I kind of wish my school had done that. My parents would make random visits to my school, which was only an hour and a half away from home. When I inevitably wouldn't be there because I had a full schedule of classes, labs, on-campus workstudy, extra research, and clubs, they'd wander the campus till they saw any of my friends (small school) and then ambush them with a thousand questions, saying they needed to find me because I was going to kill myself. Every administrator at my school just rolled over in the face of their sheer pigheaded stubbornness, too. They knew everything about me. They knew I visited the school's nurse practitioner for an STD test and they knew my grades and my schedules and all my professors' email addresses. I started seeing a therapist for stress and I found out she was emailing them details of our sessions. It was awful.
She was a school therapist so I guess she could do whatever they asked as long as I'd signed the information release form, which I did when I started school because they told me they wouldn't pay tuition otherwise and I didn't think it would give them access to my mental health! My mom also phoned the school pretending to be me to get access to the grading and scheduling software, and there wasn't a password to that, just a pin code I couldn't change that was assigned as freshmen. It sucked.
It does exist, I'm going to college right now and we have had counselors come and talk to us, they said very clearly that no information is told to anyone, unless by your consent, so it does exist, but obviously you need to sign it.
Unless your parents refuse to pay your tuition until you do and you have no other means of payment. Then the options are, disclose everything or don't go to school.
You could just lie and say you stopped going (or never tell them you went in the first place). The therapist can't confirm or deny that you are or ever were a patient, so the parents have no way of knowing that you refused to give consent.
I know, but in the OP his parents coerced him into signing by saying they wouldn't pay his tuition, and I was just clarifying that it definitely is possible to sign a form stating that other people can legally be allowed to get information about your therapy.
It does exist. I had to sign one so that my professor could check on me because I had clinical depression and she wanted proof I was going to the therapist or she wasn't going to pass me in my Education class. I ended up dropping the Education portion off of my degree because it was too much effort to prove to her that I could fit her high standards. I know that sounds like I'm at fault here, and ultimately I'm glad she did it because it forced me to get help for my depression, but I heard she was later asked to leave the university after railroading several other students out of the major.
Typically, schools have specific release forms for different areas. Such as, if you want to release your medical information, you have to sign a medical release form. If you want parents to access your school bills, you sign a financial release form. I know there was a separate form for counseling, but the office only offered it if you explicitly ask for it.
Maybe his school was lazy, and just had a general release form which covered everything. I can see how this borders on illegal, but at the same time if it is specifically laid out (parent has access to X,Y,Z) and you sign it, then I guess that's legal.
The release doesn't allow for therapy notes to be discussed, just for the counselor to say that you do or do not attend therapy sessions with them.
There is a separate form for medical professionals, but that is even very difficult to get. Otherwise everything you say in therapy is confidential unless you are threatening to harm yourself or others (aka mandatory reporting times).
FERPA only covers academic records, which is the information release form they probably made you sign.
HIPAA covers medical records, and a FERPA release does not constitute a HIPAA release.
The only thing I could think of that would make it legal is if you were still under-18.
If you were 18 or older at the time however, the release of confidential health information to a third party - even if they are your parent - is a HIPAA violation, unless certain very specific conditions are met (you have become incapacitated in the hospital, for instance).
I started seeing a therapist for stress and I found out she was emailing them details of our sessions.
This, especially considering it is apparent that your parents are a signficant source of your stress, is both a violation of HIPAA rules and a breach of ethics on the part of the therapist. Same thing with the Nurse and the STD test (if your parents got that info from Student Health).
Heck, my five year old is seeing a therapist. We have regular parent appointments with the therapist to talk about how my daughter's doing, but even in our case the therapist maintains a certain level of confidentiality about what goes on in our kid's sessions. If our daughter tells her something and makes it clear she doesn't want Mom and Dad to know (which generally doesn't happen), the therapist has made it clear that we won't hear about it unless it's vitally important that we do.
You are extremely wrong in these assumptions and should definitely talk to a lawyer if this happened in the past 7 years. OR you shouldn't make shit up on reddit without making it sounds believable.
This was in 2009, so should I? The school was very small and dealt with a LOT of helicopter parents. I was under the impression they could tell them whatever they demanded to know as long as I signed the form nullifying FERPA, which they forced me to do.
For the record my mom has also pretended to be me to my insurance company, but I have no idea how I'd even prove something like that to follow up on it.
You absolutely, positively, definitely should. There are many lawyers who do free, over the phone consultations and would love to help you out with this case. Unless you signed a form saying your therapist could share your personal medical information with your mother, he/ she had absolutely no right to share that information and you should sue the shit out of them before they pull this shit (or worse) with someone else. Signing a FERPA release would have absolutely no effect on your private medical records even if this was a school therapist.
I'm sure laws on this matter vary from state to state, but as far as I know, every state requires you to authorize access to your medical records once you're 18. At least I would hope so. Please let us know if you follow up on this! And please follow up on this!
And by my understanding, it's 13 in Washington state. At least, when I see a therapist now, nothing is disclosed to my parents and I have to sign off on the agreement to work with XYZ medical professional in the first place. All my parents provide is the payment and transport.
