At Laksman Doell, we are deeply committed to protecting your privacy and to ensuring the confidentiality and protection of your personal health information. We recognize the importance of collecting, using, and disclosing personal information responsibly and only to the extent necessary in order to provide you with the services that you have consented to receive. We strive to be open and transparent regarding our practices, and to that end, we are providing this document in order to describe our privacy policies and procedures.
We operate in accordance with the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA), the primary legislation that governs the handling of personal information by all regulated health professionals within the province of Ontario.
What is Personal Health Information?
Personal Health Information includes any information about identifiable individuals that is collected in the course of providing health care. This can include information about personal characteristics, activities, and views (e.g., name, contact information, date of birth, and also information about characteristics such as gender, language, religion, education, occupation, opinions); information about health care (e.g., diagnosis, assessment results, treatment planning, health history, ongoing progress notes, recommendations); as well as information related to billing and payment for health services (e.g., credit card information or requests for information from insurance providers).
The practice of psychology in Ontario is regulated under the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991 (RHPA). As such, all identifiable information collected by registered psychologists, or psychologists in supervised practice, in the course of practicing psychology is considered to be personal health information under PHIPA.
Collection and Use of Personal Health Information
At Laksman Doell, we collect, use and disclose only as much personal health information as is required in order to provide you with the services you are requesting from us, to maintain contact with you, and to prevent or offset harm. This may include information about your presenting concerns, your history, and your current circumstances in order to help us assess what your needs are, to advise you of your options, to monitor progress, and to provide you with the psychological treatment that you have consented to receive. It also includes contact information for yourself and for an emergency contact person. The majority of this information exists only within your health record/client file and is only to be accessed by your treating psychologist (and supervising psychologist if applicable), unless there is a request or requirement for further disclosure (see below for discussion of disclosure).
By law and in accordance with the standards of professional conduct outlined by the College of Psychologists of Ontario, we are required to keep a record of services provided to each client who receives psychological services at Laksman Doell. This record includes information you provide or authorize us to receive, results of any assessments, consent forms, contact notes, progress summaries, billing information, referral information, and copies of any correspondence that we have sent or received related to psychological the services provided to you.
In addition, we collect and use limited personal health information in order to facilitate the running of our practice, specifically to communicate the needs of our clients to our staff (e.g., for purposes of scheduling and billing) and to process payments for services provided. We also use a number of consultants, including computer and website support, bookkeepers and accountants, lawyers, a practice management software company, and credit card companies. We restrict the access to personal information that is provided to these staff and consultants as much as is reasonably possible, and we also require their assurances that they too are adhering to appropriate privacy policies.
You may withdraw your consent for the collection, use and disclosure of personal health information at any time by speaking with your treating psychologist or by contacting our Information Officer, Dr. Faye Doell at drdoell@laksmandoell.com.
Protection and Safeguard of Personal Health Information
At Laksman Doell, we have put in place multiple safeguards to protect your personal health information against theft, loss, unauthorized use, disclosure, modification or disposal. These include the following steps:
- All paper files and records containing personal health information are closely monitored when in use and are stored in locked filing cabinets when not in use.
- All electronic hardware is similarly closely monitored, and strong passwords and/or encryption are used on all computers and mobile devices (e.g., laptops, smart phones, and USB keys).
- We have internal policies to ensure that no personal health information is left on a screen unattended when staff leave their computers or mobile devices.
- Our website is SSL encrypted and hosted on a secure server.
- Electronic health records/client files are maintained using Owl Practice, a secure and PHIPA-compliant Canadian provider.
- Virtual/remote psychological services are offered via secure video through the following platforms: Zoom and Owl Practice.
- Any transfer of sensitive electronic information will be through encrypted email, using Hushmail, a secure Canadian email provider.
- Any transfer of sensitive paper information will be through sealed envelopes, marked private and confidential, sent by reputable companies with stringent privacy policies.
- All clinicians and staff at Laksman Doell are familiar with this Privacy Policy, have been trained in the appropriate collection, use, destruction and disclosure of personal health information, and are only granted access to that information which they require in order to fulfil the duties of their role(s).
- All clinicians and staff are aware of the need for sensitivity in handling personal health information in contexts where there is risk that this information may be inadvertently seen or overheard, and are aware that the Information Officer, Dr. Faye Doell, must be notified immediately of any potential breaches.
- All external consultants (e.g., IT providers, bookkeepers, credit card companies) who may have access to personal health information in the context of their involvement with Laksman Doell must have privacy and security agreements with us.
Disclosure of Personal Health Information
In keeping with our commitment to respect your privacy and to ensure the confidentiality and protection of your personal health information, there are very few circumstances in which we would ever need to disclose information about you to anyone without your prior knowledge and express consent. There are, however, several exceptions which may require mandatory reporting of information or potential limits to confidentiality. These include:
- In situations where an individual intends to cause serious physical harm to him/her/themself or to another person, steps must be taken to offset the consequences of such action.
- The Child and Family Services Act states that when a practitioner has reasonable grounds to suspect that a child has, or may have, suffered abuse (including physical, sexual or emotional abuse or neglect) the practitioner must report the suspicion and the information on which it is based to child welfare.
- The Regulated Health Professions Act makes it mandatory to file a report when the practitioner has reasonable grounds to believe that a member of the same or different college has sexually abused a client.
- The Long-Term Care Homes Act and the Retirement Homes Act require mandatory reporting when there are reasonable grounds to suspect the abuse or neglect of residents of long-term care or retirement homes.
