Confidentiality/Privacy
The Village EAP policy is that Village employees will not discuss any information, including identity, about their clients, with any non-Village staff, unless we have your written authorization. It is in our best interest to abide by the highest possible standards. Our success hinges on your confidence that The Village respects individual privacy and adheres to the highest possible standards of confidentiality.
In addition to our agency policies, EAP counselors are bound by ethical and legal standards set by the professional organizations they belong to, and their licensing bodies. Whether they are in private practice, group practice or at a medical center, they are obligated to provide the same level of confidentiality as we do at The Village.
The only information we share with your employer is a periodic “utilization report” showing total numbers of people seeking services through the EAP benefit. These reports do not indicate who is seeking services—all the data is grouped together as a total for all employees.
The following circumstances are the only ones in which your EAP counselor will share what you have discussed.
- If you authorize us to verify that we have seen you or are working with you, we can arrange to pass that information on to whomever you designate. You will have to sign a release of information before we will communicate the information.
- Counselors and healthcare professionals are obligated, by state and federal law, to break confidentiality if there is a clear threat of harm to you or someone else, if we become aware of child abuse or neglect, or if we have to comply with a court order.
That’s it. Under no other circumstances will we provide information about you to anyone else. Your counseling sessions are truly a safe place for you to talk and work toward solutions for your personal problems.
Technology and Confidentiality
If you ever reach voice mail during business hours and do not want to leave a message, you can push “0” to return to our operator. The operator will redirect any crisis, message or concern. If you are comfortable leaving a message, please do so and we’ll get back to you. You may not be aware we are trying to reach you because we will not leave a message on an answering machine or voice mail unless you have told us it is okay to do so. We also have a block on our phone so our name and number will not come up on Caller I.D. Confidentiality is the key to all the work we do here at The Village.
For more information read our Notice of Privacy Practices.
