Documentation Challenges in Behavioral Health
Overview:
This webinar will provide participants with an overview and in-depth examination of compelling documentation issues in behavioral health.
Dr. Frederic Reamer will explore high-risk ethical issues and practical strategies designed to protect clients and practitioners.
The webinar will explore a series of documentation challenges and explore practical steps that professionals can take to manage ethical issues skillfully and minimize risk. Key topics will include:
- The content of documentation
- Documentation wording
- Credibility issues related to documentation
- Accessing confidential records
- Record retention
- Responding to subpoenas
- Managing records in integrated health settings
Dr. Reamer will discuss relevant ethical standards; statutes, regulations, and case law; and national practice standards related to documentation. He will draw especially on his extensive experience as an expert witness and ethics consultant in a large number of court cases and licensing board cases throughout the U.S. and abroad.
Why should you Attend: Behavioral health professionals - including mental health counselors, psychologists, social workers, psychiatrics, psychiatric nurses, and addictions counselors - face complex documentation challenges that raise both ethical and risk-management issues. When is it appropriate to be vague in a clinical note in order to protect clients? Should parents of minor clients have a right to access clinicians' records? How should practitioners respond to subpoenas that demand disclosure of records? Under what circumstances should clients have access to their own records? These and other documentation issues require skilled professional judgment.
Areas Covered in the Session:
- Documentation challenges in behavioral health: Compelling examples
- Common documentation challenges: A typology
- Documentation decision-making: Ethical and risk-management considerations
- Documentation protocols to protect clients and practitioners, and prevent litigation and licensing board complaints
Who Will Benefit:
- Psychologists
- Social Workers
- Mental Health Counselors
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychiatrists
- Psychiatric Nurses
Speaker Profile
Frederic Reamer, Ph.D., is professor in the graduate program, School of Social Work, Rhode Island College, where he has been on the faculty since 1983. He chaired the national task force that wrote the code of ethics adopted by the National Association of Social Workers. Reamer is the author of more than 20 books and 140 journal articles, encyclopedia entries, and book chapters. He has been a social worker in correctional and mental health settings and specializes in professional ethics.
Reamer has been an expert witness and ethics consultant in more than 100 court (litigation) cases and licensing board cases involving ethical and risk-management issues.
His books include Risk Management in Social Work: Preventing Professional Malpractice, Liability, and Disciplinary Action (Columbia University Press); Boundary Issues and Dual Relationships in the Human Services (Columbia University Press); Social Work Values and Ethics (Columbia University Press); Ethical Standards in Social Work (NASW Press); and The Social Work Ethics Audit: A Risk Management Tool (NASW Press), among others.
Reamer has been an expert witness and ethics consultant in more than 100 court (litigation) cases and licensing board cases involving ethical and risk-management issues.
His books include Risk Management in Social Work: Preventing Professional Malpractice, Liability, and Disciplinary Action (Columbia University Press); Boundary Issues and Dual Relationships in the Human Services (Columbia University Press); Social Work Values and Ethics (Columbia University Press); Ethical Standards in Social Work (NASW Press); and The Social Work Ethics Audit: A Risk Management Tool (NASW Press), among others.