Solid Ground provides a safe and welcoming environment that encourages our clients to learn about themselves and the choices they make, enabling them to change their own lives.
Privacy and Security Statement
Therapists at Solid Ground Counseling (SGC) are contracted members of the organization. The clinic provides office space and administrative (including billing) support; however, responsibility for the treatment services provided, and the privacy practices pertaining thereto, rests solely with the individual practitioner. For the purposes of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (commonly known as HIPAA), the Solid Ground Counseling is bound by written Business Associate agreements with each of its contracted practitioners in order to ensure that it will appropriately safeguard the Protected Health Information (PHI) that it receives on behalf of the contracted providers for those providers’ patients. For the purpose of protecting PHI transmitted via this website by prospective clients who do not yet have a relationship with any SGC provider, the clinic acts on behalf of its contracted practitioners in ensuring compliance with, and maintaining and updating, the procedures and information provided below.
WHAT IS PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION (PHI)?
Protected Health information (PHI) means individually identifiable health information maintained or transmitted in any form or medium, including, without limitation, all information (including demographic, medical, and financial information), data, documentation, and materials that relate to: (I) past, present, or future physical or mental health or condition on an individual; (ii) the provision of health care to an individual; or (iii) the past, present, or future payment for the provision of health care to an individual. PHI does not include health information that has been de-identified in accordance with the standards for de-identification provided for in the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
HOW WILL SOLID GROUND COUNSELING HANDLE MY ELECTRONICALLY TRANSMITTED INFORMATION?
If you choose to use our “Contact Us” page to identify yourself and to provide us with Protected Health Information, we will use the information that you transmit only to respond to your query — never for marketing back to you, nor for any other interactive purpose. Only Solid Ground Counseling staff and mental health professionals will have access to your information. We will never sell or distribute your information to any other party. Our individual mental health professionals’ intake procedures include safeguards to ensure that services are provided only with the informed consent of the patient or (if the patient is under 14 years of age) her or his legal guardian. When you use our “Contact Us” page to request that we contact you, we will reply via telephone or e-mail only with your permission. Outgoing e-mails from the Center are not encrypted, and their privacy cannot be ensured.
Please note that, by its very nature, a website cannot be absolutely protected against intentional or malicious intrusion attempts. We do not control the devices or computers or the Internet over which you may choose to send confidential personal information, and cannot prevent such interceptions or compromises to your information while in transit to SGC. We make no guarantee as to the security, integrity or confidentiality of any information transmitted to or from this website, or stored within this website.