Our health privacy

Our health privacy

What does corporate use of consumer data have to do with therapy?  

How do I make sense of how my personal data is being bought and sold in the world wide web marketplace?  

What does all that have to do with counseling?  

Phenix is about holistic health – working with you to address mental and emotional health while connecting that journey to your body and spirit.  Every now and then, a “random” issue comes along that intersects with our work.  For example, we posted last week on the approaching hurricane, not because we are weather experts but because we see the mental and emotional health dynamics associated with storms.  Today’s post on data privacy may seem outside the scope of mental health content but hang with us…it does intersect and it does matter.    

Our clients are aware that we use an electronic health record (EHR) platform called Simple Practice.  Not only are health care providers strongly encouraged to use an EHR (required if they accept Medicare/Medicaid funds), but as a telehealth practice, an EHR is a basic necessity.  One of the principles we have adhered to since founding is to utilize tools and solutions which honor the privacy protections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).  That said, HIPAA standards represent the minimum level of care.  As therapists, we operate at a much higher ethical standard based on our role as stewards of our client’s information.  Our clients trust us to protect their vulnerability as much as possible and we take that responsibility seriously.  With those values, recent developments are causing concerns that we want to share with those who invest in their health through therapy (whether our client or not).  

On August 2nd, our EHR provider released a new terms of service document which aggressively required signature within two weeks to retain access to all of our client care information.  This was the first red flag to indicate that clearly, this company does not understand the legal access requirements for medical records.  Most of us pay little attention any more to the terms of service agreements that we all “click the box” for nearly every day.  We’ve all probably joked about possibly signing over our first born without knowing it…The thing is, terms of service are fairly standard for general tech companies but healthcare companies must operate very differently.  Some clinicians were tipped off by the inappropriate presentation and started reading the new terms of service.  Within days, a firestorm erupted with clinicians raising concerns in multiple online communities.  The new terms claimed rights to user data which did not sensibly align with what should be needed just to provide the service we are paying for, and clinicians weren’t having it!  This resulted in the company backpedaling slightly…extending the deadline for agreement and entering into the compliance review process they should have completed before setting up the terms.  The easy answer would seem to be – just find a new provider.  Unfortunately, the problem is bigger than this one company…     

In the past decade, a quiet war has been unfolding in technology. Capitalists long ago discovered the profit in monetizing data.  Most of the technology tools we use today are based on this practice of offering a ‘free’ service, (social media, email, web search, cloud storage, etc.) in exchange for access to data that can be aggregated and sold to the highest bidder.  This purchased data allows businesses to target us with advertising and offers, personalized to what we are searching for/interested in.  Investors have found more and more spaces and creative ways to entice us to hand over data they can monetize.  About ten years ago, venture capitalists discovered the health care industry as an unmonetized space and started moving in.  Technology companies started offering online therapy way before COVID made it popular knowing that it allowed them to set up systems which could collect valuable data.  These companies were launched and run by investors with zero healthcare experience.  The problem is, monetizing healthcare data is illegal, resulting in over 7 million dollars in fines against one of them, for example.  For a company raking in over a billion dollars annually (2022) though, that fine is simply the price of doing business.  So the quiet war behind the scenes wages as tech experts launch healthcare companies daily with nary a clinician in their leadership hierarchy, leaving them out of touch with the ethical rules clinicians must follow.  Therapists and medical providers have been sounding the alarm for years but the millions of dollars these companies have available to control the narrative and pay the fines is almost impossible to beat.  What that means is that it is extremely difficult to find the technology tools we need, set up with full understanding of healthcare ethics and even healthcare law.       

Trust and transparency is the foundation of the therapeutic alliance.  What our service providers do with our client data (even when it is ‘deidentified’) matters to us.  We see our role of stewarding client data as a sacred trust.  While it may seem hopeless to expect today’s environment of corporate greed to prioritize privacy over profit, we have a responsibility to keep fighting.  What that looks like for us is participation in the collective pushback on our EHR provider to: practice the Safe Harbor Method in deidentifying data, legally commit to respecting the intellectual property rights of clinicians who customize EHR features, as well as to disclose the client portal access terms of service, how data is used for AI training, and what exact information is being sold to exactly what companies.  Electronic Health Record software is not a free service.  As a small practice, we pay over two thousand dollars a year, so imagine what more than 170,000 clinicians are paying (estimate of customer base for our current company)!  Selling user data is not a necessary component of their profit strategy.          

