Clinical Practice

This section contains articles and other resources relating to the interface of law and general practice. There may be overlap with other sections, so if you do not find the information you are looking for please browse the other sections or use the search box.

Is an unfamiliar insurance company sayin...

I periodically receive calls from clinicians who are informed by previously unknown insurance companies that they are empaneled.  That is to say, practitioners receive notifications from an insurance company that a patient they are seeing has coverage and that they must accept the reimbursed rate offered...

Working with Multiple People in Therapy:...

The following article was authored by myself and A. Steven Frankel, Ph.D., J.D. It appeared in a slightly altered format in the September/October 2008 issue of The California Psychologist, the newsletter of the California Psychological Association. Working with Multiple People in Therapy: A Refresher...

Reporting Suspected Abuse: those reports...

This is a reminder: reports that clinicians make of suspected abuse are highly confidential. Under California law, reports of suspected child abuse and information contained in those reports may only be disclosed to persons or agencies who coordinate the investigation of these reports.

Should HIPAA matter to clinicians who ar...

If you aren’t a “covered entity” (the term HIPAA uses to identify healthcare providers under its authority) do you need to care what HIPAA says? In these situations is HIPAA irrelevant? The answer is both “yes” and “no.”

What happens when confidential informati...

This is a particularly troublesome dilemma and one that most clinicians dread.  We take great care to avoid such a situation, and in the event that a fax or letter gets to the wrong person most clinicians are unsure about whether the unintended recipient has any legal responsibilities to avoid further...

Those Confidentiality Disclaimers At The...

Huge numbers of clinicians have disclaimers at the end of email messages that say something like this: “The information contained in this email is CONFIDENTIAL. If you have received this message in error or without the express direction of the original author, please notify the sender and delete this...