- In situations where there is a court order, the practitioner is legally required to submit the requested information or documents.
- The College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO) may inspect health records/client files when conducting audits of psychologists as part of its regulatory activities, in the public interest, to ensure that the standards of practice are maintained.
- When disclosure is needed in order to receive professional or legal consultation.
Please note that in all of these exceptions, any disclosure of your personal health information would be limited to only that information that is reasonably necessary for the purpose of the disclosure, and that all persons involved in each of these activities are required by law to maintain the confidentiality of any accessed information.
In addition, we are occasionally required to provide information to insurance companies, credit card companies or other third-party payers as needed, who will have independently obtained your consent or may have legislative authority to direct us to collect and disclose to them certain information in order to demonstrate your entitlement to funding for services and to answer questions about the services you have received. Similarly, if someone else (e.g., a family member) is paying for your services at Laksman Doell, they will be entitled to limited information including the name of your service provider, the dates you were seen, and the length and cost of sessions as part of your billing record, though no other information about your treatment would be provided to them without your consent.
If there are any other foreseeable limits of confidentiality in your situation, we will endeavor to identify and discuss them with you before proceeding with your service.
You may also wish to provide consent for us to disclose your personal health information to another health professional who is providing services to you. In doing so, you may restrict us from sharing any part of your personal information that you would prefer us not to disclose. However, if in our opinion the information is reasonably necessary for another health service provider to provide you with appropriate service, we are required by law to inform the other provider that you have refused consent to provide some needed information.
Retention and Destruction of Personal Health Information
Laksman Doell serves as the health information custodian for all personal health information collected by the individual regulated health professionals who serve as agents of our practice. We are required to retain personal health information contained in health records/client files and billing records for a minimum of 10 years following your last contact with us, both in order to ensure that we can answer any future questions that you might have about the services you received and for our own accountability to external regulatory bodies.
Following this mandatory period of retention, all files and records containing personal health information will be disposed of in a secure manner in order to ensure that they cannot be recovered. For example, all paper records will be destroyed by cross-cut shredding, and all electronic files or hardware will be deleted or discarded in a manner such that the data cannot be recovered.
Your Right to Access and Amend Your Personal Health Record
PHIPA provides a broad right of access to any personal health information held about you by a health care custodian. That means that every individual has a right to request access to their own personal health record, and to expect it to be granted within a reasonable time (no later than 30 days after receiving requests in writing). There are, however, a few notable exceptions. For example, if the physical record contains personal health information about another individual, that individual’s information must be able to be severed from the record before you may access the record, unless both parties consent to this access. Because of the nature of certain services, severing information in some but not all places of the record can be difficult, and at times impossible. Other exceptions include restricted access to copyrighted materials and raw data from psychological tests, and to information that could result in foreseeable risk of serious harm to an individual’s treatment or recovery, or in foreseeable risk of serious harm to another individual.
Should you wish to access any of the personal health information that is held about you at Laksman Doell, you can either make this request to your treating psychologist or you can contact our Information Officer, Dr. Faye Doell at drdoell@laksmandoell.com. We can help you to identify what records we might have about you, and we will be happy to review your health record with you in order to clarify any information that is not immediately understandable (e.g., abbreviations or technical language). If it has been some time since you last attended treatment or we are not able to easily recognize you, we will need to confirm your identity before providing you with this access. If you are requesting a physical copy of your health record, we ask that you provide this request in writing, and we reserve the right to charge a reasonable fee in order to cover the labour and printing costs involved in preparing the file.
In addition, if you believe that there are any mistakes in your personal health record, you have a right to request a correction of any errors, and to request that notification of any corrections be sent to others who may have received the incorrect or disputed information. This applies to factual information only and not to professional opinions or observations. Should we not agree that a correction or amendment is warranted, individuals have a right to insist that a statement of disagreement be included within their record, and also have a right to complain to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.
Concerns, Complaints and Resources
Our Information Officer, Dr. Faye Doell, is the contact person at Laksman Doell for any requests regarding clarification of our privacy policy. In addition, she is responsible for overseeing any requests for access or correction to personal health records and for handling any privacy complaints. Dr. Doell can be reached via email at drdoell@laksmandoell.com, and will respond to any and all complaints by acknowledging receipt of your complaint, investigating and addressing the complaint, and then providing you with a response that includes a summary of any decisions and actions taken. In the event of any privacy breach (e.g., the theft, loss, or unauthorized use or disclosure of personal health information) our Information Officer will notify affected individuals, and will take all appropriate steps to investigate and contain the breach.
If there are any concerns about the privacy practices outlined in this policy, or if any individuals have concerns about how their personal health information has been handled at Laksman Doell, complaints can be filed with the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario by contacting them at:
Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
2 Bloor Street East, Suite 1400
Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8
Telephone: (416) 326-3333 / 1 (800) 387-0073
Fax: (416) 325-9195
www.ipc.on.ca
If you have any additional concerns regarding the professionalism or competence of any of the psychologists at Laksman Doell, or any concerns about our policies and procedures, we would ask that you direct these concerns to either of our founders: Dr. Zoë Laksman at drlaksman@laksmandoell.com or Dr. Faye Doell at drdoell@laksmandoell.com. If we cannot address these concerns to your satisfaction, then you may also take your issue to the College of Psychologists of Ontario by contacting them at:
The College of Psychologists of Ontario
110 Eglinton Avenue West, Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario M4R 1A3
Telephone: (416) 961-8817
Fax: (416) 961-2635
www.cpo.on.ca
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