Additionally, we are taking the time to explore the alternatives.  This is labor intensive and exhausting but necessary.  We will look for tech companies run by clinicians, and who provide the ethical parameters our clients deserve.  We have been strategic from the start in how we structured our processes.  Our EHR happens to be a comprehensive practice management platform as well, capable of handling every technological need but we have never used it in that way.  We use separate platforms for payment, messaging, video-meeting, etc. for two reasons: 1) We are not at the mercy of one platform if it shuts down for some reason, containing every tool we need to serve our clients and 2) Our client’s information can never be accessed in one complete package.  While the companies who serve the healthcare industry have the greatest access to tech tools of confidentiality, perfection does not exist in this world and so we have structured things accordingly even before this latest concern.  Moving forward, we will keep you updated every step of the way so that you have clarity about how your records are stored, accessed and managed.

For Those Who Want to Become a Therapist:

 

We are starting a new blog post series focused on those who would like to pursue becoming a therapist. The plan is to breakdown important questions to not only ask your future graduate school, but to ask yourself.

 

Now, as a precursor to this post, I want to direct your attention to a post our director, Andrea, has written about what it takes education wise to become a therapist, as well as how to maximize your own therapy experience. She states in “Maximizing Therapy”,

 

By the time a new therapist graduates from their masters program, they have spent more than 600 hours in graduate level classrooms taking courses dedicated to the art of helping people with life problems.  They have sweated almost 2000 hours on homework and completed 1000 hours of supervised internship.  All at a price tag of over $35,000 (minimum).  Upon graduation, they must work under supervision for at least two years, complete an additional 1500 hours of client service and pass a national competency exam.  When you show up in a therapist’s office, or log on to their teletherapy platform, you are meeting with a highly trained clinician who is there to help you reach your mental, emotional, and relational health goals.

 

Whew. The journey to licensure is no joke, but is highly rewarding to those who believe being a therapist is part of their calling. Let’s dive in to a few questions to ask yourself as you decide whether this journey is right for you.

 

Why do you want to be a therapist?

This will be a common question on graduate school applications. Take some time as you are researching different schools to explore what is driving you. 

Every individual enters into the master’s program for a different reason, many times because of their own stories. Responding from a place of healing and wanting the same for others can be powerful.

Alfred Adler was a psychotherapist in the 1900’s. (You’ll learn about him in grad school.) He commented on the nature of therapists who have struggled through different aspects of life and the power that comes from having done your own work. Now it was written in 1928, but there is much truth to what he says.

There must be experience [for the therapists] as well. A real appreciation for human nature, in the face of our inadequate education today, will be gained by only one class of human beings. These are the contrite sinners, either those who have been in the whirlpool of psychic life, entangled in all its mistakes and errors, and saved themselves out of it, or those who have been close to it and felt its current touching them….The best knower of the human soul will be the one who has lived through passions himself. (pg. 13)

 

Are you open to doing your own work?

One of the best mirrors to your own unhealed areas in life will be your clients. This is why it is so vital that you have explored your own story before sitting with someone else. Your clients are not there to save you, fix you, or help you figure out your stuff. You are there for them. As our supervisor, Larry Shyers, loves reminding us, “It is never ever, ever, ever, ever about you”.

I highly encourage you to continue therapy throughout graduate school. Implement the things you are learning, allow yourself to go on the adventure. Having an openness to growth and knowing that you are selecting a profession that will constantly challenge you is a necessity. 

If not, then when something comes up in session that reveals an area of wounding in you, it is so much easier to stick your head in the sand and push it down. When this happens, we can cause harm. The session inadvertently becomes about us and our own avoidance, thus taking the focus off the individuals coming to us for help.

At the end of the day, you are pursing a profession that has a profound impact on people’s lives. You may be the first person they share their deepest, darkest moments with. You may be the only support they have at this time. Please don’t take that for granted. Realize the impact you have on people’s lives and walk through your own story. Pursue your own healing. 

