Treatment tagged posts

Depression Treatment: Finding Affordable Therapy

Kimberly Morrow, LCSW

Editor’s Note: Over the course of the past several posts on depression treatment, we’ve focused on matching the treatment to the person. For most people with moderate to severe depression, medication is an element of treatment. Thus, the series includes discussion about making choices among medications to best align with the person living with depression’s goals, preferences, and priorities. We also acknowledge that talk therapy is often a core component of effective treatment and long-lasting wellness. In this archived post, we share strategies to access therapy services when cost is an issue.

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Response, Remission, Recovery: What Are Your Depression Treatment Goals?

Response, Remission, Recovery Are Depression Treatment Goals

What is the goal of depression treatment? At a minimum, treatment should alleviate symptoms. Increasingly, however, people living with depression, their families, and their providers should expect more, that optimal care should result in both abatement of symptoms and recovery of function. That is to say, people with depression should be able to live their lives in a way that is symptom-free and allows them to participate in their chosen life activities and relationships.

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What You Know Affects Treatment

 

Susan Weinstein, JD
Editor in Chief, Care for Your Mind

It’s hard to make good decisions when you don’t have good information. And in a system where healthcare providers have less and less time to provide the information necessary for good decision making, it falls to individuals and their supportive family members and friends to be proactive in getting the information they need for making informed healthcare decisions.

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Does Your Family Know Your Mental Health Care Preferences?

Susan Weinstein
Editor in Chief, Care for Your Mind

Continuing our important conversations about mental health for your family this holiday season, let’s talk about psychiatric advance directives, or PADs. Wouldn’t it be great if you were able to provide instructions for your family in the event your mood disorder renders you unable to advocate for yourself? Here’s the good news: you can!

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Are Treatment Myths Keeping Men from Seeking Help for Depression?

John Ogrodniczuk

John Ogrodniczuk, PhD, Professor and Director of the Psychotherapy Program in the Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia

Depression is the leading cause of disability in the world, yet men are notoriously reluctant to reach out for help with depression. A number of roadblocks can get in their way, not the least of which are myths or concerns about treatments for depression.

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Readers Reveal Thoughts about HIPAA Reform in Online Survey

During the month of June, Care For Your Mind explored with our readers the nuances of HIPAA regulations. Each weekly post included a short poll to assist in better understanding the views of the CFYM readership around this topic. The polls asked questions about individual privacy protection, as well as a family member’s right to be involved in a loved one’s mental health care.

Readers Reveal Thoughts about HIPAA Reform in Online Survey

CFYM readership while not self-disclosing, is positioned towards individuals living with a mood disorder, their families, and policy makers. It would be reasonable to believe that readers responding to the polls fall into one of those three categories. However, because respondents are not asked to self-disclose, one cannot not make any calculations about trends within those categories.

What can be determined from the poll results, is that further dialogue about individual privacy protection and the rights of family members to be included when a loved one’s mental health is at stake needs to continue.

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Coordinating Patient Care in the HIPAA Era

Leslie Secrest, MD
Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas

In our final post discussing the effect HIPAA policy and regulations have on both individuals living with a mood disorder and their families, we look at the implications of sharing elements of mental health treatment as part of the electronic health record (EHR).

Coordinating Patient Care in the HIPAA Era

Protecting patient privacy has long been a vital, but complicated priority for mental health care providers. In guarding our patients’ privacy, we aim to defend against prejudicial or discriminatory care. We balance those concerns with the realization that a patient’s health could be jeopardized if other providers do not have access to the full health picture. Sharing elements of a mental health record is, at times, in a patient’s best interest.

With the advent of electronic health records (EHR), it has become easier to control who has access to a person’s mental health information, and who does not. For instance, the EHR system that my hospital uses allows me to restrict mental health information to only the providers that I name. Certain keywords in the notes also trigger automatic privacy settings.

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How Are States Addressing Patient Mental Health Privacy?

JenniferPhotoJennifer Bernstein, JD, MPH
Senior Attorney, The Network for Public Health Law—Mid-States Region
University of Michigan School of Public Health

We continue our series on the interplay between patient privacy and families’ interest in their loved one’s care. Here, Attorney Jennifer Bernstein covers what two states are doing to allow for increased family involvement.

How Are States Addressing Patient Mental Health Privacy?
Though HIPAA is not necessarily a bar to family members obtaining information about their loved ones with mental illness, the wishes of patients are usually paramount. Some states have adopted more innovative legal provisions to help assist families and patients in both protecting privacy while improving care.

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