Medical and Mental Health Professionals
At Blake Law a significant part of our law practice is working with medical and mental health professionals.
Some of the professionals we work with include clinical social workers, licensed mental health counselors, geriatric care managers, psychiatrists, psychopharmacologists, social workers, mental health workers, neurologists, neuro psychologists, neuropsychologists, neuropsychiatrists, neuro psychologist, neurological psychiatrists, psychologists, Psychiatric Neurotherapeutics, School psychologists, school guidance counsellors, student mental health counsellors, pediatric psychiatrists, Pediatric psychologists, adolescent psychiatrists, adolescent psychologists.
Doctors, social workers and nurses who specialize in treatment of individuals with mental health concerns need to both meet the ethical and moral obligations to their patients and also follow legal rules, medical ethics and medical privacy regulations. We understand these considerations. We are more than happy to accept referrals from clinicians. We also are pleased to work as attorneys for individual clinician’s, hospitals, or nursing homes seeking to ensure they fulfill their legal, ethical and moral obligations to patients.
Rest assured, there are safe harbors that clinicians can work through to support some form of intervention without violating privacy rules and regulations. These safe harbors include: permission from the patient; permission from person serving as Health Care Proxy or Guardian; providing a patient with a Lamb type warning prior to examination; and to outreach to prevent serious and imminent threats to a patient’s health and safety. There are also some great ways clinicians have been able to assist patients by developing a role defined in a Family Trust. Furthermore, there are ways to provide a more limited intervention such as recommending Guardianship or Conservatorship to family members.
Mental health issues do not cure themselves. Furthermore, symptoms worsen the longer a patient goes without treatment and many can become irreversible. The consequences of non-treatment often include joblessness, homelessness, dangerous behavior and poor life choices. Of the 9.8 million U.S. Adults with a serious mental illness, about 40 percent receive no treatment in any given year. As such, each time a doctor or a clinician sees a patient we believe it should be viewed as an opportunity to help that person live his or her best life. We want to help.
If you are a mental health professional and you have a patient / client struggling with mental health issues the attorneys at Blake Law can help you.