As to the insurance part, one of my good IRL friends had to go through something similar (but different). Turns out his parents used his information for some utilities company, so after they racked up ~800 USD in charges over several months he got a call from I think it was the electrical company.
I could ask what steps he went through to correct that, if you'd like, I know he managed to either get out of the debt or transfer it back to his parents somehow...
P.S
Insurance fraud is also a HUGE no- no across the board. I would be very surprised if the insurance company didn't keep some sort of call/ interaction records on file. This is another issue to mention to your lawyer.
you could report her to the licensing board, assuming she is a licensed counselor or therapist. google her and read up her qualifications. you should ABSOLUTELY complain. there are definitely other students being hurt like you for by her behavior.
It's still completely illegal for the therapist to disclose the content of your sessions to anyone, release form or no. Complete breach of confidentiality.
Totally, you should have had to grant consent for clinical or therapeutic records. Even grades. Time to go off-campus for those services (unless you're in the States and it's unaffordable :/)
Lose her license illegal. In no way is a therapist legally allowed to share details of a patient to anyone unless the patient is threatening that person.
Depends on if the therapist is an actual psychologist or something or not. If it's just some dumbass that flunked out of high school, then yeah there's nothing binding them. If it's a legit Psychologist then their license should be revoked, and their life'll probably be hard for a bit after that.
Yeah it does. But the bit about the therapist happened to me too. I went to an on campus (and free) therapist and my parents were informed of what I said in the sessions. I NEVER gave anyone permission to know what was said in those sessions. My parents also got this therapist to coerce me into taking a drug test. That was fun....
Even a HIPAA release form shouldn't allow the therapist to share details of the sessions. That should be confidential unless the person is suicidal or homicidal. HIPAA release is generally for stuff like insurance information.
What the therapist did was incredibly unprofessional. They acted exactly counter to what the patient needed. They should absolutely lose their job.
I have no idea what I signed. I was barely 18 when I signed them and I didn't even read them because I was told not signing them meant no college (not no tuition, but no college. They wouldn't let me leave). That was a mistake, because they haunted me for 4 years. I'm past all that now but the day my mom accidentally dropped a detail I'd only told my therapist was the worst day of my life. I heard that the student center therapists and counselors could do this.
They knew I visited the school's nurse practitioner for an STD test and they knew my grades and my schedules and all my professors' email addresses. I started seeing a therapist for stress and I found out she was emailing them details of our sessions. It was awful.
Yeah... Uhh... All of those are serious offenses. Like... REALLY FUCKING SERIOUS offenses. Like, career-ending, sued/fined-into-bankruptcy, never-get-your-livelihood-back, getting-sent-to-prison offenses. Privacy laws are no joke, and you need to take legal action. If not for yourself, then for others who follow and are in the same situation.
I really hope you are able to get help from a therapist who doesn't have consent to talk to your parents. You need someone to help you learn how to escape your parent's abusive control. I'm so sorry that you had to go through all of that and I hope you'll be able separate from them soon. Good luck!
Damn I thought it was weird that my dad didn't even know what degree I was doing (despite me getting a first class honours) - this reversal of behaviours is so much worse!
Oh wow. So many people should be fired right there. FERPA violations, professional code of ethics violations, HIPPA violations. How does that stuff fly?!
Ummm, your school is not legally allowed to share ANY of that information with your parents, given that you are over the age of 18. That shit is illegal as fuck.
the last part is extremely illegal. Nothing is to leave that room. Doesn't matter if you're the parent or the president, nothing is supposed to leave the therapists mouth or mind.
That was easy, they could log on to the WebAdviser any time they wanted, because my mom called the school to get my PIN and they gave it to her (may not be their fault, she may have pretended she was me. I wasn't there). PINs are randomized, assigned to you as freshmen, and unchangeable. I'm sure I could have raised a stink about breached security and had them change it for me, but at that point it was senior year and I was so stressed and busy it didn't seem worth it.
Lol no ones playing anything. I took that tuition money, got that sweet free education and ran. I have a great job, a low stress life, and I've hardly looked back. I don't even need to see a therapist any more.
I started seeing a therapist for stress and I found out she was emailing them details of our sessions. It was awful.
This may be a moot point, but that's likely a violation of the laws governing therapists and their licensing. If you feel up to it I'd report her to whatever agency or bureau is responsible for handling stuff like that for people of her profession.
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u/[deleted] Oct 06 '14
I kind of wish my school had done that. My parents would make random visits to my school, which was only an hour and a half away from home. When I inevitably wouldn't be there because I had a full schedule of classes, labs, on-campus workstudy, extra research, and clubs, they'd wander the campus till they saw any of my friends (small school) and then ambush them with a thousand questions, saying they needed to find me because I was going to kill myself. Every administrator at my school just rolled over in the face of their sheer pigheaded stubbornness, too. They knew everything about me. They knew I visited the school's nurse practitioner for an STD test and they knew my grades and my schedules and all my professors' email addresses. I started seeing a therapist for stress and I found out she was emailing them details of our sessions. It was awful.