During adolescent well child checks or sometimes on certain office visits, your child's provider may politely ask you for a few minutes to talk alone with your child regarding certain issues that adolescents are sometime uncomfortable discussing with their parents in the room.

Adolescents have gained many opportunities to receive confidential health care services, particularly for concerns related to sexual activity, pregnancy, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), substance abuse and mental health. Protection of confidentiality for adolescents has been based on recognition that some minors would not seek needed health care if they could not receive it confidentially, and that their forgoing care would have negative health implications for them as well as society.

It is mutually understood that any information the young patient shares during one on one conversation with the physician remains in strict confidence unless in the doctor’s judgment the teen poses a danger to himself or to others or has been abused.