Confidentiality of Counseling Services

All contacts with a counselor are confidential under Texas law, and we do everything possible to maintain your confidentiality and privacy. As counselors we are bound by the law as well as our professional code of ethics.

Student Counseling services are considered a student service and not part of a UTMB clinic. Our records are stored in locked cabinets in our offices as administrative files. NONE of our records become part of the UTMB medical record.

No records are shared with any other office, and no record of your attendance is released to anyone without your signed authorization to release information. If you are referred to us by a faculty member or advisor and would like us to speak to that person, you must provide us with written authorization to do so. Faculty members are aware of this policy. If you are away from campus and request a release of your records to another professional, you must complete a release form before we will do so.

If we must contact you by telephone, we do not identify the call as coming from counseling services. If we mail a letter to you, the counseling services name will not appear on the envelope.

In short, we do EVERYTHING possible to protect your confidentiality.

Please note that under Texas law, we are required to violate confidentiality under the following conditions:

• You are a danger to yourself or others
• Situations involving abuse of a child or elder
• In the unlikely event that our records are subpoenaed.

Please contact us if you have questions about our confidentiality policy or concerns about our maintenance of confidentiality.