Informed Consent

Hi, this is Dave Kats, of Therapist Consultants and I have a tip for you.

You know I've noticed that good therapists all use an informed consent form. So I hope you are using an informed consent form. Now if you're not using an informed consent form you should start doing it right away and just go through everything in your practice and tell the patient how it functions so there is no surprises for them. You can find a lot of good informed consent forms on the internet and if you are a client of ours you can find it on our website. We have a very good informed consent form.

So that is the first thing you should do. If you are not doing one you should do it immediately. Most of you are already using an informed consent form and you have the patient sign it on the first visit. That’s the right idea. That’s the thing to do. But maybe you need to update your informed consent form. Does your informed consent form talk about distance coaching? Does it talk about tele-therapy? Does it talk about how to handle the Internet and what to do about social media and things like that? Perhaps there are things that have developed over time that you don't have on your informed consent form.

I would suggest today for your assignment so that you feel comfortable in your office and know that you're covered. I think you should get out your informed consent form and it reduce it or enlarge it, whatever is necessary to meet all the criteria that you need to explain to the patients so that they will be fully informed.

This is Dave Kats, thank you for listening.