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Professionally, there’s a doctor-patient privilege in the course of the former’s discharge of duty. This means that the information shared is confidential and access to such records must only be limited to doctors directly involved in treating the patient. It’s unprofessional for a doctor to disclose a patient’s records to a third party. Laws are in place to protect a patient’s privacy. The Health Insurance and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has a confidentiality decree which sets down principles to safeguard patients’ medical data and individual health information including psychiatric information. This paper seeks to review the application of confidentiality and privacy laws for instance, who does it bind? It will also address the exceptions thereto, like the cases when such classified information can be released to a third party. The paper also examines the laws that are in place to protect psychologists if they disclose such confidential information to a third party. It will also review different State’s legislation on the same, and whether they are mandatory or permissive. Lastly, I will give my opinion on the confidentiality laws and how they can be improved. Psychotherapy, to begin with, works very well when one is open and honest. This means that the patient becomes entirely submissive to his doctor on personal information that in some cases are not as pleasant as such. A patient will only be comfortable disclosing their private information if they are guaranteed that such information will not leave the room. It goes without saying therefore that confidentiality laws bind both the mental health doctors and psychotherapists; they should abide by them at
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