{"id":13584,"date":"2024-09-25T09:04:52","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T09:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=13584"},"modified":"2024-09-25T09:27:47","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T09:27:47","slug":"therapy-notes-are-accessible-to-patients-is-that-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=13584","title":{"rendered":"Therapy Notes Are Accessible to Patients. Is That a Good Thing?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Health care systems have been putting therapists\u2019 progress reports online, much to the surprise (and anger) of some patients.<\/p>\n

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Stunned. Ambushed. Traumatized.<\/p>\n

These were the words that Jeffrey, 76, used to describe how he felt when he stumbled upon his therapist\u2019s notes after logging into an online patient portal in June.<\/p>\n

There was a summary of the physical and emotional abuse he endured during childhood. Characterizations of his most intimate relationships. And an assessment of his insight (fair) and his judgment (poor). Each was written by his new psychologist, whom he had seen four times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt as though someone had tied me up in a chair and was slapping me, and I was defenseless,\u201d said Jeffrey, whose psychologist had diagnosed him with complex post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey, who lives in New York City and asked to be identified by his middle name to protect his privacy, was startled not only by the details that had been included in the visit summaries, but also by some inaccuracies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And because his therapist practiced at a large hospital, he worried that his other doctors who used the same online records system would read the notes.<\/p>\n

In the past, if patients wanted to see what their therapists had written about them, they had to formally request their records. But after a change in federal law, it has become increasingly common for patients in health care systems across the country to view their notes online \u2014 it can be as easy as logging into patient portals like MyChart.<\/p>\n

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Health care systems have been putting therapists\u2019 progress reports online, much to the surprise (and anger) of some patients.Stunned. Ambushed. Traumatized.These were the words that Jeffrey, 76, used to describe how he felt when he stumbled upon his therapist\u2019s notes after logging into an online patient portal in June.There was a summary of the physical and emotional abuse he endured during childhood. Characterizations of his most intimate relationships. And an assessment of his insight (fair) and his judgment (poor). Each was written by his new psychologist, whom he had seen four times.\u201cI felt as though someone had tied me up in a chair and was slapping me, and I was defenseless,\u201d said Jeffrey, whose psychologist had diagnosed him with complex post-traumatic stress disorder.Jeffrey, who lives in New York City and asked to be identified by his middle name to protect his privacy, was startled not only by the details that had been included in the visit summaries, but also by some inaccuracies.And because his therapist practiced at a large hospital, he worried that his other doctors who used the same online records system would read the notes.In the past, if patients wanted to see what their therapists had written about them, they had to formally request their records. But after a change in federal law, it has become increasingly common for patients in health care systems across the country to view their notes online \u2014 it can be as easy as logging into patient portals like MyChart.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13586,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13584"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13587,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13584\/revisions\/13587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}