Treatment tagged posts

Balancing Family Rights to Know with Patient Rights to Privacy

CounselingFamily members are an inescapable fact of life for most of us—good and bad. So how do peers navigate personal decisions about their own treatment options and living a life of recovery with their family members? Today we continue our series on HIPAA with peers sharing their thoughts on the role of family members vs the right to direct their own treatment and recovery.

Balancing Family Rights to Know with Patient Rights to Privacy
It can be difficult for family members, who often have the best interest of their loved ones at heart, to provide enough space for their loved one to accept their disorder, seek treatment and build a life of recovery based on personal choice. But when speaking with individuals living with a mood disorder, many state that this is exactly what needs to happen. While it can be tempting to place oneself in a position of “knowing what’s best,” loved ones may need to recognize that they are on their own separate journey with an unknown destination.

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Change HIPAA for Better Care

Nancy Sharby profileNancy Sharby

This is the second week of our series discussing HIPAA regulations with regards to mental health care. In this post, we provide a family perspective.

Good and Bad Experience with HIPAA
As a mother, I have had positive and negative experiences with HIPAA, with an example for each.

The negative event happened when my adult son was hospitalized while I was out of town. I knew he was in that particular hospital because that is where the ER told me they were sending him. His doctor, who had permission to talk with me, was the one to tell me which ER he was in. I called the hospital where I knew he was and tried to tell hospital staff about his medications. The staff person kept insisting that they could not confirm or deny that my son was at the hospital, and they refused to hear what I was telling them about his meds. I knew he was there and didn’t need them to confirm it. What I really needed them to do was to take the information about his medications. They would have it to use if he was there, and they could throw it out if he wasn’t.

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