June 29, 2018
Is your child UNSAFE at the doctor’s office?
HealthPartner’s New Dangerous Teen Questionnaire
New HealthPartner’s Policy
We Have Questions
It Gets Even More Dangerous
Questionnaire
Parents, Take Action
New HealthPartner’s Policy
On June 5, 2018 a mother took her teenage son to Riverway Clinic in Anoka for a checkup. At the end of the appointment she was told that on the following day, a new HealthPartner’s policy would be initiated requiring clinicians to administer a 23-question health questionnaire to all pre-teens and teens….and it was to be answered only by the adolescent.
The mother received a copy of the HealthPartners-Park Nicollet parent letter and the teen questionnaire which stated: “Last updated: April 25, 2018.”
The parent letter titled Adolescent & Teen Visits: Parent Letter Pre-Teen (10 & 11 yrs. Old) states, “We want to help teenagers build a good relationship with their clinician. As teens mature and grow, it is important they feel comfortable discussing their health issues.”
The mother was informed that after the adolescent fills out the questionnaire, the parent will then be asked to leave the child alone with the clinician so the clinician can engage the child “one-on-one” about the answers and personal concerns.
We Have Questions
Why are they asking children to discuss these issues with a total stranger rather than encouraging them to confide in their parents to strengthen the parent/child bond?
Why are parents asked to leave the room? It absolutely sends a powerful message that the clinician is ‘safer’ and more trustworthy than their own parents!
What if the child doesn’t understand the question? What if the child is having a bad day?
What kind of detail are they going to receive in the explanation?
Why are they collecting this information?
Who are they sending it to?
If the child has some concerns, where are the children being referred for additional services? Is this a secret kept from the parents too?
What follow-up, if any, is conducted with the parents if the clinician uncovers concerns?
HealthPartners is egregiously overstepping its authority. Instead of being “partners,” they are inserting themselves between parents and their children!
Parents have not approved nor vetted these “clinicians” for personal and private relationships with our children. We don’t know their social backgrounds, morals, temperaments or values. Yet parents and guardians of minor children are expected to hand them over to virtual strangers to discuss intimate and delicate issues in a young person’s life?
Parents need to take seriously the U.S. Department of Education’s Report (PDF) as far back as 2004 exposing the shockingly high incidence of reported sexual abuse of students, about 10%, by teachers, coaches and other school staff. Surprisingly, over 40% of those abusers were women. Why shouldn’t parents also recognize a similar risk from health workers? Consider the story, The Sex Abuse Scandal Surrounding USA Gymnastics Team Doctor Larry Nassar, of the trusted Dr. Nassar and the hundreds of U.S. Olympic team girls who reported being victimized by his abuse that continued over a period of 20 years. These are not matters parents can afford to ignore.
It Gets Even More Dangerous
Pro-family doctors are advising parents not to leave their children in the examination room with a clinician. “During an exam, turn your back if you need to extend privacy but don’t ever leave the room!”The letter reminds parents that “Minnesota laws require that services and test results for teen sexual and chemical health remain confidential. We will only share your child’s confidential information with you if: Your child asks us to do so, or we have a serious concern about your child’s health or the health of others.”
Considering that they have already established with the child that their own parents can’t be trusted with the discussion by barring them from the room, how many kids will get their parents involved? It’s not enough that the health community lures your children into private discussions of sensitive and value-laden issues regarding their physical, emotional and sexual changes, but they do this knowing full well that the law locks the parents out of being any part of that encounter!
This mother said NO! She told the doctor she would never allow her child to be left alone for any discussion on these questions with any clinician.
And what about this? The parent letter does not inform parents they have the right to refuse the questionnaire and the confidential visit. Why?
It’s important to remember that all information submitted to health agencies is digitally stored permanently, is never accessible to parents, but IS accessible to other agencies collecting your family’s personal information.
Questionnaire
Adolescent & Teen Visits: Teen Questionnaire (12-15 yrs old) (PDF)
Let’s address the implications of their questionnaire:
- Question #2: “Do you get along with your family?” [Exactly how would you have answered that question as a teen?]
- Question #14: “Do you or anyone you live with have a gun or carry around a gun?” [Why do they want to know?]
- Question #20: “Are you or do you ever wonder if you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex or asexual (LGBTQIA)?”
If children don’t understand the questions, or are confused by them, just what will this unknown health worker tell them while parents sit in the lobby? It is an established fact that gender diversity activists have been granted the social legitimacy of guiding and directing our children in the schools, libraries, and the media. Our own Minnesota Department of Education looks to them as resource guides. We are kidding ourselves if we think health clinics will look to organizations other than GLSEN and Planned Parenthood as mentors for our children. These and other organizations like them ignore biology and validate gender spectrum confusion.
The fact they are even asking these questions creates a dangerous place for our children.
The HealthPartners Riverway Clinic nursing supervisor acknowledged that they DO indeed refer teens to Planned Parenthood. “Teens can talk about sexual health and we cannot discuss that with their parent,” she commented. “That is state law!” So, at HealthPartners Riverway Clinic, children may be encouraged to make an abortion decision that will destroy one life and irreversibly damage another. Parents are left to pick up the pieces of their broken and devastated daughter.
This same supervisor told CPL that question #20 was included, because teens themselves suggested which questions to address—including the term “intersex.” The very idea that this survey has been created based on the suggestions of teens is laughable.
The goal, she said, is to have “community measures throughout Minnesota. They need this tool.”
Again, who needs this tool and for what? According to the Riverway Clinic Medical Director, an organization called MN Community Measurement has been gathering information on sensitive questions and mental health concerns for the past year and a half.
She noted that HealthPartners created the questionnaire and she, too, confirmed that they send teens to Planned Parenthood and give Plan B for contraception. And guns? Fairview and Allina have been asking about guns for a while, she added.
Will the clinic give the science of DNA in determining gender/sex? According the nursing supervisor, “We all have our own personal and religious beliefs. We don’t discuss that.”
Now that’s a shocker! The last time we checked, DNA was not a personal or religious belief—it is a scientific fact! Medical personnel won’t discuss DNA but at least some will affirm gender confusion, administer puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones—all without parents’ permission or even knowledge.
This questionnaire has all the earmarks of being nothing short of a tool for someone’s undisclosed social agenda, disguised as health care for our kids!
Parents receive the HealthPartners letter when their children turn 10. When adolescents come in for their 12-year-old checkup, they are given the Teen Questionnaire and are expected to meet privately with the clinician.
HealthPartners is treading on dangerous legal territory. Parents have a right to know, doctors have a duty to inform, and health agencies must be barred from gaining undue access to other people’s children. If we need new legislation to protect our children from this institutional
overreach, then we will take that on!
Parents, Take Action
- If your family uses a HealthPartners clinic or any clinic that participates in this kind of survey, respond to the letter you receive with a letter of your own.
a. Forbid the clinic from holding a private meeting with your child and a clinician.
b. Direct them to put your letter into your family’s health record files.
c. Demand that they discontinue the use of this outrageous questionnaire. - Refuse to have your child fill out the questionnaire or meet privately with a clinician.
This is your right as a parent! - Contact your legislators. Ask them to clarify into law that health providers:
• May not impose themselves on families with personal, invasive questionnaires
• Have no right to digitally store private data discovered about your child’s personal beliefs, feelings or family—unless it involves
mandated legal reporting.
• Must pro-actively inform parents that they and their child have a right to refuse to allow their minor child to meet alone with a clinician. - Request a list of the health provider’s LGBTQIA resources. Please send your findings to Child Protection League at contact@cplaction.com.