Discover what CaPS can offer you.
CaPS offers same-day appointments for urgent situations, 24/7 on-call service for after-hours needs and a variety of counseling and psychological services. Therapists are also available to consult with any member of the university community regarding student mental health concerns.
Confidentiality / Patient Rights & Responsibilities
What is confidentiality?
Respecting your confidentiality is one of Counseling and Psychological Services’ (CaPS) highest priorities. We maintain confidentiality to the limits provided by Pennsylvania law and FERPA guidelines. In accordance with law, we do not release information to anyone outside of CaPS (including parents, administrators, faculty, or potential employers), or disclose that you have received care, without your explicit permission.
In most cases, the only information others have about your experiences in therapy is what you choose to tell them yourself. Counseling records, including the scheduling of appointments and content of counseling sessions, are maintained in files completely separate from the student’s academic records and cannot be accessed by faculty, parents, or any non-CaPS staff without your explicit authorization.
In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania any individual over the age of 14 has the right to keep treatment private from their parents. If you want CaPS to communicate with family members, faculty/staff, or other providers, you can discuss this with a CaPS clinician and complete a Release of Information Form (ROI).
There are exceptions to confidentiality. By law we are obligated to disclose personal information without permission in emergency situations where information is needed to protect the safety of someone whose life may be at risk. You can discuss any concerns you have about the limits to confidentiality with your CaPS therapist at any time.
Communication
CaPS may contact you by phone, email or voicemail as needed and will ask you, upon your first appointment, your preferred method of contact.
Email is not a confidential form of communication so we won’t use email to initiate therapeutic conversations. Things we do communicate by email are appointment reminders, reaching out in case of absence, and scheduling purposes.
Teletherapy
To ensure a confidential, safe environment via teletherapy, you will receive a link to a personalized Zoom room from your clinician. Access to this Zoom room is only provided to whomever the clinician allows into the room. For any session, each person's identity and access to safe and confidential spaces are confirmed for each individual present. Clinicians will meet with you from a secure location, with headphones and/or noise canceling sound machines turned on in their spaces so that no other individuals outside of their respective offices may hear the conversations occurring.
University Health Services
Your consent to treatment includes sharing limited information with members of Â鶹´å’s University Health Services where necessary to coordinate your medical care and treatment.
Recording Sessions for Training Purposes
In addition to providing psychological and psychiatric services, Â鶹´å CaPS serves as a training clinic. This means that one of our functions is to provide direct clinical experience for graduate students, doctoral interns, post-doctoral fellows and other clinicians working to become fully-licensed psychologists, licensed counselors or to obtain additional credentials.
Your treatment provider may be a therapist-in-training. If that is the case, upon the first meeting, you will be notified of their training status and learn who their supervisor is. You have the choice to change providers if this is not someone who you want to meet with. As part of their training you will be asked if the session can be video recorded, with the purpose of getting feedback by their supervisor regarding their performance. You have the right to deny being recorded or request that the recording device be turned off at any time. Sessions recordings are for supervisory and training purposes only, and are kept on a secure server with access limited only to supervising staff. Any information that you reveal, whether oral or written, will not be discussed or shared with anyone outside of Â鶹´å CaPS professional staff without your prior written permission. The recordings are erased promptly after their supervisor provides them with feedback.
Psychiatry Billing through Student Health Plan
Psychiatry service is the only service at CaPS that bills health insurance, and only the student health plan is accepted. For that purpose, we will disclose student medical records to Â鶹´å’s Student Health Insurance provider to obtain reimbursement for your health care or to determine eligibility or coverage. Additionally, when billing student accounts, name, date of service and fee are provided to add that to your account. Please know that this, on the student account, is simply labeled as “Student Health Service.” For more information on billing, visit the Psychiatry webpage.
Patient’s Rights & Responsibilities
Patient’s Rights
- To be affirmed and treated without discrimination and with respect to differences
related to race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender
identity, pregnancy or related condition, family status, marital status, parental status,
religion, ancestry, veteran status or genetic information
- To be treated in a courteous and caring manner.
- To good quality care provided by competent and culturally sensitive professionals and staff.
- To a private and confidential space for treatment.
- To receive information you need to participate in decisions about your care, and to give consent before any diagnostic or treatment procedure is performed.
- To be informed of treatment options available to you.
- To make informed decisions about your treatment and express your desires to your treating therapist.
- To include family members in your treatment choices.
- To decline treatment at any point and to be given information about the consequences of such actions.
- To review and obtain your treatment records.
- To ask for and receive an explanation of any charges billed by Â鶹´å.
- To provide feedback to the center regarding their care and treatment experience.
Patient’s Responsibilities
- To provide correct and complete information about their health and past mental health and medical history.
- To report if they do not understand the planned treatment or their part in the plan.
- To treat others with respect including CaPS staff, peers in the waiting room, and treating providers.
- To keep your appointment, or change or cancel it in a timely manner, to allow others in need to have access to treatment.
- To protect the privacy of staff and other clients by refraining from photography or video / audio recording on CaPS premises.
- To follow the care, service, or treatment plan developed.
Health Care Power of Attorney
What is a Health Care Power of Attorney?
A Health Care Power of Attorney (also known as an Advance Health Care Directive) is a document that designates someone to make health care decisions on your behalf if you become incapacitated.
What does being incapacitated mean?
Incapacitated, in the context of a POA, means the patient or creator of the document is mentally or physically unable to make informed, rational decisions regarding their own affairs, such as finances or healthcare.
What is an emergency contact?
An emergency contact is someone you designate in writing to be notified about you if there’s an emergency. The Â鶹´å Student Information System has a record of your emergency contact.
Are they the same thing?
An emergency contact does not automatically have the power to make health care decisions for you. You can make the same person your emergency contact and your health care decision-maker. If they are not the same person, you should give your emergency contact a copy of your health care POA.
What happens in a health care emergency?
If you are at CaPS during a health care emergency, you will be asked to contact your emergency contact if you are able to. If you are incapacitated or otherwise unable to advocate for yourself, CaPS will attempt to notify your emergency contact. CaPS does not provide treatment for incapacitating conditions and would transfer you to a hospital. Hospitals will follow their own notification protocols.
If I give CaPS a copy of my health care POA, what will CaPS do with it?
CaPS does not store health care POA on your file. If you have a health care POA, we encourage you to let your emergency contact know so they can notify them in the case you become incapacitated.
Does CaPS automatically provide hospitals with my POA?
No. It is your responsibility to keep the health care POA available if you need to go to the hospital. If CaPS is sending you to the hospital during regular hours of operation, however, and you are incapacitated or unable to advocate for yourself, CaPS will contact DOSA who will then make every effort to contact your emergency contact.
Important Note Regarding Power of Attorney (POA) Records
While CaPS does not store your health care POA, we ask that you be aware of the following best practices for emergency preparedness:
- CaPS is an Independent Facility: We are a separate clinical entity from local community hospitals and trauma centers. Our internal record systems do not automatically "sync" or share documents with outside hospital networks.
- The "Portability" Factor: In the event of an emergency requiring transport to an outside hospital, that facility will not have access to the CaPS file.
- Best Practice for Students: We strongly recommend that students keep a digital copy (PDF) of their POA on their smartphone and a physical copy in their dorm or wallet.
Bottom Line: To ensure your wishes are honored immediately across all healthcare systems, the document should travel with the student and be in possession of the student’s emergency contact.