Case+9+Professional+Interview

__Professional Interview __

media type="youtube" key="JvWuwQ4ePeY" width="504" height="282" align="center" Vicky McMorrough, a LPC in Cleveland, GA was interviewed to get a professionals opinion about the case. She works at Cornerstones Counseling, which is a community mental health agency that provides a wide variety of services. Vicky works with managed care and insurance companies and a regular basis, so she is very knowledgeable on the subject. Vicky identified several issues after reading the case study.

Issue 1: Seeing a client pro bono Vicky says when there are no other options, a counselor should still act in the best benefit of the client. She says that in this case that she would agree to see the client for free or on a sliding scale. However, she indicated that there are some issues with seeing a client for free or reduced cost. In her experience, sometimes clients who are seen for free are not as invested in the counselor experience as someone who is paying for services. Clients sometimes are late to appointments or do not show up. In this case she feels that it would be appropriate to see the client for free until other arrangements could be made.

Issue 2: Releasing Private Information to Insurance Companies When thinking about this issue, Vicky said that she honestly never really thinks about giving information to insurance companies because it is so common. She says that even though a counselor may not like the idea of giving this information out, the insurance company is the payer source and the client cannot be seen without doing so. Additionally, if the client signs a release form to give information to the insurance company, then she would not have a problem with it. Vicky says that she would be hesitant to give out a client’s social security number. Vicky said the bottom line is that without giving out information to an insurance company, the client cannot be treated. She feels like most clients she encounters knows what to expect when they choose to use insurance. Vicky said that it would be confusing to talk to a different person every time she calls the insurance company, and prefers to speak with the same person each time if possible. Having a good relationship with the insurance companies is a crucial part of treating the client.

Issue 3: Committing Insurance Fraud Vicky says that she certainly understands the temptation in this situation to bill services under another person’s name. However, she says this is not something she would be willing to do. Because she works in Intensive Family Intervention, sometimes she has more freedom to work with the entire family and bill it to the child. The difference is that she is still working on issues related to the identified patient when working with other family members. Marital problems can effect the child, but in this case she would not have made the same decision as Martin. Vicky says if she were in this position, she would try to see the parents on a sliding scale or make a referral to another agency.