Have You Ever Had Your Treatment Reviewed or Notes Requested? 

Progress Notes Survey Results (Part 4)

 By Barbara Griswold, LMFT

(September 23, 2019)

[Thanks to everyone who took my Progress Notes Survey.  I clearly struck a nerve: 499 of you answered the survey, and left more than 850 comments. This is the fourth in a series of articles reporting on the survey results — if you missed the first three articles, click here].

One of the questions I asked in the survey was whether or not respondents had ever experienced a treatment review or request for client records from a third party. For a summary of your answers to this question, see the chart below. Almost half of respondents (46%) had experienced having treatment reviewed by an insurance plan. 41% had been asked by an insurance plan for copies of notes. 29% said notes had been requested by an ethics or licensing board, workers compensation, disability, or court case.  23% said they had dealt with another request to review notes and treatment.

It may be a surprise that only 21% of respondents stated they had never experienced a records request or request for a treatment review. This means a vast majority of respondents — 79%– have faced one or both of these often stressful situations. Clearly, this means that even those of you who don’t work with insurance need to be ready for treatment reviews and requests for records by outside agencies.  (To get your records up to snuff, check out my webinar on Writing Great Progress Notes)