Privacy

Privacy and HIPAA

What happens to information you enter on this website, and where to find the practice’s full Notice of Privacy Practices.


Read this first

Draft, not legal advice

Have this reviewed before launch. What follows is a plain-language starting point written by your web developer, not a lawyer. A HIPAA-covered practice needs its Notice of Privacy Practices and website privacy language reviewed by counsel or a compliance advisor before publication.

This website

What the site collects

This site does not set advertising cookies, run analytics scripts, or track you across other websites.

It collects information in one place only: the contact form. What you type there, and choose to send, is stored so the office can read it and get back to you. We also keep a scrambled, one-way version of your IP address, used only to stop one person sending hundreds of messages; it cannot be turned back into an address.

The form is not a secure channel and is not covered by a business associate agreement. That is why we ask you to keep symptoms, diagnoses, and medications out of it, and to use the phone for anything clinical.

Your message is read by the practice. It is stored in an account the practice controls and is not routed through an outside messaging service.

This site does not have a live chat window. It had one until recently, and we took it away on purpose: it gave the impression somebody was listening at times when the office is closed, and it collected exactly the kind of detail we ask people not to put in writing. If you need a person rather than a form, please call.

Web fonts on this site are loaded from Google Fonts, which means your browser makes a request to Google’s servers when a page loads. If you would rather the site made no third-party requests at all, the fonts can be self-hosted instead.

Your records

Protected health information

Information created once you become a patient — your record, your appointments, what you discuss in session — is protected health information and is handled under HIPAA and Illinois law, not under this website notice.

The practice’s Notice of Privacy Practices explains how that information may be used and disclosed, and what rights you have over it: to see your record, to request corrections, to ask for restrictions, and to receive an accounting of disclosures. You are given a copy at your first appointment.

[Link the current Notice of Privacy Practices PDF here, or state where a copy can be requested.]

Questions about privacy, or a concern about how your information was handled, go to the office at [(618) 555-0142].

Housekeeping

Changes to this page

We update this page when the site changes. The date below reflects the last revision.

Last updated: [Month DD, YYYY]

In crisis? This office is not a 24-hour service. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For urgent mental health support any time, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.