From Pastor Steve: Protecting Your Confidentiality…

When You Are in the Hospital:

If you’d like me to visit when you go to the hospital, please tell me yourself or have one of your immediate family members contact me.  Or email his confidential account: pastor@hbcsc.net.

Since people have shorter stays in the hospital these days, it’s best to tell me sooner than later.

Because of federal medical privacy laws, pastors can no longer assume hospitals will give information about your being in their care.

So it’s best to have you or someone from your immediate family let me know. This will assure the most up-to-date information, not second- or third-hand. And it assures me that you want me to know that you are in the hospital. (Not everybody wants it known, by the way.)

When You Ask for the Congregation’s Prayers:

Again, you or someone in the immediate family should let us know if you want your name printed in the bulletin for prayers. Tell Laurie in the church office (932-3344) or Pastor Steve if you want the congregation to keep you in its prayers. Your name will stay on the prayer list until you or someone from your immediate family tells us it may be removed.

When I Hear That You Have an Illness or Medical Problem:

Very often I will hear second- or third-hand that some of you are facing medical issues. It’s not always clear to me that you want it known generally or want it known to me personally. Here’s what I will try to do when I hear about it: I will try to contact you by phone, email, or last resort, snail mail.

Forgive me if I seem to be intruding when I contact you. When it comes to second- or third-hand news about you, it’s impossible to know if you’d appreciate a listening ear or would prefer privacy. You will not offend me in the least if you’d prefer no help.

And I will not tell anybody unless you unmistakably tell me to do so.

It’s understandable that you want a little space when you first get some medical news.  Just let me know if there is ever anything I can do for your when you are ill.