Working with post trauma clients that have sustained a severe injury almost always includes mental health problems. These clients endure many losses in a matter of seconds, when involved in a car accident.
Most of these clients are diagnosed with different variations of depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress. Some of the clients are diagnosed with somatoform pain disorder.
While psychiatrists are covered by public health insurance, the wait list to see a psychiatrist can be up to a year or more, with many psychiatrists not having much experience with navigating the complexities that come with car accident related injuries.
Also, the referral process for mental health care can be complex and confusing. In many cases, a person must first see a family doctor before being referred to a psychiatrist, adding a barrier to psychiatric access, especially for the many individuals who don’t have a family doctor.
In addition, many psychiatrists have adopted a one-time consultation model in an effort to reduce the wait times, which means that even when psychiatric care is accessed, it will be limited in duration. Furthermore, typical psychiatric practices are not set up to complete accident benefit forms, provide interpretation services and provide multidisciplinary treatment.
What is reasonable in a given case, must take into account not only the wait times involved, but also the degree of the client’s psychiatric symptoms, while sitting out those wait times and the effect that these symptoms will have on the client’s function and progress in rehabilitation.
At GLA Rehab, we believe early access to a multidisciplinary approach is critical to serve our severely injured client(s). As a result, we have developed an inter-disciplinary team that works collaboratively to improve symptoms, progress a client’s function, improve their productivity level and help them to find new meanings for their days, while they are dealing with severe disability.
We have developed a treatment plan that includes three disciplines working together—psychiatry, occupational therapy and social work. We use clinicians that have extensive knowledge and experience in the accident benefit system.
GLA Rehab collaborates with PsycIME, in order to provide this service, which includes providing a joint treatment plan for clients with mental health problems.
This approach allows our rehab team to consult with a psychiatrist on a regular basis, to assist with diagnostic clarification, as well as to assist with medication and novel treatment solutions as soon as possible.
With our industry experience, the team also collaborates to assist with optimal timing of non-CAT and CAT benefit applications.
Along with our assessments, we provide robust clinical documentation from the team members, which can support client’s applications for various accident benefits they may be entitled to.
We are looking forward to the collaboration with PsycIME and in improving the outcome in our clients’ mental health.
Please contact us for more information.