Social Media Policy

Information I share on social media and my website is intended for informational purposes only. Viewing my social media or website content does not constitute a professional relationship. You should consult an appropriate professional for specific advice tailored to your situation. If you are experiencing a life-threatening emergency, you should call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.

You may also find these crisis numbers useful; they will connect you to a trained crisis counselor:

• National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255

• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741

This document outlines my office policies related to use of Social Media. Please read it to understand how I conduct myself on the Internet as a licensed mental health professional and how you can expect me to respond to various interactions that may occur between us on the Internet.

If you have any questions about anything in this document, I encourage you to bring them up when we meet. As new technology develops and the Internet changes, there may be times when I need to update this policy. If I do so, I will notify you of any policy changes and make sure you have access to a copy of the updated policy.

Friending/Following/Adding as a Contact

I and the business for whom I work maintain online presences on several social media sites. I use my full name or the username drerinhaugen on these sites so it is clear that is me representing myself. Assessment and Therapy Associates of Grand Forks uses its full name or the username grandforkstherapy or grandforkstherapy.training. I do not want you to see a pseudonym and think you are following someone else only to find out later that it is me or the business for which I work.

I do not accept friend or contact requests from current or former clients on any social networking site. I believe adding clients as friends or contacts on these sites can compromise your confidentiality and our respective privacy. It may also blur the boundaries of our therapeutic relationship and make it feel like a friendship, a type of patronage, or simply encourage voyeurism. If you have questions about this, please bring them up when we meet and we can talk more about it.

In some rare circumstances, I have had people in my wider circle who previously followed me on social media ask to come in to work with me. If we agree that meeting together does not constitute a problematic conflict of interest, I will unfollow you during our work together to avoid some of the problems outlined above. I will do this to preserve the integrity of our working relationship. You are encouraged, but not required, to do the same.

In addition, viewing your online activities without your explicit consent and without a specific clinical purpose could have potential negative effects on your work with me. I might learn things about you that you have chosen not to discuss with me. It is your right to choose what to share in our work. If there are things from your online life that you do want to share with me, I encourage you to bring them into our sessions where we can view and explore them together during our professional time together. The best way to do this is to bring things out and bring them to your session or show them to me on your devices. Please do not forward me emails or screen shots that involve other people as anything you send me does become part of your legal record.

Facebook

Assessment & Therapy Associates of Grand Forks (ATAGF; the practice for which I work) and I maintain professional Facebook pages to share interesting articles, community information, and updates with other Facebook users. You are welcome to view either Facebook Page and read or share information posted there. I have no expectation that you as a client will want to follow or “like” either Facebook page.

The Review function for both pages is turned off. This was done to maintain clients’ privacy, as individuals reading reviews may assume you are a client of mine and/or ATAGF. In addition, the American Psychological Association’s Ethics Code prohibits our soliciting testimonials from clients. We feel allowing reviews on these pages comes too close to an implied request for a public endorsement of my/our practice.

Interacting

Please do not use SMS (mobile phone text messaging) or messaging on Social Networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Slack, Instagram, or LinkedIn to contact me. These sites are not secure and I may not read these messages in a timely fashion. Please do not use Wall postings, @replies, or other means of engaging with me in public online if we have an already established client/therapist relationship. Engaging with me this way could compromise your confidentiality. It may also create the possibility that these exchanges become a part of your legal medical record and will need to be documented and archived in your chart.

If you need to contact me between sessions, the best way to do so is by my work phone number (701-780-6821). The office staff will relay your message and any important information to me. I do not routinely use email as a means of communication with clients; it is never a good means of communication for therapeutic information or in a crisis situation, particularly because I do not always check my email frequently. If we both agree to use email for communication, I prefer that we only use email for administrative issues such as changing appointment times. See the email section below for more information regarding email interactions.

I may also have a blog in which I allow moderated comments. Please do not comment on the blog as it creates another public forum in which we may be interacting. I would much prefer that if you read something on my blog and have a reaction to it, that we talk about it together rather than having a public exchange in my comments.

Use of Search Engines

It is NOT a regular part of my practice to search for clients on Google or other search engines. It is also NOT a regular part of my practice to search for clients on social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). Extremely rare exceptions may be made during times of crisis. If I have reason to suspect that you are in danger and you have not been in touch with me via our usual means (coming to appointments, phone, or email) there might be instances in which using a search engine to check on your recent status updates becomes necessary as part of ensuring your welfare. These are unusual situations, and if I ever resort to such means, I will document it in your chart and discuss it with you when we next meet.

Again, I do not do this because I see it as a potential breach of your privacy and the trust between us. I believe viewing your online activities and postings can alter my impressions of you and change the relationship we are mutually developing in our meetings, as described above. It can also create confusion in regard to whether I’m looking at your online activity as part of our work together (for assessment or diagnostic purposes) or to satisfy my personal curiosity.

If we do have online activity that you want me to know about, please talk to me about it during our work together when we are meeting for a session.

Discovering/Viewing My Online Activity

I have published a blog on my website and have occasionally posted stories to Medium. I have published writings and online courses. I have a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a LinkedIn account, and an Instagram account. I have no expectation that clients will want to follow my writings or social media postings. However, if you use an easily recognizable name online, and I happen to notice you’ve followed me, we may briefly discuss it and its potential impact on our working relationship.

