The context: My MC is in a bit of a crisis- Bad Day would be an understatement. He used to see a psychiatrist for anxiety and depression. And, later, to deal with grief and stress after his wife’s death, but had to stop due to an increasingly busy schedule. And possibly because he can’t/couldn’t afford regular sessions, but I’m still working on that. In this time of crisis, he calls his old psychiatrist who is unavailable at the time. Receptionist schedules an appointment via phone call for the next day. So a few questions: 1. Who would make the phone call the next morning to actually start the appointment: psychiatrist, receptionist, or MC? Whoever makes the phone call, would they call at say 10:00am on the dot (if that was the scheduled time)? If it was psych or receptionist, would it possibly be a little off depending on other patients? If it’s MC, can he be a little late in calling? Early, or would he get put on hold or something? 2. Do I say patients or clients or ?? 3. Would MC be able to continue refilling any prescriptions if he stopped seeing his psychiatrist?
Hi. I think you might want him to be a psychotherapist, rather than a psychiatrist. The latter decides on meds and a treatment plan. A patient might go back to the psychiatrist if they want to change their meds, sometimes following advice from their therapist, but that's it. I haven't had phone therapy, but I'm pretty sure the receptionist (having already scheduled the appointment) would not be involved. The therapist would call the patient on the dot. Btw, lots of people seem to prefer emails and texts when contacting psychs for out of hours help or to alter the arrangements. Hope this helps. PS, the psychiatrist could place a repeat prescription with a GP, for a fixed amount of time, say six months. So, after that it would be up to the GP to see the patient and review / extend the prescription.
Agree with all of the above: it would be the psychiatrist (or more likely psychologist - main difference being a psychiatrist can make an actual diagnosis, but it's much harder to get appointments with them and they tend to give a different kind of therapy) who calls, they'd call on the dot, and prescriptions would be largely down to the GP. Only thing I'd say is scheduling an appointment for the next day is hugely unlikely. It depends how desperate the situation is (it's usually a whole lot faster if they know you are/have been suicidal). But usually the time between scheduling a phone appointment and delivering that appointment is somewhere between 10 days and three weeks.
First question that entered my mind was WHERE? Where does this story take place? I suspect the procedure would be very different, from country to country. Here in Scotland, for example, these treatments are usually done through the NHS, and via a GP referral. What happens then will depend on what gets established between the patient and the mental health team. (Availability, appointment procedure, etc.) NHS treatments are free at the point of use. There will doubtless be private mental health care available, but most people use the NHS, for obvious reasons. The setup is slightly different for the rest of the UK.
My bro works at a rehab clinic, so he tells me how it works for most of psychiatrists. Here, psych specialists are scarce, so they tend to manage their agenda themselves. Now, that makes them lousy at best for setting appointments, since they often work for more than one institution (working at different places in a city - or in different cities, sometimes), so their patients have to wait long before the appointed time, for actually meet with the psych. Other 'technique' the psych uses to schedule their agendas, considering the former, is to use the institution's administrative personnel, even if the patient isn't user from the institution: being scarce, this practice is widely tolerated for medics in general. Caveat, if they make a mess or don't arrive to the appointed time to meet their patients, the institution will just send the patient home and the psych will have to rearrange by himself the appointment. You can guess how well this results for psychiatric, drug-dependent person who is probably riddled with anxiety disorder!
It depends on the country I guess. A friend of mine is a psychologist. She prefers calling them clients.
