How about we RELAX the privacy rules and the HIPAA rules and allow a public safety exception?
As it is now, parents might pay for the shrink, for their 25 year old kid, but parents are not notified, automatically, if the kid tells the shrink that he is thinking about killing people!
‘mentally ill who are nonviolent’
There’s the rub...They are all non-violent, until they are violent.
Psychiatric records have even more strigent privacy rules. I am a Family Physician and I get no records sent on my own patients about their treatment etc. from psychiatrists etc. I is like puling teeth to get even their diagnosis. But, guess whose office they show up in when they are in crisis. Mine !!! I have to call the police sometimes cause they are psychotic. Have had it happen 2 days after discharge from Psych hospital.