The Speech Source
Mary Brezik and Kim Dillon are two pediatric speech-language pathologists with over 25 years of combined experience. As speech therapists, we are often the first professionals to assess young children once they are referred by their pediatrician. Either they are not talking well or they are not eating well. We get to know our patients, their families, and how they are developing. We have a front row seat during the first critical and formative years of development for those who receive our services. Because of this, we have developed relationships with other professionals, observed what parent questions and concerns often arise, and see a need to share the resources and information we have compiled over the years. Join us as we dig into topics that show all of the overlapping aspects of child development and intervention. We invite you to be a part of our collaborative platform as we discuss, learn and grow for the betterment of our kids!
The Speech Source
Setting Up for Success Part 3: HIPPA and Consents
In this episode of The Speech Source Podcast, Mary and Kim continue their policies and procedures discussion by highlighting the critical forms every private practice should have—starting with HIPAA and confidentiality forms. They explain the importance of protecting client information under HIPAA law. HIPAA is all about consent—only those directly involved in a child's care, and specifically named by the parent, can have access to information. Mary and Kim share real-world examples, like collaborating with dentists, teachers, and occupational therapists, and stress how easy it is for casual conversations to cross a line without proper signed permissions. To help parents navigate this, they’ve created detailed HIPAA forms with specific checkboxes for all potential team members (like teachers, assistant teachers, specialists, and even yoga instructors) and additional forms to add new providers over time. Protecting confidentiality not only meets legal requirements but builds trust and professionalism within the community.
The conversation then moves to consent for treatment forms, another essential document in private practice. Whether for in-person therapy, teletherapy, or even quick speech screenings, written parental consent is required before any services can be provided. Kim and Mary also mention that many EMR systems, like their favorite, Simple Practice, offer templates that can be customized to fit your practice's specific needs. They encourage listeners to download download their free checklist of essential practice documents and to continue tuning in as they walk through the systems that have helped make their private practice run smoothly and successfully.
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Welcome to the Speech Source Podcast. My name is Mary Brzeek and I'm Kim Dillon.
Kim :We are two pediatric speech-language pathologists with a combined 25 years of experience.
Mary :We are your source for speech, language feeding, play and much more in between eating, play and much more in between.
Kim :Welcome back to our policies and procedures season, where we are talking about all the things that we have put into place in our private practice that has just helped us create boundaries and information for our parents that kind of establish who we are and protect us as a business, and so we were talking about waivers and forms. We talked in depth about our media release forms that we use for photos and videos in our last episode, so check that out if you haven't listened to it and today we wanted to continue talking about some important forms and waivers we feel like every private practice should have, and so we're going to start off with HIPAA and confidentiality forms. These are so important for any medical private practice to have, and we just wanted to start off with that. Mary, do you want to explain what HIPAA?
Mary :is Sure. So we've all signed HIPAA forms before at our own doctor's appointments, at our children's doctor's appointments but basically it is the form that you are going to sign to say that your medical information is private and that you cannot just share information about medical things, which speech pathology is under that umbrella. We are not under education and so it is important that we adhere to HIPAA law. And one of the things that to stay current with our license and registration and all those things with not registration that's Kim license and registration as driver's license, but not license and registration that's Kim license and registration is driver's license, but not license and registration. To stay current with our license for our governing board, asha, we have to take HIPAA classes and different continuing education to stay current, make sure we fully understand why and how information can be used and shared.
Mary :And the biggest thing to know about HIPAA is just that it's all about consent. It's all about who are you allowed to share information with. Just because you are in the same setting does not mean everybody there is entitled to information. Does not mean everybody there is entitled to information. I'll give like a really big example of in a hospital, for example. Imagine if a movie star were to come to a hospital and receive care, everyone in that hospital is not allowed to access their medical file. They have nothing to do with that patient. Not everyone can just poke into a file and see what's going on, even if they're in the same building, even if they're on the same floor. It's only the people who are involved in their care, and so when we apply this example to us, we're only talking about a very small group. So, kim and I, and then our contractors as well but basically to say that when you enter a contract with us for HIPAA, that we are only going to talk to the people that you allow us to talk to, for anything regarding you your name, your medical, your date of birth, all those kind of important things.
Mary :One of the really important things that Kim and I have realized with HIPAA over the years is just that sometimes, as a parent, when you fill out these forms, you just don't know who should be on there. And it's not that people are not wanting to put a name on there. It's just that Kim and I collaborate so much with other providers. We talk all the time to collaborate with care. We want to be able to talk to the right people if something comes up.
Mary :I'm always talking with dentists, I might talk to a GI, I might talk to an ENT or the teacher, all to make sure that everyone is talking on their team, especially if we're in different locations. We're not on the same EMR system or the same documentation system, so it's really important that we have the ability to talk with each other, and the only way I can talk to that kid's OT is if the parent has signed that I can talk to that specific person is if the parent has signed that I can talk to that specific person. Kim, I know you are in the schools quite a bit.
Kim :Who do you want on there when you go into a school and then you're treating a child. So my eyes were open to this whenever I was in the preschool. So much because it's really easy for someone to just know that you're working with a kid and they come by hey, how so-and-so doing, and it seems like natural conversation. But you just have to remember I really can't share information about this child unless the parent has signed consent for that to happen. And so I usually try to make sure, even if I haven't had those conversations with the teachers or anyone else, that that I have those signatures ahead of time in case they do happen. And I think it's important to even have the director of the school, have the parents sign off on you being able to have conversations with the director of that school or, if it's a principal, if you're at an elementary, if they're receiving OT services or any other services, to have that provider on there.
