1. purpose of the data

During psychotherapy, you share a great deal of intimate content that requires great trust with me as your therapist. Part of that trust is that you can be assured that I am bound by confidentiality. None of what you tell me in therapy sessions will be shared with any third parties. The exception to this is the initial phase of therapy, when two things are necessary: (1) we must apply for therapy with your health insurance company ("therapy application"), and (2) we must apply for your health insurance company to cover the cost of treatment by me ("reimbursement"). For the therapy application and the application for reimbursement, it is necessary that I not only collect certain data from you, but also share it. The transfer of your data is a sensitive issue and therefore only takes place under special, carefully organized and legally regulated conditions.

A distinction is made between "personal data" and "health data". Personal data are e.g. your name, your date of birth, your address, your health insurance. In a sense, these are more "general" data that make you identifiable as a person. Health data is information about your current state of health and complaints, your life situation and life history. This is far more sensitive data, which is why most of it is recorded and used anonymously.

In order for me to be able to make it plausible to the Medical Service of the Health Insurance Companies that therapy is necessary for you, I must of course refer precisely to your relevant health data in the therapy application. So not only collecting and talking about these data are important parts of the therapy: Passing on the data is a basic requirement for the approval of the therapy as well as the reimbursement of the treatment costs!

2. storage of your data

Personal data and especially relevant health data are collected during the initial interviews, which are used to apply for the therapy. These initial interviews are called "probationary sessions". These sessions are used for me to obtain the information from you that I need for the therapy application and the reimbursement application. I will forward both applications to my attorneys, who will handle the correspondence with your health insurance company on my behalf (see "Recipients of Data"). In order for me to pass the applications on to my lawyers, I need your declaration of consent.

Once the therapy is approved and the costs for the treatment are covered by your health insurance, we begin the "actual" psychotherapy. During or after our sessions, I take notes. These notes are "highly confidential" or "personal" records of me as your therapist. Without exception, these highly confidential notes are not made available to anyone (i.e., not even my attorneys!). I keep these notes in a safe place so that no one but me can see them. The reference to the highly confidential notes should make it clear to you once again at this point that I am bound to secrecy with regard to the contents of the psychotherapy!

If at any time it should be necessary for me as your therapist to talk to a third party about you or our therapy, I am obliged to obtain your explicit written consent beforehand!

By the way, the highly confidential recordings are only recorded by hand by me. There is no recording on the PC.

Due to legal requirements I am obliged to keep all your data (as well as the highly-confidential notes) for at least 10 years after completion of the treatment.

3. recipients of your data

I will only transfer your personal and health data to third parties if this is permitted by law or if you have explicitly agreed to it. Since I am not yet licensed by health insurance companies, it is necessary to apply for therapy separately and to request that your health insurance company reimburse the costs of treatment. Many of these applications are rejected by the health insurance companies or sometimes delayed considerably. For you, this results in annoying waiting times or sometimes frustrating refusals! In order to have our therapy approved and the costs of treatment reimbursed as quickly and reliably as possible, I work with a law firm that I hire through a cooperation agreement to file the applications on my behalf. In order to forward the claims to my attorneys, I need your written consent. You grant a power of attorney to the attorneys themselves, through which the attorney-client privilege is then regulated. For all information on the reimbursement of costs, please refer to the brochure that I will give you personally or to the explanations on my homepage ("Documents for reimbursement of costs"). The reimbursement is handled directly by your health insurance company (contains mainly personal data). The therapy application (with the more sensitive health data) is processed via a legally anonymous assessment at the Medical Service of Health Insurances (MDK). Further correspondence between me and your health insurance company will then only take place for the purpose of billing for the therapy, provided that we have reached an assignment agreement in advance (see "Documents for reimbursement"). Of course, only personal data will be transmitted for billing purposes and no sensitive health data!

The same applies to the forwarding of rudimentary personal data (only settlements) to my tax consultant for the purpose of tax advice.