Bravo to the physicians for speaking against the upcoming cuts in Medicare reimbursements and the threat of refusal of accepting more patients in their medical practices. How come mental health professionals can’t follow this same pursuit? Our profession has a big white elephant in our presence for refusing to speak out against cuts in payments [...]

I wrote a previous blogpost on counselors being mindful before signing the papers for their clients to apply for social security benefits for either themselves or their child’s mental health diagnosis. While many will be denied for the first and second attempts, most of the appeals end up going to court.  If a client wins, [...]

This week, my client’s sister passed away peacefully in a nursing home under hospice care. My client questioned when her sister would ask for her support over the last twelve months. When she did talk to her sister either in person or via telephone, my client said that her sister always asked how she was [...]

Last week, I saw a client who is vent-dependent and has a chronic muscular disease. This individual uses round the clock personal care attendants and lives in her own apartment. The client informed me that her sister is dying from numerous brain tumors and from lung cancer. Her sister is receiving hospice care in a [...]

I heard about a very sad event that an adoptive single parent endured this past week. She had to relinquish her 17 month old preadoptive son from the state foster care system to his biological father. Apparently, the birth mother told the state who the father was after a year in which she refused to [...]

Massachusetts passed new reforms for children’s mental health in 2008 as a result a federal lawsuit known as the Rosie D case. Three families sued the state due to their children not being able to access community based services for their psychiatric disabilities/disorders. The federal judge ruled in their favor and stated that Massachusetts was [...]

The below information in quotes was posted on a blog entitled, “The Conscience of a Liberal.” “Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain.” That was the opening of an article in Saturday’s Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. As the article explained, neuroscientists have found [...]

Last week, I wrote that I was denied an interview for social worker due to not being able to use an assessment tool called the MDS (Minimum Data Set) to assess functioning levels for elders in a nursing home. Below is the response I received from a representative from the Massachusetts Senior Care Association regarding [...]