Ensure that your practice is ready to meet the needs of IPV survivors: there is a lot that you can do to enhance the amazing work you are already doing.
Ensure all members of the care team are trained to address and prevent IPV, using the CUES intervention!
Learn simple strategies to strengthen your health setting's policies and protocols around addressing IPV, including quality improvement, reimbursement, and patient privacy.
Building partnerships
Partnering with domestic and sexual violence advocates will make your job easier: they can address key non-clinical determinants of health and support patient safety. Take the first step by reaching out to your local domestic and sexual violence agencies.
Steps to build a partnership
Host cross-trainings with the DV agency to promote shared knowledge between your staff.
Develop a bi-directional referral procedure between health providers and advocates.
Explore models for partnership: co-located advocacy, mobile advocacy, mobile healthcare, and more.
Outline and agree to an MOU to define your partnership.
Partnering with advocates
Healthcare and domestic and sexual violence advocacy programs are natural partners given their shared mission to improve the health, wellness, and safety of their clients and to prevent violence before it begins.
CUES in practice
Always see the patient alone for at least part of the visit and disclose your limits of confidentiality before discussing IPV.
Use our safety cards to talk with all patients about healthy and unhealthy relationships and the health effects of violence. Always give at least two cards to each patient so that they can share with friends and family.
Disclosure is not the goal, but they will happen. Make a warm referral to your DV partner and document the disclosure in order to follow up at the next visit. Share health promotion strategies to support patient health and safety while surviving abuse.
Prepare your practice to support survivors
Enhancing your environment
There are some simple steps you can take to support survivors in your health setting
Ways you can support survivors
- Ensure there is a private space to talk with patients about their relationships
- Display posters and patient education tools to indicate that your health center is a safe place to discuss relationships
- Develop a list of local resources for survivors and their families
- Identify a space and a phone where survivors can call and connect to domestic and sexual violence agencies
Workplace and staff self care
We know that health center employees are also affected by IPV - through personal experiences and by talking to patients. A key element of preparing your practice is developing a workplace policy to ensure that staff are supported.
Systems Change is Key to Addressing Violence in Health Settings
No matter what health system you manage, there are many administrative level changes that can be made to promote sustainable and efficient practice change.
Policy and protocol
Take simple steps to change your policies and procedures to be more trauma-informed. Understanding reporting laws and privacy principles are an important part of that.
Use quality assessment tools on a regular basis to document your progress and plan.
Documentation, privacy and billing
It is important that providers and the billing team know how to document and code for IPV as well as how to implement important privacy protections for what information gets shared about IPV.
CPT ICD codes are available for age appropriate counseling and risk factor reduction interventions as well as codes to record assessment and counseling for IPV.
- PDF21st Century Cures Act: Recommendations to Promote Survivor Privacy
- PDFCoding and Documentation for Domestic Violence
- PDFPrivacy Principles for Protecting Survivors of Domestic Violence
- PDFCompendium of State and US Territory Statutes and Policies on DV & Health Care
- PDFInsurance Discrimination Against Victims of Domestic Violence
- PDFExplanation of Benefits & Safeguarding Sensitive Health Information
Pediatric settings
Supporting parents and caregivers is a critical part of supporting children's health and well-being. Pediatric clinical settings provide unique opportunities for supporting families experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV).
Download center
Find all of our patient education and safety resources on our online store.
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Is Your Relationship Affecting Your Health? General Health Safety Card
General Health includes new content on healing from past trauma, while prompting women to reflect on how difficult experiences can shape a person’s life. View resource -
Connected Parents, Connected Kids ACEs Safety Card
The Connected Parents, Connected Kids Safety Card is a universal education tool that health care and community-based providers can distribute as part of… View resource -
Quality Assessment/Quality Improvement Tool for Clinics, Hospitals, and other Health Systems PDF
The following Domestic Violence (DV) Quality Assessment Tool was developed in 2016 by Futures Without Violence and Dr. View resource
