Mental Health Therapist I, PHP, Per Diem, Days, No weekends or holidays

Overview

Job Summary:

The Mental Health Therapist participates in planning, implementation and evaluation of the Patient Therapy program as well as works in cooperation with other health care disciplines to provide psychiatric service to clients.

Responsibilities

Essential Functions

• Systematically gathers and evaluates relevant information and data from the patient interview and/or all the patient information sources.

• Develops an appropriate care plan for patients based upon the systematic information gathering and analysis.

• Identifies variations from expected findings and understands the significance for such variations.

• Takes appropriate actions when variations are identified.

• Assesses the patient’s learning needs, identifies learning style and barriers to learning and assesses the patient’s readiness to learn.

• Identifies situations when it is appropriate to involve the family and/or significant other and /or friends in patient’s education.

• Plans for and provides patient teaching.
• Plans for and provides patient teaching.
• Evaluates the patient’s understanding of his or her condition, treatment, and/or prognosis.
• Informs the patient of his or her plan of care and/or discharge plan and follow up instructions.
• Evaluates and validates the effectiveness of the patient teaching.
• Prepares the patient to accept a level of responsibility for his or her own care.
• Coordinates care with other healthcare providers.
• When appropriate, delegates to other healthcare providers.
• Assesses and reassesses the patient’s condition, status and progress.
• Prioritizes, reprioritizes, and modifies the plan of care based upon patient. 

• Documents the implementation of the plan of care and any adverse and/or unexpected events or outcomes.

• Supports comprehensive case management to assure patient success and meet standards of care and standards of practice.

• Formulates a comprehensive database, utilizing all resources, to identify patient needs and plan interventions.

• Coordinates care with outpatient providers and other services to assure patient success.

• Performs clinical preadmission screenings to assure appropriate admissions to PHP.

• Identifies patient care insurance (s) and obtains approval and/or a referral for admission to PHP.

• Provides individual and group therapy to meet patient needs.

• Participates regularly as a contributing member of the multi-disciplinary treatment team.

• Documents the response to interventions provided to each patient in his/her record according to established PHP policies and procedures.

• