Privacy Policy
A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC
Amy Doherty, LMSW
NOTICE OF PRIVACY PRACTICES
THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES HOW YOUR HEALTH INFORMATION MAY BE USED AND DISCLOSED AND HOW YOU CAN GET ACCESS TO THIS INFORMATION. PLEASE REVIEW IT CAREFULLY.
EFFECTIVE DATE OF THIS NOTICE: This notice went into effect on September 23, 2025
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF RECEIPT OF PRIVACY NOTICE
Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (hereafter, “HIPAA”), you have certain rights regarding the use and disclosure of your protected health information (hereafter, “PHI”).
!. MY PLEDGE REGARDING HEALTH INFORMATION: A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC understands that health information about you and your health care is personal. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC is committed to protecting health information about you. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC creates a record of the care and services you receive. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC needs this record to provide you with quality care and to comply with certain legal requirements. This notice applies to all of the records of your care generated by this mental health care practice. This notice will tell you about the ways in which A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may use and disclose health information about you. It also describes your rights to the health information A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC keeps about you, and describe certain obligations regarding the use and disclosure of your health information. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC is required by law to:
● Make sure that PHI that identifies you is kept private.
● Give you this notice of my legal duties and privacy practices with respect to health information.
● Follow the terms of the notice that is currently in effect.
● A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC can change the terms of this Notice, and such changes will apply to all the information. The new Notice will be available upon request, and on my website.
II. HOW A LINK IN HEALING COUNSELING PLLC MAY USE AND DISCLOSE HEALTH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU:
The following categories describe different ways that A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC uses and discloses health information. For each category of uses or disclosure- some examples and explanations will be given. Not every use or disclosure in a category will be listed. However, all of the ways A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC is permitted to use and disclose information will fall within one of the categories.
For Treatment Payment, or Health Care Operations: Federal privacy rules (regulations) allow health care providers who have direct treatment relationship with the patient/client to use or disclose the patient/client’s personal health information without the patient’s written authorization, to carry out the health care provider’s own treatment, payment or health care operations. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may also disclose your PHI for the treatment activities of any health care provider. This too can be done without your written authorization. For example, if a clinician were to consult with another licensed health care provider about your condition, we would be permitted to use and disclose your PHI, which is otherwise confidential, in order to assist the clinician in diagnosis and treatment of your health condition. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may also use your PHI for operations purposes, including sending you appointment reminders, billing invoices and other documentation.
Disclosures for treatment purposes are not limited to the minimum necessary standard. Because therapists and other health care providers need access to the full record and/or full and complete information in order to provide quality care. The word “treatment” includes, among other things, the coordination and management of health care providers with a third party, consultations between health care providers and referrals of a patient for health care from one health care provider to another.
Lawsuits and Disputes: If you are involved in a lawsuit, A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may disclose health information in response to a court or administrative order. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may also disclose health information about you or your minor child(ren) in response to a subpoena, discovery request, or other lawful process by someone else involved in the dispute, but only if efforts have been made to tell you about the request or to obtain an order protecting the information requested.
III. CERTAIN USES AND DISCLOSURES REQUIRE YOUR AUTHORIZATION:
1. Psychotherapy Notes. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC does keep “psychotherapy notes” as that term is defined in 45 CFR § 164.501, and any use or disclosure of such notes requires your Authorization unless the use or disclosure is:
a. For use in treating you.
b. For use in training or supervising mental health practitioners to help them improve their skills in group, joint, family, or individual counseling or therapy.
c. For use in defending myself in legal proceedings instituted by you.
d. For use by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to investigate my compliance with HIPAA.
e. Required by law and the use or disclosure is limited to the requirements of such law.
f. Required by law for certain health oversight activities pertaining to the originator of the psychotherapy notes.
g. Required by a coroner who is performing duties authorized by law.
h. Required to help avert a serious threat to the health and safety of others.
2. Marketing Purposes. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will not use or disclose your PHI for marketing purposes without your prior written consent. For example, if A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC requests a review from you and plan to share the review publicly online or elsewhere to advertise services or my practice, A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will provide you with a release form and HIPAA authorization. The HIPAA authorization is required in the instance that your review contains PHI (i.e., your name, the date of the service you received, the kind of treatment you are seeking or other personal health details). Because you may not realize
which information you provide is considered “PHI,” A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will send you a HIPAA authorization and request your signature regardless of the content of your review. Once you complete the HIPAA authorization, A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will have the legal right to use your review for advertising and marketing purposes, even if it contains PHI. You may withdraw this consent at any time by submitting a written request to me via the email address on file or via certified mail to my address. Once A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC has received your written withdrawal of consent, A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will remove your review from my website and from any other places where it was posted. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC cannot guarantee that others who may have copied your review from my website or from other locations will also remove the review. This is a risk that A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC wants you to be aware of, should you give permission to post your review.
3. Sale of PHI. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will not sell your PHI.
IV. USES AND DISCLOSURES THAT DO NOT REQUIRE YOUR AUTHORIZATION.
Subject to certain limitations in the law, A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC can use and disclose your PHI without your Authorization for the following reasons.
1. Appointment reminders and health related benefits or services. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may use and disclose your PHI to contact you to remind you that you have an appointment. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may also use and disclose your PHI to tell you about treatment alternatives, or other health care services or benefits that are offered.
2. When disclosure is required by state or federal law, and the use or disclosure complies with and is limited to the relevant requirements of such law.
3. For public health activities, including reporting suspected child, elder, or dependent adult abuse, or preventing or reducing a serious threat to anyone’s health or safety.
4. For health oversight activities, including audits and investigations.
5. For judicial and administrative proceedings, including responding to a court or administrative order or subpoena, although my preference is to obtain an Authorization from you before doing so if I am so allowed by the court or administrative officials.
6. For law enforcement purposes, including reporting crimes occurring on my premises.
7. To coroners or medical examiners, when such individuals are performing duties authorized by law.
8. For research purposes, including studying and comparing the mental health of patients who received one form of therapy versus those who received another form of therapy for the same condition.
9. Specialized government functions, including, ensuring the proper execution of military missions; protecting the President of the United States; conducting intelligence or counterintelligence operations; or, helping to ensure the safety of those working within or housed in correctional institutions.
10. For workers’ compensation purposes. Although the preference is to obtain an Authorization from you, A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may provide your PHI in order to comply with workers’ compensation laws.
11. For organ and tissue donation requests.
V. CERTAIN USES AND DISCLOSURES REQUIRE YOU TO HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO OBJECT:
Disclosures to family, friends, or others: A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may provide your PHI to a family member, friend, or other person whom you indicate is involved in your care or the payment for your health care, or to share your information in a disaster relief situation. The opportunity to consent may be obtained retroactively in emergency situations to mitigate a serious and immediate threat to health or safety or if you are unconscious.
VI. YOU HAVE THE FOLLOWING RIGHTS WITH RESPECT TO YOUR PHI:
1. The Right to Request Limits on Uses and Disclosures of Your PHI. You have the right to ask A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC not to use or disclose certain PHI for treatment, payment, or health care operations purposes. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC is not required to agree to your request, and A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may say “no” if A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC believes it would affect your health care.
2. The Right to Request Restrictions for Out-of-Pocket Expenses Paid for In Full. You have the right to request restrictions on the disclosure of your PHI to health plans for payment or health care operations purposes if the PHI pertains solely to a health care item or a health care service that you have paid for out-of-pocket in full.
3. The Right to Choose How A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC Send PHI to You. You have the right to ask A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC to contact you in a specific way (for example, home or office phone) or to send mail to a different address, and A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will agree to all reasonable requests.
