What you wrote about her sister
A client in her second year of therapy with you in private practice emails a written request for...
Decision diagram
A client asks for their record
Step through a request to see, copy, correct or delete a clinical record and find what PHIPA and CRPO require: the response, the clock, the narrow refusals, the fee, and how long the record must be kept.
Answer the questions below one at a time. Then run the three practice cases further down to test it.
Every branch below carries the provision it rests on, read against the consolidated Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 on e-Laws on 23 and 25 September 2026, together with CRPO Standard 5.1. Nothing here is legal advice, and a refusal on any ground deserves consultation and, where it is contested, legal advice.
What has the client asked you for?
Access and correction are statutory rights with their own clocks. How long you keep the record is set by CRPO's standard, not by the client's wishes.
What decides this step
PHIPA Part V, ss. 51 to 55; CRPO Standard 5.1.2
“Registrants provide access to, and disclosure of client records in their custody, as permitted or required by law.”
Three cases to run through it
Three requests a private practice will meet, and one of them needs no special action at all: you simply give the client their record.
I was not drunk
A former client has read her record and writes to you asking that you delete a note from a sessi...
Delete everything
A woman of 21 emails you. You saw her from age 13 to 15, when her parents separated, and she has...