At the same time, you also have to realize that you cannot save your clients or rescue them from their problems (as much as we wish we could). There will be nights this rocks you to the core. There will be days you wish you could pull them out, especially when they are not a number or a “session” to you.

Continuing to walk through your own story helps you remain present and humble, no matter who may walk through your door. It also creates an environment of authenticity in the room that can be felt (even through telehealth).

Join us next week as we continue to explore important considerations and aspects of learning how to be a therapist.

Therapy 101

So you’ve decided you would like to begin therapy.

Typically, that should be the hardest part. Letting someone in, especially someone that you don’t know, to share your story in hopes of a better life is hard enough.

Unfortunately, “overwhelmed” is a pretty accurate description to how most people feel when they try to find a therapist. If you take a second and type in “therapist in (city)”, you will find hundreds, if not thousands of options.

So, how do you narrow down the field? Let’s say that you spoke to a friend and they gave you a referral, or you found someone on Therapy Den or Psychology Today. How do you know if they are a good fit for you? Below are two good criteria to look at and what Phenix does to meet those criteria.

 

 

The Therapist’s Bio

Depending on why you would like to attend therapy or what you have gone through in life, certain therapists will be more qualified to assist you. The bio on the website will tell you quite a bit about who they are and how they operate (hopefully). If one stands out to you, write down questions so you can hear more about their training and experience. 

At Phenix, each therapist took the time to write a detailed bio about our background, training, areas of focus, and how we view therapy. This way, you have a good idea of what to expect before even meeting one of us.

As a disclaimer, certifications and official trainings are great, but don’t base a therapist’s competence on only that. Which leads me to the second criteria…

 

Have they done their own work?

You can only learn so much in a training that lasts 3 hours or from textbooks in graduate school. The metaphor I use with clients is this: if I was climbing Mt. Everest, I would ideally want someone who had climbed the mountain before, not just someone who read about how to do so in a textbook. I would like someone who had done their research on how to help various people climb the mountain, learned how to help heal different wounds and levels of frostbite, AND had already made the journey. 

By climbing it themselves, they know which pitfalls to look for and which parts will be deceptively slippery.

They also know where to look to see the most beautiful sunrises.

There is a level of competence and humility that only comes from doing your own work in therapy. Everyone needs someone to talk to and process things out with. Ideally, through the therapy process, you learn how to form authentic, intimate relationships so that those are the people you begin to do life with. At Phenix, each therapist has gone down their own journey of healing and has surrounded themselves with people to continue that process. Instead of feeling like any of us has “arrived”, there is an ability to hold the unknown and simply be with whoever walks through the door.

 

Free Consult

At Phenix, we have a consult time with each prospective client. This is a free 50 minute session where the potential client can ask questions and get to know the therapist before agreeing to embark on this journey together.

When I was searching for my own therapist years ago (before the graduate school adventure), I was wary due to already having had some negative therapeutic experiences. So when I was paired with a potential therapist, I finally asked questions that I had not known to ask before.    

While our director, Andrea, implemented the consult idea during covid, it has remained due to being incredibly beneficial for both us and potential clients. My favorite part about it is that it gives prospective clients a time to ask questions and make their own informed decisions, instead of feeling like they were instructed who to see or stuck with someone. 

So no matter where you go for therapy, I encourage you to look at the above two criteria. Take into account professional training for your specific situation, as well as the therapist’s ability to stay present during the time with you due to having done their own work.

Business Success

**This is the second in a two part series.  Click here to read the first post.***

Intelligence and knowledge are so common these days that we can’t trade on just those anymore.  Emotional intelligence, applied to corporate culture design is now the factor that sets you apart and is the key to longevity.  Yesterday, we defined business smarts as the usual trifecta: strategy, marketing and finance.  ‘Smarts’ gets you in the door.  Let us not minimize that.  However, you need emotional intelligence to work the room.  Here’s the cool thing: learning requires clarity and interest so organizations that focus on health automatically get smarter.  Whaat?!  Think about the airline in yesterday’s story.  Their company has the smarts but smarter does not automatically lead to healthier since we are typically relying on expertise rather than creativity and relationships.  It’s like a bank safe full of cash (smarts).  Organizational health is the combination to access the safe.

