What we’ve said about Malpractice and liability

“What you're ultimately liable for isn't an outcome. It's a process. So what you need to be doing is that you need to be actually doing your assessment process within the standard of care and also documenting it”

“the courts and society love to hold clinicians accountable OK, even for things that are outside their control. So because of that, my recommendation, my personal recommendation is that you follow some pretty strict rules and boundaries”

“They think we're these magic men, magic men and women who can predict the future and have special insights into people and all of that and that we can protect people, we can save them from suicide, we can keep them from harming others. It's not true”

“If a patient is repeatedly refusing to follow your treatment recommendations, that is a liability bomb. And to be frank, if you're not able to confer with that patient, reach a therapeutic alliance and get them to go along with it, then you're not helping anyway”

“If you offer or agree to an ineffective treatment and you don't warn that, then you're liable if something bad happens”

“You should not, even under the urgency of apparent medical withdrawal, agree to be the stopover in a series of doctors that a patient is going to for urgent benzodiazepine prescriptions”

“Refer back repeatedly to the treatment frame, to the plan, and do whatever you can. To be honest, if it gets to that point for just a plain medication management, not for a psychotherapy, you are in some hot water, my friend, the clinician, and I would begin to call your risk management”

“Unless you have a very clear idea of what you're doing, I highly recommend that you seek supervision”

“malpractice insurance might specifically exclude coverage for mishandling the transference which actually is a uh disguised way of saying having sex with your patients”