Interactive Online Continuing Education Units and Self-Study Education Units for Mental Health Professionals — Diverse Courses on Creating Clinical Safety for Mental Health Clinicians Now Available.
Online Courses developed by Fgrosso. com help clinicians create clinical safety and diminish the risk of malpractice and/or administrative actions against them.
SANTA BARBARA, CA (PRWEB) May 6, 2004 -
— The president of FGrosso. com, a leading publisher of practice resources for mental health clinicians, Federico C. Grosso, DDS, PhD, MFT, BCFE announced that the company has introduced a series of continuing education course for mental health clinicians focusing on creating clinical safety and diminishing the risk of malpractice or administrative actions against them. A series of Interactive Online and Self-Study Courses for marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers, alcohol and drug abuse counselors, and certified addictions treatment specialists are available from http://www. fgrosso. com (http://www. fgrosso. com). In a recent lecture to attorneys, Dr. Grosso stated that based on his court experience as an expert witness, most mental health clinicians make the following clinical mistakes: a) poor or no documentation of their therapeutic duty to assess, diagnose, and treat according to the standards of care; b) having inappropriate scope of competence (the training, knowledge, and experience) to treat the presenting issues, c) not staying current with changes in legal and ethical guidelines in their practice; d) not using an appropriate informed consent document to notify the client of the potential risks and benefits of treatment; e) not assessing appropriately for risk factors that can lead to harm to self or others, f) unintentionally breaching client confidentiality, g) ending treatment inappropriately, h) not having or using a treatment plan to document proposed treatment or to assess the progress of treatment, i) entering into inappropriate relationships with clients, and j) failing to manage crisis issues appropriately.
Dr. Grosso’s continuing experience as a forensic expert in malpractice cases led to the development of these courses. These cases have involved marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers, drug and alcohol counselors, and certified addictions treatment specialists. Dr. Grosso commented in a recent lecture, “Many clinicians are unable to defend their clinical actions because they fail to document how they reasoned a specific clinical challenge. They are unable to show opposing attorneys their duty to assess, diagnose, and treat the client appropriately throughout the duration of therapy or counseling due to poor mental health records and/or lack of appropriate training in mental health law and their specific professional ethical standards. They often write little or no clinical information about the patient because of improper training. In other cases, they write too much information and when the mental health records are subpoenaed, the opposing attorney uses this excessive information to discredit the client and/or the treating clinician.” This leaves the door open for clients to sue their clinicians in these cases to recuperate losses suffered in these court cases. This is especially true for California drug and alcohol counselors who are not bound by the mental health laws of the state and continue to treat clients without this legal foundation of safety.
Dr. GrossoÂ’s earlier publications on psychotherapy standards of care have become benchmark guided to defending or litigating malpractice actions involving the above mental health clinicians. Attorneys find that the concepts presented in these publications are easily applicable to all mental health clinicians, whether licensed or unlicensed, and that these concepts, as presented in these publications, are easily understood by juries. Many universities continue to use these publications in their classes to help students develop a safe structure of documenting both mental health records and progress notes to avoid potential malpractice and administrative actions. These publications are available at http://www. fgrosso. com (http://www. fgrosso. com) >> Publications.
Background on FGrosso. com. FGrosso. com provides mental health clinicians with practical and easy-to-use clinical resources including practice enhancement workbooks, online and self-study continuing education, software, consultation as an expert witness, lectures, and academic publications. Dr. Grosso also provides expert witness services in malpractice actions involving marriage and family therapists, clinical social workers, alcohol and drug abuse counselors, certified addictions treatment specialists, and health care clinicians accused of child abuse in the workplace. He also lectures for and consults with mental health organizations. He is an official lecturer on law and ethics and other subjects for the California Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
