PATIENTS 0 YEARS THROUGH 12 YEARS: Parents/legal guardians will be granted access to their child’s portal at CNY Family Care through age 12. The day before the child’s 13th birthday, CNY Family Care will terminate the Authorized Representative’s privileges.

PATIENTS 13 YEARS THROUGH 17 YEARS: Upon age 13, an Adolescent AR Portal Consent form signed by the child is necessary to provide a parent/legal guardian Authorized Representative access to their child’s portal account. If your child consents to assign you as their Authorized Representative, CNY Family Care will automatically terminate your permissions the day before your child’s 18th birthday. If your child wants access to their portal upon turning 13, they will have to sign the Adolescent Portal Consent form stating that they understand the responsibility of having access to the portal. Please note, sensitive information may be available on the portal account. The Adolescent Portal Consent and Adolescent AR Portal Consent form can be found on our website (under patient forms), or at the office.

Under New York law, a minor age 13 who understands the risks and benefits of proposed and alternative treatments can consent to the following medical care without parental consent: reproductive health care, including family planning (i.e., birth control and other contraception), emergency contraception, abortion, pregnancy/prenatal care, care during labor and delivery, care for sexually transmitted infections; certain mental health services; certain alcohol and drug abuse services; and sexual assault treatment. We require authorization at age 13 from the child to allow their parent/ guardian access to their portal as an Authorized Representative since their portal will disclose information on treatment at CNY Family Care for reproductive health care, birth control and other contraception, emergency contraception, abortion, pregnancy/prenatal care, care during labor and delivery, care for sexually transmitted infections, mental health services, alcohol and drug abuse treatment services, and sexual assault treatment.

Patients 18 or older:

To ensure patient confidentiality, we require you not to share your login or password with anyone.

If there is someone you would like to allow to access your patient portal on your behalf, we can set them up as an Authorized Representative (AR) on your portal. You will need to fill out the Adult AR Portal consent form for us to grant that person AR access to your portal. This documentation is required so that the practice understands exactly who we are communicating with on the portal. It is also to verify your understanding of the medical information you are allowing to be shared with this person. The Adult AR Portal Consent form can be found on our website (under patient forms), or at the office.

If a patient aged 18 and older is unable to consent for an Authorized Representative to have access to their online patient portal due to no longer having the capacity to make informed decisions (Ex: Dementia), we can use their advance directive to grant Authorized Representative access. The documents which are acceptable are a health care proxy or a power of attorney for health care. It is important to understand that under law, the health care proxy only goes into effect if the patient becomes unable to make informed healthcare decisions. If the patient can still make informed decisions, we would require consent from the patient to allow another person to have Authorized Representative access to their patient portal. In the case that a patient can no longer make informed decisions, the Authorized Representative consent form only needs to be signed by their healthcare proxy or person designated as their power of attorney for health care (if you have not already provided us with a copy of this legal document, please be sure to return the signed consent with a copy of this paperwork).

If a patient aged 18 and older is unable to consent for an Authorized Representative to have access to their online patient portal due to a disability, guardianship papers would need to be presented to the practice before we can grant access to another person on the portal. In this case, the Authorized Representative consent only needs to be signed by their guardian (if you have not already provided us with a copy of the guardianship papers, please be sure to return the signed consent with a copy of the legal guardianship paperwork).

An Authorized Representative has the same level of access as a patient and will provide the ability to access different parts of your medical record on our patient portal. Please understand, on the portal all your medical information, visit notes, and test results may be available to view.

An Authorized Representative agrees to the following:

• Authorized Representative access is used to access the above patient’s personal health information. I may not share my login and password information with another person.
• I may use this Authorized Representative access to send messages about this patient ONLY.
• It is my responsibility to select a personal login name and password, to maintain this data securely, and to change this password or contact CNY Family Care immediately if compromised in any way.
• CNY Family Care, LLP has the right to revoke access to the Patient Portal for a patient or their Authorized Representative at any time for any reason.
• It is my responsibility to ensure that my e-mail address is always current. I understand that if my e-mail is not up to date, I will not receive notification of messages sent to me regarding this patient.
• I’m aware that I should handle urgent issues by calling the office directly or calling 911 should the emergency be life-threatening.
• I understand the given risks associated with online communications between my child’s physician and myself.

It is important to understand that when access is granted to an Authorized Representative, disclosure of patient information relating to alcohol or drug treatment, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, psychiatric care, and confidential HIV-related details are available through the patient portal.

You may terminate an Authorized Representative’s access to your patient portal account at any time by contacting CNY Family Care.

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to call our practice’s Patient Communication and Portal Specialist at 315-748-7869.