Practice Policy
SG Mental Health Counseling (“Company,” “we,” or “us”) uses this page to outline our office policies related to the use of email, telephone, texting, reviews, testimonials, payments, and record keeping. Please read it to understand how I conduct myself in these areas of my practice.
If you have any questions about anything within this document, I encourage you to bring your questions to discuss during our scheduled sessions.
My Writings
I occasionally publish stories and writings that reference my clinical and holistic work. When I do so, I use composite cases. I won’t be writing about your therapy. However, if the issues I am writing about seem like they may hit “close to home” for any of the people in my practice, my approach is to tell you I am writing something that may be linked to topics or issues we have addressed.
Business Review Sites
You may find my counseling practice on sites such as Yelp, Healthgrades, Yahoo Local, Google or other places which list businesses. Some of these sites include forums in which users rate their providers and add reviews. Many of these sites comb search engines for business listings and automatically add listings regardless of whether the business has added itself to the site. If you should find my listing on any of these sites, please know that my listing is not a request for a testimonial, rating, or endorsement from you as my client.
Of course, you have a right to express yourself on any site you wish. But due to confidentiality, I cannot respond to any review on any of these sites whether it is positive or negative. I urge you to consider your own privacy if you choose to write a review on such a site. You should also be aware that if you are using these sites to communicate indirectly with me about your feelings about our work, there is a good possibility that I may never see it.
In our work, I hope that you will bring your feelings and reactions to our work directly into the therapy process. This can be an important part of therapy, even if you decide we are not a good fit. None of this is meant to keep you from sharing that you are in therapy with me wherever and with whomever you like. Confidentiality means that I cannot tell people that you are my client and my Ethics Code prohibits me from requesting testimonials. But you are more than welcome to tell anyone you wish that I’m your therapist or how you feel about the treatment I provided to you, in any forum of your choosing.
If you do choose to write something on a business review site, keep in mind that you may be sharing personally revealing information in a public forum. Please consider creating a pseudonym that is not linked to your regular email address or friend networks for your own privacy and protection.
Location-Based Services
If you have used location-based services on your mobile phone, you may wish to be aware of the privacy issues related to using these services. I do not place my practice as a check-in location on various sites such as Foursquare, Places, etc. However, if you have GPS tracking enabled on your device, it is possible that others may surmise that you are a therapy client due to regular check-ins at my office on a weekly basis. Please be aware of this risk if you are intentionally “checking in,” from my office or if you have a passive LBS app enabled on your phone. Also, if you and family members or partners use Find My Phone to track your whereabouts, and they do not know you are in therapy with me, another potential risk of them seeing your location is that they may discover you are in psychotherapy.
I encourage using email to arrange or modify appointments. For teletherapy, I may also send you handouts (or I may upload them to your client portal in Simple Practice). Occasionally, we each may share a link to something we discussed in the session. You should be aware that all exchanged emails become a part of your legal record and I keep a copy in your chart. If you choose to email me content related to your therapy sessions, note that email is not completely secure or confidential. All emails are retained in the logs of your and my Internet service providers. While it is unlikely that someone will be looking at these logs, they are, in theory, available to be read by the system administrator(s) of the Internet service provider. I typically reply to emails within one to two days. As noted in my regular policies, if the volume of email requires additional time beyond five minutes, I bill for the time I spend reading and replying to the email. If you want to send me things securely, the best way is to use my secure contact form on my website, which leaves no record in your email account or upload of a document to your portal on Simple Practice.
Texting
I do not text with clients. My business phone is for calling to schedule or cancel appointments and any texts sent to this phone will not get a reply as they will promptly be deleted by me. It is best to call, email, or fill out the contact form on my website even if it’s just to say you are running late.
Payment Systems
I will accept payment via PayPal. I also use practice software (Simple Practice) that uses Stripe and I bill your credit card the day of service. Please be aware that PayPal and Venmo are not HIPAA-compliant and pose particular issues such as making your payment transactions visible, or, in the case of PayPal, it presents customized offers based upon your purchase history. I also accept cash or checks for in-person visits.
Record-Keeping and Data Storage
I use Simple Practice, a HIPAA-compliant cloud-based digital health system to schedule appointments, track your payments and diagnosis, store your records, and provide video appointments.
On my phone, the Simple Practice app is where I store client phone numbers, so your phone number is not listed in my contacts. My phone has a six-digit password protection and the Simple Practice app requires a password to get access to those numbers and records.
Contact Us
The Company welcomes your questions or comments regarding the Practice Policy:
SG Mental Health Counseling
1375-A Cross Creek Circle
Tallahassee, FL 32303
Email Address:
Effective as of [05/24/2021]