Legal

HIPAA, Privacy &
Terms of Use

Last updated 31 July 2026

The short version

This website does not collect anything about you. There is no contact form on it, no analytics, no advertising, no tracking pixels, and no cookies set by this site. Nobody is counting your visit or building a profile of it.

The one thing the site does is hand you to a secure form run by SimplePractice when you choose to reach out. That is a deliberate design decision, explained below.

What this site collects

Nothing you type, because there is nothing to type into. The site is a set of static pages. It has no database, no forms, no login, and no comment section.

Two ordinary technical things happen anyway, and it would be dishonest not to name them:

• Server logs. This site is hosted on Cloudflare. Like any web host, Cloudflare processes standard request information — including your IP address — in order to deliver pages and protect against abuse. This is handled under Cloudflare's own privacy terms, and Shaé does not have access to it as a mailing list or contact record.
• Typefaces. The page fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means your browser makes a request to Google to fetch them, and Google receives your IP address as part of that request. No cookie is set and nothing about your visit is passed along, but the request does happen.

The contact form

The Contact buttons open a secure form provided by SimplePractice, the practice-management system Shaé uses. The form is displayed and submitted entirely within SimplePractice's system — the information you enter never passes through this website and is never stored on it.

What you send there is governed by SimplePractice's privacy terms and by Shaé's obligations as your clinician, not by this page. This arrangement is intentional: keeping health-related information inside a system built and contracted for it is safer than collecting it on a marketing website.

HIPAA — and what this page is not

Shae Ellington Counseling PLLC is a health care provider subject to HIPAA. Your clinical records and the information you share in treatment are protected health information, and they are handled under those protections.

This page is not a Notice of Privacy Practices. A Notice of Privacy Practices is a separate, legally required document describing how your protected health information may be used and disclosed and what rights you have over it. Shaé provides that notice to clients in person rather than on this website, and you may request a copy at any time. Nothing on this page replaces, modifies, or summarizes it.

Please also keep in mind that ordinary email, text messages, and voicemail are not secure channels. If you reach out by any of those, please keep clinical detail out of the message — just say you'd like to talk, and the rest can happen somewhere appropriate.

Terms of use

• Information, not treatment. Everything on this site is general information about Shaé's practice. It is not therapy, medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and it should not be used in place of care from a qualified professional.
• No client relationship is created by this website. Reading these pages, or sending a message through the contact form, does not by itself make you a client. A therapeutic relationship begins only when Shaé and you have agreed to work together and the intake paperwork is complete.
• Availability. Details on this site — availability, insurance networks, areas of focus — can change. They are kept current in good faith but are not a guarantee.
• Links elsewhere. Links to other organizations are provided for convenience. Shaé is not responsible for their content or their privacy practices.
• Illinois law governs the use of this website.

Changes and questions

If this page changes, the date at the top changes with it. Questions about anything here can go through the contact form, or be raised directly in session.