Practice Management
This section contains articles and resources pertaining to practice management. Look here for articles relating to the administrative matters of running a practice, such as record-keeping, professional wills, and business-related matters. There may be overlap with other sections, so if you do not find the information you are looking for please browse the other sections or use the search box.
Should HIPAA matter to clinicians who ar...
If you aren’t a “covered entity” (the term HIPAA uses to identify healthcare providers under its authority) do you need to care what HIPAA says? In these situations is HIPAA irrelevant? The answer is both “yes” and “no.”
So You’ve Been Asked to Write a Declar...
The question of what to do when asked to author or sign a declaration on behalf of a patient is a stressful dilemma for most practitioners. This usually occurs when a patient is in the midst of litigation and the patient or the patient’s attorney believes that a statement from the practitioner would...
Does Premature Termination Constitute Ab...
Most clinicians have encountered multiple situations where a patient attends a limited number of sessions and decides to end the treatment relationship, either by no-showing for successive appointments or by declaring that they wish to end the treatment relationship. This can present some difficulty...
What happens when confidential informati...
This is a particularly troublesome dilemma and one that most clinicians dread. We take great care to avoid such a situation, and in the event that a fax or letter gets to the wrong person most clinicians are unsure about whether the unintended recipient has any legal responsibilities to avoid further...
Those Confidentiality Disclaimers At The...
July 31, 2007
Clinical Practice, Forensic Practice, Legal Basics, Miscellaneous, Practice Management
Clinical Practice, Forensic Practice, Legal Basics, Miscellaneous, Practice Management
Huge numbers of clinicians have disclaimers at the end of email messages that say something like this:
“The information contained in this email is CONFIDENTIAL. If you have received this message in error or without the express direction of the original author, please notify the sender and delete this...
Supervision vs. Consultation: what you n...
The following article was authored by myself and A. Steven Frankel, Ph.D., J.D. It appeared in a slightly shorter format in the July/August 2007 issue of The California Psychologist, the newsletter of the California Psychological Association.
In this article we will discuss an oft-overlooked topic: understanding...
Employer, Employee, or Subcontractor: wh...
With apologies to Joyce McDougall, this is a plea for a measure of formality:
Are you an employee or a subcontractor? Do you have employees or subcontractors working for you? How do you know? Sometimes the job title doesn’t match the responsibilities, and when that happens confusion makes its grand...
HIPAA: Once a covered entity, always a c...
Rightly or wrongly, HIPAA is perceived by many clinicians as an administrative nightmare. For those who aren’t already compliant, the task of becoming HIPAA compliant isn’t one that clinicians relish. Most clinicians who have practices that need to be HIPAA compliant accomplished this task a long...
Finding an Attorney for Your Mental Heal...
Consultation with an attorney is activity that most mental health clinicians engage in on an infrequent basis. As a general matter, mental health practice is a profession that sees a relatively low number of lawsuits. In addition, many clinicians have the option of consulting with an attorney provided...
Consulting your malpractice insurance ca...
Most clinicians take great care to maintain an ethical and legally compliant practice. Yet, despite these efforts there are still instances where consultation with available written materials and other clinicians yields incomplete answers. Clinicians have several options for additional help when the...
