Professional Will Feature
Answered
Okay- so recently a colleague of mine had a psychiatric emergency due to dehydration and extreme stress. I am her professional will contact and we both use simple practice. She had to be hospitalized mid-week and I was contacted about her clients. I had no way to see her schedule or contact her clients regarding her absence. It doesn't make sense that I would hang onto her password indefinitely since 1) that seems to be iffy when it comes to confidentiality in general 2) passwords should continuously be changed, and 3) her condition was so severe that she didn't even really know who I was and why I was asking for her password.
I would LOVE LOVE LOVE a feature that allows a specific delegate to have access to BASIC information- schedule and client names- in case a situation like this occurs again. Also, I think Simple Practice could do more with helping therapists draft and complete their professional will (like a template- I saw Ben Caldwells blog post, but I think this could be a standard button in the Business Documents portion of the account).
Who is with me???
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Official comment
Hi Rhiannon and Melissa, thank you for bringing this up.
At this time SimplePractice does not offer post-mortem/post-retirement medical records management. Many states have specific laws outlining requirements for handling patient records following a provider’s retirement or death, so we encourage you to consult a legal professional familiar with your local laws.
However, we do allow all Professional Plan members the ability to add non-clinical team members to their account for free, in Settings > Team Members. If you, or the custodian of your records, were added to an account as a Scheduler/ Biller, they would have access to the client list and schedule to quickly inform any scheduled clients of the emergency. We also recommend adding a custodian to your Professional Will and including language like: "Please release my username and password to this custodian. This custodian will be able to use this username and password to access and store my data files" and list the actual username and password. If you, or the Account Owner, has stored the Professional Will in Settings > Business Documents, we can verify their identity and facilitate the transfer of Account Ownership to the person named in the will.
Please note that if the account becomes inactive or is cancelled, we will not retain client data from it. We do offer complete data export that will give you, or a custodian, permanent access to your client's data. Please refer to this guide for the steps: Data export: Exporting client information.Comment actions -
I truly truly couldn't agree more. In light of COVID 19, it seems this should be underway urgently. It almost seems unethical to not have a way for your back up to have access to basic info with their own password. As you said- sending someone your password every time you change it, just is not realistic or seemingly the most responsible thing. As a back up you don't need full access.
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Hi Everyone, Professional Plan holders can always add the custodian of their records as a non-clinical team member to their account for free. As mentioned above, they'd have their own login credentials and have limited access, but enough access to see the schedule and basic contact information for clients. To add a non-clinical team member, go to Settings > Team Members > +Add Team Member. Thank you all for contributing to this important conversation.
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Hi Ruth,
I have the professional plan and when I go to add an executor as a team member, I'm only given these options. Which should I use for an executor?
ClinicianAdministrator AccessCan access all clients, documentation, billing, and practice financial reports throughout your practice.
Full Client List AccessCan see your practice’s full client list, but can only see notes for his/her own clients.
Basic Access + BillingCan access his/her own clients and bill them.
Basic AccessCan access documentation for his/her own clients, but cannot see any client billing information.
Supervisor RoleCan sign notes, review documentation, and view appointment fees of pre-licensed clinicians. If this Team Member also sees clients, grant them a Clinician role as well.
Biller RoleCan manage billing for all clients and access most practice financial reports.
Scheduler RoleCan manage scheduling, online appointment requests, and assign clinicians to all clients.
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