Kim :The teachers, if there's multiple teachers in the classroom, because in the preschools there's usually two just making sure you have all of those names and a signature so that you can have conversation with anybody that has questions or just wants to know about progress. It's just something that I hadn't really thought about. I thought about HIPAA, but I wasn't thinking about those passing by conversations when someone just wants to ask how things are going or how they can help, which is great, because I have also been surprised by the teachers are wanting to do so much and wanting to help so much, and so I'm glad I get to have those conversations with them. We just have to make sure that the parents are aware and that they sign off on that.
Mary :Maybe a child that has music after school or yoga and you want to talk with them. I work in a preschool right now where a yoga instructor comes in and if you're working on some things that maybe pertain to that, or about communication or hey, they're trying to verbalize or this is what they're trying to say if you need to help them throughout some of their environments, then you're probably going to need more people on that form. So the biggest edit that we made to our HIPAA form, past just the normal template, was I specifically made boxes for every single one of those people that I'm always asking for. So I did a box for dentists, I did a box for preschool teacher, assistant teacher. So really thinking through all of that for them, because it's so hard when you're filling out these forms to really think about who might need to be in these conversations, and then I just do.
Mary :I have a lot of blanks. Pulmonologists is there? A cardiologist Is there? I don't talk to cardiologists often, but basically everybody in the care team should be included so that you can coordinate care should you need to, and so I think that having all of those boxes is really important. And then the second thing that I made is inevitably we forget, or someone gets OT later, or if there's another person that gets added to the team. I also have the additional HIPAA form. That is just blank, so that whatever person that we've just thought about, that I'm like, ok, let me send you another form. Person that we've just thought about that I'm like, okay, yep, let me send you another form. And then they just put whoever in it, and it doesn't have every single line item, but they've just remembered somebody, we need to add them. So then that's going to be really specific of who we're talking about.
Kim :That's what I've done as well. They have their generic HIPAA form through their initial paperwork. As teachers change or people come on their care team, I have a little bit of a simplified form that I just make sure the parent knows hey, I want to have a conversation with this person and they give consent for that. And then also collaborating with other speech therapists I have several kids on my caseload that have multiple speech therapists and we talk, have multiple speech therapists and we talk, we have conversations, which is amazing because the progress that the kids make is much better when you can be on the same team, and just making sure that you have consents for those conversations is important too. As we record this mini series on policies and procedures, mary and I have put together a list of everything that we feel is important in starting a private practice all of the policies, the procedures, the paperwork that we use and that is available in our podcast notes. Just click on the link and you can download this list for yourself. Hopefully it's helpful in starting your own practice.
Mary :I think HIPAA and confidentiality is so important to promote who you are as a business, as a professional.
Mary :Kim and I are just so involved in our community.
Mary :It's really important that parents know that we are people of integrity, that we uphold our HIPAA and confidentiality policies so that when we're out and about, that's not a conversation that Kim and I can engage in or even acknowledge.
Mary :We'll say, oh, it's so good to see you, or oh, wow, and then just you're going about your way, but we can't talk about anything in our practice socially, and I think it's really important that people know that. It's really important that you just make sure to keep that confidentiality. And it all starts from that HIPAA form of these are the people I can talk to. And then, lastly, we do work with a lot of families who have parents that work, and so maybe a nanny or a grandmother, grandfather, someone else is taking them to sessions and back, and it's important too, that anyone who is going to be receiving any kind of information is also, on that form, someone that's in the child's life, so that you can share information with them, especially if they're going to be the one taking them to visits or something I think it's really important that you have them on there.
Kim :It seems like a lot to have, and actually this goes with all these policies and procedures to have parents like signing and protecting yourself. But it's all fine until it's not, and so you just have to know that you're doing this all because there might be a time that it's not okay and you want to have protected yourself and that does happen. Okay, let's go on to just consent for treatment in general. This is another form that, if you're using an EMR system, they have in place automatically just consent for speech therapy, whenever you start. There's also a consent for teletherapy. If you're a practice that does teletherapy sessions, that's another important consent. But with both of those again, there's a template that you can make specific to your practice or specific to your teletherapy sessions. Mary, with those consents for treatment, is there anything that you have changed specific for your practice?
Mary :I don't think I have changed anything with consent for treatment, but I certainly have included that in screeners. If I do a screener for a child, that's pretty quick, and then I also have just kept that in mind, or I will refer back to that. If I'm in a position where, especially at a school, a lot of times a teacher will come up to you and be like, hey, oh my gosh, can you look at this kid? I think this kid might need some help too. And it's important to know, like I cannot offer treatment to or probe or do a screen or anything. I cannot work with that child without a parent's consent. So I think that is really just how I've kept that in mind is just to be like oh yeah, you know what, If you do have a conversation with the parent, let me know. I do offer screeners so I could totally do that. I have to have the parent's consent to be able to evaluate and take a look at them. But I do these screeners too. That's exactly for that, exactly for this little snapshot, if that's what's best. So I think just talking through the why of why we have consent for treatment is important to know, because it's different in a school Teachers all the time are like, hey, come here, help me with this or help me problem solve. But in our world of we're really medical, we cannot offer that service if it's not our patient.
Mary :Kim and I talk a lot on our episodes about our favorite EMR system, Simple Practice. We are a huge proponent of this system. We love all the features. It has really really helped us grow our private practice, especially in creating our policies and procedures. So be sure to check out the show notes for our special discount code so that you can also see all the amazing things that simple practice can do to help your business grow. I hope you enjoyed this episode. That's all about our forms and waivers. We've got some more coming up that are about the paperwork and the different processes that we have put in place and systems that make our policies be so much easier on our business. Make sure to tune in and listen to the full series of policies and procedures this season.
Kim :Thanks, for listening. Make sure you subscribe to our podcast and check out our website, thespeechsourcecom.
Mary :Also check us out on Instagram for more ideas on speech, language, feeding and play.
