Privacy Policy.

Effective Date: March 20, 2026

Breakwater Psychology, a service of Dowling Consulting Group LLC ("we," "us," or "our"), is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our website or receive our services.

As a healthcare practice, we are required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Oregon state law to maintain the privacy of your Protected Health Information (PHI) and to provide you with notice of our legal duties and privacy practices.

How we use your information.

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• Treatment: To provide therapy, conduct assessments, develop treatment plans, and coordinate your care.
• Scheduling and communication: To schedule appointments, send reminders, and respond to your inquiries.
• Billing and payment: To process payments, submit insurance claims, and manage your account.
• Required reporting: To comply with legal obligations, including mandatory reporting requirements under Oregon law (such as suspected abuse or imminent harm).
• Quality and operations: To improve our services and maintain the security of our systems.

When we share your information.

We do not sell your information. We do not share your PHI for marketing purposes. We may share your information only in the following circumstances:

• With your written consent: We share information with insurance companies, referring providers, or other healthcare professionals only when you have provided written authorization.
• For treatment coordination: If you authorize us to coordinate with another provider (such as a prescribing physician), we will share only the information relevant to your care.
• Insurance claims: If you use insurance, we submit claims that include diagnosis codes, procedure codes, and dates of service to your insurance company.
• Legal requirements: We may disclose information without your authorization when required by law, including mandatory reporting of suspected abuse or neglect, court orders, and situations involving imminent risk of serious harm.

Contact form submissions.

When you submit a message through our website contact form, the information you provide (name, email, phone number, message) is transmitted securely and used solely to respond to your inquiry. Contact form submissions are not part of your clinical record unless you become a client and the information is clinically relevant.

Please do not include sensitive health information in contact form messages. If you are already a client and need to communicate about your care, use the secure channels we have provided to you.

Your rights.

Under HIPAA and Oregon law, you have the right to:

• Access your records: You can request a copy of your clinical records. We will provide them within 30 days of your written request.
• Request corrections: If you believe your records contain an error, you can request an amendment. We will respond within 60 days.
• Request restrictions: You can ask us to limit how we use or disclose your information, though we are not required to agree in all cases.
• Receive confidential communications: You can request that we communicate with you in a specific way or at a specific location (for example, by email only, or at a particular phone number).
• Receive an accounting of disclosures: You can request a list of certain disclosures we have made of your PHI.
• File a complaint: If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you can file a complaint with us or with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights.

We will never retaliate against you for filing a complaint.

Changes to this policy.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the effective date at the top of this page. If we make material changes to how we handle your PHI, we will notify you directly or post a prominent notice on our website. We encourage you to review this page periodically.