Organizational health is an integrated and intentional approach to the things we already know matter, but usually attend to in isolation: team building, strategic planning, productive meetings.  Reflect on my airline fiasco story from yesterday.  Can you fathom the losses leaking from the bottom line daily?  (Every member of our group ended up with a $500 flight credit.  A credit I have been loathe to use as I NEVER want to sit on one of their planes ever again).  Organizational health is ridiculously expensive to ignore!  More importantly, the physical, emotional and mental toll on you when you work in an unhealthy culture is far too high a price to pay for short term gains.

As a counselor dedicated to holistic health – this is the factor that drives my passion for helping businesses design a healthy culture.  Combine that with my 15 years in the corporate world in various positions of leadership, several years of higher education leadership plus seven years as a successful business owner and you have a uniquely qualified individual who understands both the business and psychological components of organizational culture.  The fact that healthy organizations are more likely to increase productivity and profit is a nice bonus that pays the bills for all of us 🙂

To learn more about organizational health – check out this great resource:

 

Let’s talk business

**This is the first of a two part series.  Link to the second post is at the bottom.**

After 30 minutes on the plane, we were all asked to get off as the mechanical problem identified needed further attention.  We were a band of 25 people from Orlando heading to a connecting flight in Newark that would take us to the other side of the world for a study abroad course.  This was not a great way to begin our adventure.  When the plane was still unfixed a couple of hours later, tensions rose.  We began to abandon hope that we would be able to continue on together.  However, as negotiations began to figure out how to get all of our members across the Atlantic, employees insisted that since our tickets had been booked as a group – they could not break up the reservation to split the group onto available flights.  This, despite the very real mathematical problem of ZERO flights heading into Greece with 25 open seats over the next several days.  The story is long and epic so I’ll offer the low-lights:

  • Due to employees’ inability to use common sense and creatively problem-solve, several flight opportunities passed before they finally realized they would have to split the group.  One half was put on a plane to a connecting city.  The other half was placed in a hotel for the night which turned out to have trouble with running water.  The staff at the hotel commented that they are forever housing ‘refugees’ from this airline.
  • When the second group boarded their plane the next morning, they again had to deplane when a mechanical problem was identified.  They eventually left on a different plane.
  • Both groups upon arrival in Frankfurt found that their reservation had not been properly transferred to the partner airline that was rescuing the flights and so they had no seats booked to our destination.  Thankfully, this new airline did have a different organizational culture and a few nail-biting hours later, managed to book seats for every person….except one who ended up having to wait alone in a foreign airport for a later flight.  It just so happened that she was the one student who had expressed a mortal fear of being separated from the group because on a trip she had taken in undergrad, a classmate was separated from the group and found murdered.  We begged and pleaded for someone else to be left behind but already taxed by their efforts to fix the ticketing problem, they explained that because the original airline had not broken up the group booking in their system – they were unable to switch out any individual tickets.

This particular airline has been in the news numerous times over the past few years for GROSS mis-steps resulting in severe consequences.  They are a perfect illustration of poor organizational health manifested in high turnover, low productivity (major fleet issues), politics which prevent employees from having the freedom to problem solve, confusion and low morale.  The employees we encountered were clearly unhappy and we could not blame them.  The public remains puzzled as to how these problems continue.  A closer look at the players reveal experts in all the usual concerns: marketing, finance and strategy.  Clearly, the problem is not smarts.  So what is it?

Organizational health.  I’m not talking bean bag chairs and napping rooms here.  It’s hard to describe; difficult to measure objectively, but you KNOW when it’s good (Southwest) and you KNOW when it’s bad (the airline we were on).  It’s a simple concept but it’s incredibly complex to implement.  Finance, Strategy and Marketing (smarts) are the what.  Organizational health is the how.  The way in which you implement and maintain budgetary management, goal setting, and telling the corporate story – that is organizational health.  That strays into emotional and awkward territory which is why it is typically skirted over in management schools (or spoken of largely in intellectual terms) and avoided by most managers/leaders.  Problem is, as organizational culture expert – Patrick Lencioni asserts: sustainable success is impossible without BOTH smarts AND health.  Business leaders may want to stay in their ‘smart’ comfort zone but guess what?

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Intrigued?  Interested in learning what this looks like and how it applies to you?  Stay tuned tomorrow for more…

Part Two