Thursday, January 10, 2008

thanks for the discussion

Hey, that was good!

I am gratified to find so many comments on my client's deteriorating marriage.

They are all pretty accurate and I have confidence that he will, with some painstaking hesitancy, move in some direction. He is really just in the early stages of his treatment. I have been seeing him since September.

And now that it's a new year his ever-caring "health-plan" has automatically authorized another twelve sessions. Of course, as you all seem to appreciate, working though a change in your life is very difficult. You all noticed how many aspects are involved: money, children, friends, houses, extended family, routines, and even just thought patterns need to change. This guy will be with me for another forty to sixty meetings, over the next one to two years. But I am confident he will make some decisions and some changes.

In order to keep seeing him I will have to fill out forms, use key words, check boxes, and fill his medical record with information that may be used against him at some time.

The irony is that I am saving them money. By coming to treatment he will do something about his life, although what it is has not yet evolved, but he will avoid sinking into a deeper depression that would probably create some chronic, expensive medical problem such as alcoholism, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome, TMJ, back pain, headaches, or just non-localized aches and pains.

For this I will have my compensation decreased because of the rising cost of health care.

If the head of the insurance company would take a pay cut I might be willing to consider one. But since I have not heard that he is, I will begin to find ways to work to make his company obsolete.

7 comments:

  1. gosh i'm happy i have enough money to have gone for as long as was needed... stopping in the thick of things must be the most difficult thing of all both for the client and the therapist...

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  2. I want you for my therapist. :-)

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  3. always happy to throw in my 2 cents

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  4. I think it really sucks that you have to spend so much of your valuable time filling out paperwork instead of being able to use that time and your skills to help people.

    Goes nicely with my grip that my insurance company won't pay for birth control. They will shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of the life of a child from an "un-planned" pregnancy, but not $20 bucks a month to prevent it in the first place. What's that about?

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  5. I want you as my friend. :)

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  6. Great discussion! Unless you get me started on what a joke the insurance industry is! Take for example the fact that the majority of them won't pay for smoke cessation drugs (such as Chantix) but do cover life-saving 'aides' like Viagra...

    Is it gonna take a Hillary to change that kind of flaw or will she succumb to Bill's 'needs'?

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