Health Act.

We will also try to help you understand any information you do not understand (e.g., short forms, technical language, etc.). We will ask you to confirm your identity before providing you with this access, and your access will need to be delayed until any references to other identifiable persons are removed. We reserve the right to charge a nominal fee for such requests and we may ask you to put your request in writing. If we cannot give you access, we will tell you the reason within 30 days of receiving your request.

If you believe there is a mistake in your information, you have the right to ask for it to be corrected. This applies to factual information and not to any professional opinions we may have formed. We may ask you to provide documentation proving that our files are wrong. Where we agree that we made a mistake, we will make the correction and, where appropriate, notify anyone to whom we sent this information. If we do not agree that we have made a mistake, we will agree to include in your file a brief statement from you on the point and, as appropriate, we will forward that statement to anyone else who received the earlier information. The original record will be preserved and the source of the amendment noted in the record.