Video Therapy - Catalyst Counseling

Training

Welcome to Catalyst! Here are the training manuals you will need as you get started.

Training manuals:

Charting Procedures (Skye): Procedures
Simple Practice Overview and Office Policies (Rachael and Karen): Simple Practice
Mental Health Policies and Procedures Manual (Gemma): Policies and Procedures Manual
For everything else (forms to upload, training tasks, etc) please refer to your New Employee Checklist.

Frequently Asked Questions

Late Cancellations/No Shows – What to do:

If your client late cancels or no-shows, please change the status of the appointment to a regular yellow “cancel.” Please make sure to do this on the day of the appointment – do not wait until the next day.
Let Karen know by email if it was a no show or late cancel, and she’ll change the status of the appointment and the service type accordingly. Also let her know if you plan to waive the late fee and the reason.
Chart your correspondence with the client as a general chart note in Simple Practice – ie how you contacted them to let them know they missed the apt. Feel free to use these wording suggestions when corresponding with the client
Please create and sign a simple progress note for the missed appointment.
Important: if your client no-showed, in addition to the other steps above, you must reach out again the next day (even if you aren’t scheduled to work) and tell them that if you don’t hear back by the end of the day, you’ll have to call their emergency contact. If you don’t hear back by the end of the day, call the emergency contact. If no response, call the police and ask for a “well-person check.” Call the supervisor on call if you have any questions.

Late Cancellations Policies:

You’re never required to give a freebie if someone late cancels or no-shows. If you do decide to offer a freebie, you only get one per client (not 5 or 6).
Some clinicians like to have the policy, “if you late cancel, we’ll waive the fee if you reschedule within a week.” You’re never required to offer this to clients. You don’t have to offer rescheduling at all. If you do offer rescheduling, only offer it for your real work schedule. Don’t allow clients to claim your personal time – just charge them the cancellation fee.
You’re in control over how you enforce the fees for late cancellations/no shows. Please make a connection between your ability to set boundaries and your paycheck. There is one exception — if it becomes obvious that you’re having a lot of trouble setting boundaries, and then we’d want to help you have the confidence to set those boundaries.

Frequency metrics:

Please use this as a guide if you’re considering allowing a client to drop down to every other week or monthly. Similarly, if you have an every-other-week or monthly client and their acuity increases, they need to increase their frequency.

Weekly – we’re working on stuff actively (processing trauma, learning skills). Some acuity is ok.
Every other week – we’re not actively learning new things, or we’re ok with learning very slowly. No suicidality or other acuity (even passive SI).
Monthly – we are mostly done with our clinical work and just checking in to reinforce skills and ease the transition out of therapy. No suicidality or other acuity (even passive SI).

Client long vacations:

Catalyst policy: a client can stay on the calendar if their vacation is 3 weeks or shorter. If they need to be gone for longer than 3 weeks, there are 3 options:

we take them off the calendar and they contact us when they get back to see if we have openings.
they can private pay $140/session for any sessions past the 3 sessions to maintain their spot on our schedule.
you can choose to allow them to stay on your schedule despite being away longer than 3 weeks, knowing that this will impact your income.

HOWEVER – if a client is gone for more than a month, even if you are holding their spot, they must be temporarily inactivated. There’s some legal liability if you keep a client on your schedule but you’re not actually seeing them.

Office stuff

Opening Checklist

Unlock the front door. You need to flip the deadbolt to “vertical”.
Disarm the alarm using your code. The alarm panel is in the top drawer of the cabinet by the front door (the cabinet under the big mirror)
Turn on the lights and lamps.
Turn on the sound machine in the hallway (located on the decorative cabinet in the hallway). Also turn on the lamp on top of this cabinet.
Turn on the music (Spotify should be running on the iPad. Using the remote in the drawer with the alarm panel, turn on the sound bar and press play.)
If you like coffee, make coffee (if not done already)

Closing Checklist

Turn off the lights and lamps.
Close the windows (especially on the waiting room side — they are all alarmed)
Turn off the sound machine in the hallway (located on the decorative cabinet in the hallway). Also turn off the lamp on top of this cabinet.
Ignore the music and ipad – it will take care of itself.
Arm the alarm – just press “away” and leave.
SUPER IMPORTANT: Lock the front door. You need to flip the deadbolt to “horizontal”.

Office schedule: Click Here

Hours Tracer – reporting previous months hours.

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On Call Clinician

Link to signup spreadsheet: Click Here

On-Call Clinician Manual

CPS or APS Report

Vacation

Active Client Vacation List: Click Here

Sick

Teletherapy