Are Skype, FaceTime, and Google Hangouts HIPAA Compliant?

Topics: Free Articles | Practice Tools and Tips

As you undoubtedly know, one of the purposes of HIPAA, a law originally passed in 1996, is to regulate the flow of protected health information (PHI). It says that you are allowed to communicate PHI in certain circumstances—like to collaborate with other doctors or to get paid by insurance companies. But it also lays out a series of safeguards that yo

Fisher Wallace and Alpha-Stim for Depression? Claims vs Evidence

Topics: Brain Devices | Depressive Disorder | Free Articles | Practice Tools and Tips

Carly Simon swears by it. The daytime show “The Doctors” gave it a glowing review. Ads for it seem to be invading psychiatrists’ Google search results. We’re talking, of course, about the Fisher Wallace Stimulator, touted by the manufacturer as being an effective treatment for depression, anxiety, insomnia, and pain (Fisher Wallace website). The

The GeneSight Genetic Test: A Review of the Evidence

Topics: Diagnostic Testing | Genetics and Psychiatry | Pharmaceutical Industry | Practice Tools and Tips

Assurex Health recently sent me an email inviting me to dine at Legal Seafood to learn about “Clinical Applications of Psychiatric Pharmacogenetics.” I didn’t go, but increasingly I am hearing from colleagues about their experiences at these dinner programs: “What do you think about this GeneSight test? The data looked pretty impressive at this

A Primer on Drug Screening

Topics: Diagnostic Testing | Laboratory Testing in Psychiatry | Practice Tools and Tips

The technology of drug testing has progressed significantly over the years. This is both good and bad for doctors. There are more options, but perhaps too many. There are many types of tests and they vary in terms of the drug detection time frames. Most labs do the initial screen with immunoassays, which involve antibodies to detect specific drugs, a

Kids and Anxiety Disorders

Topics: Anxiety Disorder | Child Psychiatry | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy | OCD | Practice Tools and Tips

HIPAA in 2014: What Clinicians Need to Know

Topics: HIPAA | Practice Tools and Tips | Psychotherapy

Visit www.phyllispatrick.com for tools and resources for understanding the omnibus rule and other HIPAA regulations.

Ethical Considerations in the Practice of Telepsychiatry

Topics: Practice Tools and Tips | Psychotherapy

Telepsychiatry is a broad term. In this article I will use it to refer to mental health treatment provided via video chat (such as FaceTime or Skype), where clinicians and patients are in non-clinical settings (such as their homes). Our professional code of ethics is the same whether we treat patients in person or via video chat. However, nuances spe

Social Media Presents New Challenges

Topics: Practice Tools and Tips | Psychotherapy

For people who work in healthcare, navigating the world of social media is a balancing act between a tell-all online culture and the need to protect the privacy of their patients and clients. And if healthcare practitioners face a greater challenge than many other professionals, those in the behavioral health field may be at the top of the heap. They

Measuring the Quiet Man: Estimating Risk of Violence

Topics: Practice Tools and Tips

In the aftermath of a tragic event carried out by an individual with a psychiatric history, descriptions of the perpetrator as being in some way “off” or “quiet” have almost become cliché. And those clichés, when we inevitably compare them to our own patients, make many of us nervous. How many of our patients have said something, done somethin

Fighting in the Trenches: A Practical Guide to Violence Risk Assessment and Management

Topics: Free Articles | Practice Tools and Tips

Dealing with potentially violent patients is daunting, but we can play an effective role in assessing and reducing violence risk. In this article I’ll discuss some practical techniques to help you accomplish this in everyday practice. Documentation of Risk Assessment For starters, a systematic risk assessment should serve as a separately labeled

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Treatment Resistant Depression

Topics: Free Articles | Practice Tools and Tips

Subject: Depression Short Description: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Treatment Resistant Depression Background: We have an abundance of medications to treat depression, but “treatment resistance” remains all too common. Accordingly, there has been a rise in the number of “augmentation” or “adjunctive” medications to address this

Which Electronic Health Record Should You Buy? A Review of Three Products

Topics: Computers in Psychiatric Practice | Free Articles | Practice Tools and Tips

There are a lot of electronic health record (EHR—also called electronic medical record, or EMR) companies vying for your hard earned cash. How do you decide among them? For this article, we chose to review three EHRs: ICANotes, Valant, and Practice Fusion. Why these three? ICANotes and Valant are currently the only EHRs that fulfill the following t