4. The Right to See and Get Copies of Your PHI. Other than “psychotherapy notes,” you have the right to get an electronic or paper copy of your medical record and other information. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will provide you with a copy of your record, or if you agree, a summary of it, within 30 days of receiving your written request. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may charge a reasonable cost-based fee for doing so.
5. The Right to Get a List of the Disclosures A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC has Made. You have the right to request a list of instances in which A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC has disclosed your PHI for purposes other than treatment, payment, or health care operations, and other disclosures (such as any you ask me to make). A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will respond to your request for an accounting of disclosures within 60 days of receiving your request. The list A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will give you will include disclosures made in the last six years unless you request a shorter time. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will provide the list to you at no charge, but if you make more than one request in the same year, A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will charge you a reasonable cost-based fee for each additional request.
6. The Right to Correct or Update Your PHI. If you believe that there is a mistake in your PHI, or that a piece of important information is missing from your PHI, you have the right to request that A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC correct the existing information or add the missing information. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may say “no” to your request, will tell you why in writing within 60 days of receiving your request.
7. The Right to Get a Paper or Electronic Copy of this Notice. You have the right to get a paper copy of this Notice, and you have the right to get a copy of this notice by email. And, even if you have agreed to receive this Notice via email, you also have the right to request a paper copy of it.
8. The Right to Choose Someone to Act For You. If you have given someone medical power of attorney or if someone is your legal guardian, that person can make choices about your health information.
9. The Right to Revoke an Authorization.
10. The Right to Opt out of Communications from A Link in Healing Counseling
11. The Right to File a Complaint. You can file a complaint if you feel A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC has violated your rights by using the information on page one or by filing a complaint with the HHS Office for Civil Rights located at 200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington D.C. 20201, calling HHS at (877) 696-6775, or by visiting www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/complaints. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC will not retaliate against you for filing a complaint.
VII. WEBSITE PRIVACY NOTICE A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC receives, collect and stores information you enter on the website. In addition, A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may collect the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet; login; e-mail address; password; computer and connection information and purchase history. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may use software tools to measure and collect session information, including page response times, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information, and methods used to browse away from the page. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may also collect personally identifiable information (including name, email, password, communications); payment details (including credit card information), comments, feedback, product reviews, recommendations, and personal profile. When you contact us through the website, as part of the process, A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC collects personal information you give us such as your name and email address. Your Personal Information collected online may potentially be used for the following purposes: 1. To provide and operate the Services; 2. To provide clients with ongoing assistance and support 3. To be able to contact our Visitors and Users with general or personalized service-related notices and promotional messages; 4. To create aggregated statistical data and other aggregated and/or inferred Non-personal Information, which we may use to provide and improve our respective services; 5. To comply with any applicable laws and regulations. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC company website is hosted on the Squarespace.com platform. Your data may be stored through Squarespace data storage, databases and general applications. They store your data on secure servers behind a firewall. A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC may also use a tool called “Google Analytics” to collect information about use of this Site, such as how often users visit the Site, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other sites they used prior to coming to this Site. Google Analytics collects only the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit this Site, rather than your name or other identifying information. Google Analytics plants a permanent cookie on your web browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit this Site. This cookie cannot be used by anyone but Google, Inc. The information generated by the cookie will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. We use the information received from Google Analytics only to improve services on this Site. We do not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with personally identifiable information. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to this Site is restricted by the Google Privacy Policy http://www.google.com/policies/privacy. You can prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on return visits to this Site by disabling the Google Analytics cookie on your browser. If you don’t want us to process your data anymore, please contact us at amy@linkinhealing.com.
VIII. CHANGES TO THIS NOTICE
A Link in Healing Counseling PLLC reserves the right to modify and change the terms of this notice and this privacy policy at any time, so please review it frequently. Changes and clarifications will take effect immediately upon their posting on the website. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here that it has been updated, so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we use and/or disclose it. Acknowledgement of Receipt of Privacy Notice Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), you have certain rights regarding the use and disclosure of your protected health information.
