Hipaa rights and teletherapy by facetime

October 15, 2020
HIPAA rights and teletherapy by FaceTime

Can patients waive their HIPAA rights when using specific teletherapy platforms? For instance, those who prefer to use FaceTime over a HIPAA-compliant platform. 

1) My understanding (and I'm not a lawyer, so don't rely on me) is that HIPAA confers rights on our patients/clients, and that those rights may be waived. So, my understanding of the answer to the original poster's question is, "Yes, patients/clients may waive their rights." But I want to emphasize: I don't know this to be true; I just assume it to be so.

2) My understanding, further, is that very few of us actually conduct our practices in a way that is, fully, HIPAA-compliant. For example, we e-mail and text our patients. Or our electronic or paper record-keeping practices are not, strictly speaking, fully compliant with the requirements of HIPAA.

If you are interested in ensuring compliance with HIPAA, I suggest you speak with a lawyer about how to accomplish that. If you're interested in protecting your patients'/clients' confidentiality and privacy, that's an entirely separate question.