VetChange is an online self-management program to help Veterans and active duty military learn skills to better manage their drinking and PTSD symptoms. This version of VetChange enables mental health professionals ( "providers") to directly incorporate a patient’s use of VetChange into treatment. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center for PTSD ("we" or "us,") provides this service. In these Terms of Service, "your patients" means patients you invite to use the provider-assisted features of VetChange as part of the treatment you are providing them.

By signing up for a provider account on VetChange, you are acknowledging and agreeing to these Terms of Use that describe important cautions for you and your patients about using VetChange, and information about the privacy of your patients’ information. Similar information appears in the Terms of Use for patient accounts, and you should encourage your patients to read it when they register.

CAUTIONS AND DISCLAIMERS ABOUT YOUR USE OF VETCHANGE AS A PROVIDER

1. Use VetChange with your patients only if you are professionally qualified and legally permitted to treat patients with alcohol use disorders.

2. If you use VetChange in your work with patients, you do so at your own risk. We assume no responsibility for how you or your patients use VetChange, or for any adverse effects patients may experience as a direct or indirect result of working in the VetChange program. We have no ability or responsibility to personally assist patients if they experience a crisis or other adverse situation while using VetChange.

3. We are unable to offer personal guidance to you about using VetChange with your patients. Please refer to the standardized training materials for clinicians on your provider dashboard.

4. VetChange is not a medical record and it does not connect to any medical records system. After one of your patient consents to link their individual VetChange account to your provider account, you may observe all the information that your patient enters in their VetChange account, and you may enter suggestions for VetChange activities ("assign homework") for the patient. Your patient may terminate this link at any time, which will immediately disable your access to their account and all of their information.

CAUTIONS AND DISCLAIMERS ABOUT YOUR PATIENTS’ USE OF VETCHANGE

1. VetChange is a self-management tool. Except for assistance you may provide, your patients will not have contact with mental health professionals to guide them in using VetChange, or to answer questions about the information presented or their personal situation. The resources page, available to all VetChange users, has information on finding further personal assistance.

2. VetChange is designed to help your patients gain control over drinking by either cutting down or stopping. If at any time while using VetChange your patients find that their drinking is increasing instead of decreasing, they could be at risk for experiencing more serious problems, and they should consult you or seek other professional assistance. Some individuals may become physically dependent on alcohol if they have been drinking for a period of time. When a person is alcohol dependent, they may experience alcohol withdrawal if they suddenly stop drinking or drastically cut down. Symptoms of alcohol withdrawal usually begin within a few hours of decreasing drinking and may include: tremors, sweating, elevated pulse and blood pressure, nausea, insomnia, anxiety, seizures, and possibly delirium. Stopping or cutting down can be medically dangerous if your patient is physically dependent on alcohol. If a patient suspects that they may be physically dependent on alcohol, or experiences any withdrawal symptoms, they should seek professional assistance before trying to stop or cut down drinking.

3. VetChange is focused on drinking, not drug use. If your patient frequently or heavily uses recreational drugs or misuses medications (using more than prescribed by their doctor or using medications not prescribed for them), VetChange may not be suitable for them even if they are also having alcohol problems. Examples of recreational drugs include cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, heroin, or club drugs such as Ecstasy. Examples of commonly misused prescription drugs include pain killers (such as Oxycodone), tranquilizers (like Valium), stimulants (such as Adderall) or drugs to block withdrawal (like Suboxone).

4. VetChange helps your patients learn new skills to manage moods and possible emotional reactions to serving in combat. If at any time while using VetChange your patients feel overwhelmed by their emotions or believe that they have symptoms that are worsening (for example, feelings of sadness are getting more frequent or intense), they should consult you or seek other professional assistance. If they feel at any time that they want to hurt themselves or anyone else, they should go to the nearest emergency room or call 911. They may also call the Veterans Crisis Line at any time at 1-800-273-8255.

PRIVACY AND SECURITY OF YOUR AND YOUR PATIENTS’ INFORMATION

1. Personal information you provide To use VetChange as a provider, you must register for a VetChange provider account by providing your name, email address, zip code, clinical setting, clinical discipline, and a password that you create. We use your email address to send you automated notifications about your use of the system, and for personal communications from administrators. We use the other information to evaluate your eligibility for using the system and for group data about who is using VetChange as a provider.

