What Can You Release?
Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), psychotherapy notes that are kept separate from the rest of the patient's medical record are held to a higher level of confidentiality and cannot be released to insurers, including Medicare, without written patient authorization.
Psychotherapy notes are defined by law as not including the following information (which are considered to be part of the patient's medical record):
Medication prescription and monitoring | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Counseling session start and stop times | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Modalities and frequencies of the treatment furnished | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Results of clinical tests | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Any summary of the following items:
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These bulleted items can be released without a separate written authorization from the patient.
