Florida: minor consent, confidentiality, and custody

Who consents to treatment

A person reaches the age of majority in Florida at eighteen. A married minor, and a minor emancipated by court order under Chapter 743, consents as an adult. Chapter 743 also lets an unmarried pregnant minor consent to care related to the pregnancy and allows emergency treatment without consent. Outside those cases, a parent or guardian consents, and the exceptions below are specific to mental health and substance use care.

Outpatient crisis services: § 394.4784

A minor thirteen or older who is experiencing an emotional crisis to such a degree that they perceive the need for professional assistance may request, consent to, and receive outpatient crisis intervention services, including individual psychotherapy, group therapy, counseling, or other verbal therapy, from a licensed mental health professional, without the consent of a parent or guardian. Three limits apply:

• The services may not exceed two visits during any one-week period in response to a crisis before parental consent is required for further services.
• The section does not authorize medication, somatic treatment, aversive stimuli, or substantial deprivation.
• The parent is not liable for the cost of services the minor consented to on their own.

The section is narrow by design: two visits to stabilize a crisis and bring the parent in. It is not a route to ongoing therapy without the family. A bill to repeal the section was filed for the 2026 session; check its status before relying on the section.

Inpatient treatment: §§ 394.4625 and 394.463

• Voluntary. Under § 394.4625(1), a minor may be admitted to a receiving facility as a voluntary patient on the application of a parent or legal guardian, and the facility must perform a clinical review to verify the voluntariness of the minor's assent. Until 2024 the statute required a court hearing for that purpose; it now requires the clinical review. A minor admitted voluntarily is discharged on the parent's request, subject to the facility's ability to initiate involuntary proceedings.
• Involuntary examination. Under the Baker Act (§ 394.463), a minor who, because of mental illness, is likely to harm self or others or is unable to care for self may be taken to a receiving facility for involuntary examination, to be initiated within twelve hours of the minor's arrival. The facility must notify the parent or guardian. Further treatment requires a petition to the court.

Drug and alcohol treatment: § 397.601

A minor may consent to substance abuse services under Chapter 397, and parental consent is not required for the minor to receive them. The provider may involve the parent as clinically appropriate. Records of a program that meets the federal definition are also subject to 42 CFR Part 2.

What a parent is entitled to know

Clinical records under the Baker Act are confidential under § 394.4615, with release to the patient's guardian, and in the case of a minor, to the parent or guardian, among the listed exceptions. Outside the Baker Act, a parent is ordinarily the minor's personal representative under HIPAA and may access the record.

Two situations change that:

1. Services the minor consented to. Where a minor lawfully consented to crisis services under § 394.4784 or substance abuse services under § 397.601 and no parental consent was required, HIPAA treats the minor as the person who controls the protected health information for that care (45 CFR 164.502(g)(3)). The two-visit limit means this window is short for mental health care.
2. Psychotherapy notes kept separately have their own protection under HIPAA regardless of who consented.

Outside those situations, Florida does not give adolescents a general right to confidentiality from parents. Agree on confidentiality expectations with the family at the first visit.

Divorced or separated parents

Florida orders parental responsibility and a time-sharing schedule under § 61.13. Shared parental responsibility is the default, under which both parents retain full parental rights and confer on major decisions; the court may give one parent ultimate responsibility over specific aspects, including health care, where shared responsibility would be detrimental or the parents cannot agree. Three practical rules follow:

• Ask for the parenting plan. If it gives one parent ultimate responsibility for health care decisions, that parent's consent is the one that counts. Under shared responsibility, either parent can ordinarily consent to routine treatment, but a major decision one parent opposes is a dispute for the parents, and if necessary the court, to resolve. Pause non-urgent treatment, document what each parent was told, and do not pick a side.
• Time-sharing does not decide access to records. Under § 61.13(2)(c), access to records and information pertaining to a minor child, including medical, dental, and school records, may not be denied to either parent, and either parent may consult with the child's treating providers, unless the court orders otherwise. A parent asking you to withhold records from the other parent is not, on their own, a basis to do so.
• The minor's own consent is unaffected by which parent has the majority of time-sharing.

When the minor is at risk

Duty to warn. Florida's rule is statutory and, since 2019, has a mandatory element. Under § 456.059 (psychiatrists), § 490.0147 (psychologists), and § 491.0147 (clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists, and mental health counselors), when a patient has made an actual threat to physically harm an identifiable or readily available victim and the clinician determines that the patient has the apparent intent and ability to carry out the threat in the reasonably foreseeable future, the clinician must disclose the threat to law enforcement, and may disclose it to the extent necessary to warn the potential victim. The disclosure cannot be the basis of liability. Florida courts have declined to extend the duty to victims who are not identifiable. Document the threat, the assessment, and the steps taken.

Mandated reporting. Under § 39.201, any person who knows, or has reasonable cause to suspect, that a child is abused, abandoned, or neglected by a parent or caregiver must report immediately to the Florida Abuse Hotline at 1-800-962-2873 or through the online reporting system. Physicians, nurses, mental health professionals, and other listed professionals must give their names to the hotline, which keeps them confidential. The duty is individual and is not satisfied by telling a supervisor. Under § 39.205, a person who is required to report and knowingly and willfully fails to do so commits a felony of the third degree; good-faith reporters are immune.

Hospitalization. See the inpatient section above.

School records

A school's records about a student, including records from a school counselor or school-based clinician employed by the district, are governed by FERPA rather than HIPAA, and parents have rights of access under FERPA until the student turns eighteen. Records a school receives from an outside clinician become part of the education record once filed. Send the school what it needs to act, not the full evaluation.