"Couples Therapy: Billing, Documentation, and Ethical Dilemmas"

Working with couples is not only clinically challenging, but it can be difficult to navigate the added complexities in the areas of billing, documentation, and ethical practice. Who really is your client? Do you need two charts and treatment plans? What does insurance expect? When one client comes in alone, how do you handle this, and how do you bill for the session?

This entertaining presentation will cover practical issues you deal with daily when working with couples, challenge myths you may have, and invite you to think more carefully about your current policies.

Time permitting, the presentation will address: 

• When you can (and can’t) ethically bill for couples therapy
• Will insurance cover couples sessions?
• Common mistakes in billing for couples
• Billing for longer couples sessions
• Common billing practices that are actually fraud
• How do you diagnose a couple?
• Must I choose an identified patient? If so, how?
• Confidentiality and “no-secrets policies”
• Whose record is it? Handling record requests in couples therapy
• Seeing a member of the couple individually
• Changing from individual to couples therapist, or vice versa
• Progress notes and informed consents; how they differ for couples
• Appropriate couples therapy treatment goals for insurance.

• Earn 2 CEUs •

Presenter Bio

Objectives

At the end of the webinar, attendees will be able to:

• Identify how to diagnose a couple when billing insurance
• Identify 2 ethical ways to bill for longer sessions
• Identify 2 common couples therapy billing practices that are actually fraud
• Identify whose permission is needed for a release of records.

Contact Information:

Barbara Griswold, LMFT
4010 Moorpark Avenue, Suite 118, San Jose, CA 95117
408.985.0846 office./ 408.396.7351 cell
barbgris@aol.com

Registration is available ONLINE ONLY and is a TWO-STEP PROCESS:

1. Register and pay through this e-mailer. No unpaid reservations are allowed and payment must be made at time or registration in order to reserve your spot.

2. Two days before the webinar you will receive a SEPARATE ZOOM LINK that you must sign in to in order for you to be in the webinar. This step will help you to assess whether you have the latest version of ZOOM and that your device is ready for signing in on the day of the webinar.

WWW.SGVCAMFT.ORG 

Meeting and Presentation Schedule

• CEU Certificates will be available and distributed upon the completion of the presentation via email after you have completed the online Event Survey 
• Course meets the qualifications for 2.0 hours of continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.
• San Gabriel Valley Chapter of CAMFT (Provider # 60957) is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs.
• San Gabriel Valley CAMFT maintains responsibility for this program/course and its content.

SGV-CAMFT Event Cancellation Policy

Registration is not complete until full payment has been received. Full payment of the registration guarantees you a seat/place at the event. Partial or incomplete payment does not guarantee you a seat/place unless it is paid for in full within 24 hours in advance of the scheduled event.

Refund Schedule

• Forty-eight hours prior to the event:   100% refund
• Twenty-four hours prior to the event:   50% refund
• Day of event or no-show:                            0% refund

*If you have a medical, personal, family emergency, or other extenuating circumstances that prevent you from attending, and you have already registered (partially or fully), you may either request a refund, or apply your payment/deposit toward the next event.

You may initiate your cancellation request, or make a refund or credit request, by sending an email to treasurer@sgvcamft.org.

___________________________________________________________________

You must send in your request no later than five days within the end of the event.

You will receive your credit or refund within fourteen business days following the approval of your request.

Note that circumstances beyond the control of the event organizers may necessitate substitutions, alterations, or cancellations of the speakers and/or topics. Therefore, SGV-CAMFT reserves the right to alter or modify the advertised speaker and/or topics if necessary. Any changes will be updated on the SGV-CAMFT website, and every effort will be made to notify you via email of any changes so that you may have the option to cancel or transfer your registration fee.