Confidentiality & Privacy

Dr. Kira Stein takes protecting your privacy very seriously. Dr. Stein’s patient care and charts are confidential, meaning that she will not disclose information about your treatment to anyone who is not directly involved in your care without your written permission, or as required by law. If you are age 18 or older, confidentiality includes not disclosing information about you or your treatment to your parent or guardian, unless you specifically authorize such disclosure.

Dr. Stein adheres to state laws and ethical standards that require all client information disclosed within session to be kept confidential. To provide effective service, Dr. Stein may share information and consult with your pharmacist, your health insurance company, other therapists and physicians, and lab and imaging centers. Any other release of information requires the client’s written consent, except where disclosure is required or allowed by law (e.g., where there is a reasonable suspicion of abuse of children, dependent adults, or elderly persons; where the client presents a serious danger of violence to another person; where the client is likely to harm themselves; or when required by a valid court order) and as delineated in Dr. Stein’s HIPAA Privacy Form.

Communication & Security

There are many ways to communicate with Dr. Stein and her staff. In addition to communicating via telephone and voice messages for routine and urgent situations, she also offers convenient electronic communication options (including unencrypted but easy to access SMS texting, encrypted but harder to access email, and easy- to-access and secure encrypted messaging via the Spruce messaging App) to facilitate administrative and non-urgent clinical communication. When you send any type of electronic communication to Dr. Stein or her staff, you are doing so with the understanding that:

1. We cannot guarantee that any particular electronic communication will be read or responded to within any particular period of time.
2. Electronic communications can be filed/stored in the patient’s medical record
3. You are automatically giving Dr.  Stein and staff permission to respond to you using the same electronic communication technology and degree of security.
4. You are holding Dr. Stein and staff harmless from the liability of a security breach or improper disclosure of confidential information that is not caused by intentional misconduct by Dr. Stein and/or her staff.

When communicating via electronic communication, you accept the responsibility to:

• • Avoid use of your employer’s computer
  • Communicate concisely; schedule an appointment if the issue is too complex or sensitive to discuss via electronic communications
  • Take precautions to preserve the confidentiality of your electronic communications.
  • Contact our office by voice telephone at (310) 529-6051 if you do not receive a timely response;  Please understand that we cannot keep track of whether or not anyone receives or reads our electronic communication responses and that technical difficulties can and do occur.

Not all electronic communications will be responded to.  Messages that include marketing, offensive text, spam, or are excessive or inappropriate will be blocked.