You may also run across my information in other settings. You may see online ads I post, or you may discover we have friends or contacts in contact on social media. You may discover my podcasts or videos. Or you may find that I have online reviews of my professional practice.

Whether you find this information accidentally or intentionally, what is impost important to me is that you feel safe and comfortable bringing it up if it has an impact on you and your feelings about our work together. I want to make it clear that it is very normal for people to be curious about their psychologist, and some people feel shame or embarrassment about bringing these things up. But I hope to create a relationship in which you are welcomed to bring up anything you learn about me outside of our sessions that has an impact on your comfort in working together.

My Writings About My Professional Work

I occasionally publish writings that reference my professional work. When I do so, I use composite cases. I will not be writing about my work with you. However, if the issues about which I am writing seem like they may hit “close to home” for anyone in my practice, my approach is to tell you I am writing about something that may be linked to topics or issues we have addressed. I will allow you to read a draft of any material I want to publish and get your consent and let you edit/remove/change details so you are comfortable with what gets published. To date, I have not needed to do this in well over a decade of practice because I stick to common themes and composite cases.

Business Review Sites

You may find my psychology practice on sites such as Yelp, Healthgrades, Yahoo Local, 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.

The American Psychological Association’s Ethics Code states under Principle 5.05 that it is unethical for psychologists to solicit testimonials: “Psychologists do not solicit testimonials from current therapy clients/patients or other persons who because of their particular circumstances are vulnerable to undue influence.”

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 encourage 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 you will bring your feelings and reactions to our work directly into the professional process. This can be an important part of our work together, even if you decide we are not a good fit. None of this is meant to keep you from sharing that you are working 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 psychologist 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, I hope you will keep in mind that you may be sharing personally revealing information in a public forum. I encourage you to create a pseudonym that is not linked to your regular email address or friend networks for your own privacy and protection.

If you feel I have done something harmful or unethical and you do not feel comfortable discussing it with me, you can always contact the licensing boards where I hold a license to practice psychology (North Dakota & Minnesota). These boards oversee licensing of psychologists and will review the services I have provided. Note that if they open an investigation into my actions, and you have given your name, they may request your records to pursue the investigation.

North Dakota:

North Dakota State Board of Psychologist Examiners
Physical address:
2900 East Broadway Avenue, Suite 1
Bismarck, ND 58501

Mailing address:
PO Box 1338
Bismarck, ND 58502-1388      

Phone: (701) 214-5580
Email: BoardOffice@ndsbpe.org 
Website: www.ndsbpe.org          

Location-Based Services (LBS)

If you 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 client due to regular check-ins at my office. 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 working with me, another potential risk of them seeing your location is that they may discover we work together.

Email

For telehealth, I or my office staff sends secure session links via email (which is explained in the telehealth and email informed consent documents). I may also send you handouts. You should be aware exchanged emails become a part of your legal record, and I keep a copy in your chart. Please do not email me content related to your therapy session and only use it for administrative purposes (scheduling). If you choose to email me content related to your therapy session, note that email is not completely secure or confidential. All emails are retained in the logs of your and my Internet service providers. Although it is unlikely that someone will be looking at these logs, they are, in theory, available to be read by system administrator(s) of the Internet service providers. I typically reply to emails within one to two days, although I prefer to not communicate with clients via email.

I occasionally send speaking and writing updates via an email list that individuals may opt-in to receive. I do not personally add anyone to this list. I have no expectation that you as a client will want to subscribe to this list. If you elect to subscribe to this list, information you provide when signing up (e.g., email address) will be shared with Mailchimp, which is the program I use to manage this list.

I rarely use email to communicate with clients. Therefore, if you subscribe to my email list, please do not use this (i.e., email) as a way to communicate with me. Under specific circumstances that I will discuss with a client directly, I may elect to communicate with you by email. Please note that this is an incredibly rare occurrence and done so for very specific purposes. If we discuss having email contact, I will ask you to sign an informed consent to email so you are aware of the risks of using this method of communication. You are not obligated to ever communicate with me by email.

Texting

I do not text with clients. ATAGF sends text message reminders for appointments, and you may opt out of these reminders by submitting your request in writing. Our business phone is a landline, and any texts sent to this phone will not be received. It is best to call (701) 780-6821 if you need to relay any information.

Record-Keeping and Data Storage

ATAGF uses PsychAdvantage, a HIPAA-secure cloud-based digital health system to schedule appointments, track your payments and diagnosis, and store your records. We provide telehealth through Zoom for Healthcare, which is also HIPAA-secure (details discussed in Telehealth Informed Consent). We encrypt all our computers so in the event of theft or loss, the entire hard drive is encrypted and cannot be accessed without the encryption key. This also means HIPAA breach notification does not apply if any device is stolen. I do not store any patient information on my personal cell phone or tablet, nor do I access any patient records using these devices.

Conclusion

Thank you for taking the time to review my Social Media Policy! If you have questions or concerns about any of these policies, procedures. or regarding our potential interactions on the Internet, please bring them to my attention so that we can discuss them.

Permissions

Information in this form may only be used by those who have purchased it. Do not copy, sell, distribute, or post without the express permission of Keely Kolmes, Psy.D. If you are someone wanting to use this form, go to https://drkkolmes.com to purchase a copy of this form.

The effective date of this policy is September 10, 2016.
Updates to this policy: June 26, 2017; October 1, 2017; October 29, 2017; January 3, 2019; September 2, 2019; June 18, 2020; January 30, 2021.