2. Personal information your patients provide at registration To use VetChange and be able to grant you access to their information, your patients must register for a regular VetChange account by providing a user ID they create (it need not be their name), their email address, their age and their sex. We use their email address to send them automated notifications about their use of the system. We use their age and sex to provide them with automated personalized guidance. We also ask patients to voluntarily enter their ethnicity and Veteran status, for group data about who is using VetChange. Patients may opt to provide their mobile phone number to receive automated text messages about their use of the system.

   If your patients do not want to provide their email address, they can still register for a regular VetChange account with a username only. This will enable them to use VetChange on their own, but they will be unable to link to your provider account and thus grant you access to their information.

3. Personal information that your patients provide when using VetChange To gain the most benefit from VetChange, registered users (including your patients) have the option to enter additional personal information such as a record of how much they drink, or their thoughts, feelings, and plans about cutting back or stopping their drinking. The main purpose for collecting this information is to provide feedback on patients’ drinking and what it might mean for them, and also to offer them new ways of approaching things that may help them decrease any alcohol misuse and trauma-related problems that may trigger drinking. Some of the information that is saved will be presented to patients again in future sessions. Information that patients enter into the optional self-assessment questionnaires will be used to present them with helpful feedback.

   We will also collect anonymous summary statistics about patterns of use on the tools and pages on VetChange, in order to improve the service.

4. How we protect patient information Your patients’ participation and all their information, including any homework activities you suggest as their provider, will be kept confidential. Only authorized people (as explained in section 5) have access to their information.

   We use reasonable, administrative, technical and physical security measures to help protect your patients’ personal information. These measures conform to generally accepted standards to protect personal information submitted to us during transmission and once it is received. However, because no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and no method of data transmission can be guaranteed against any interception or other type of misuses, we cannot guarantee complete security for personal information provided. VetChange uses secure databases and servers to store your patients’ data, and all data is transmitted, stored, and processed in a secure environment. All of your patients’ information is protected by firewalls, encryption, authenticated access, physical access control, policies for technical personnel, and other means to prevent access by anyone who is not supposed to see it. All systems are patched, monitored and scanned routinely for vulnerabilities and intrusions. We do not employ third-party cookies or IP addresses to track behavior on the website..

   Your patients’ email address, and mobile phone number if provided, may tie their identity to the data they enter. Emails and text messages sent by VetChange are not encrypted and should not be considered secure. Because of this, we only send emails and text messages with general wording that doesn’t mention alcohol or other specific health concerns.

   It is also important that patients help maintain the privacy of their data on VetChange by keeping their login username and password secret, and also securing access to their email account and mobile phone number.

5. Who has access to patient information Patients have continual access to their own data, by entering the user name and password they created at registration.

   In general, under federal law, identifiable health information is private. However, there are exceptions to this rule. In some cases, others may see your patients’ identifiable health information for purposes of administrative oversight, quality control, public health and safety, or law enforcement. VetChange administrators and contractors (computer programmers) will have access so that they may perform maintenance, troubleshooting, and updates to VetChange. We share your patients’ health information only when we must, and we ask anyone who receives it from us to protect their privacy. We will never sell, rent, or lease your or your patients’ information.

6. Browser Cookies and IP Addresses VetChange employs browser cookies to keep you and your patients logged into the website and to anonymously associate each user’s browsing activity with their stored data in order to personalize the information they see. VetChange does not link browser cookies with any information you or your patients submit during your site visits.

   VetChange logs IP addresses, or the location of a computer on the Internet, whenever someone requests a web page from VetChange.org. For security reasons, VetChange records your patients’ logged IP address when they register for an account, and stores it in their data record. We do not use IP address logs to otherwise track user sessions or behavior on our site, nor to personally identify users. We use IP addresses solely for security systems administration and troubleshooting purposes.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND AGREEMENT

By voluntarily providing information on VetChange.org you are consenting to the Veterans Administration’s use and disclosure of that information in the manner described in these terms of use.

Please visit the contact page to reach a VetChange program administrator with questions about these terms of use.

Click the Close button to return to the registration page.

Updated: 3/1/2018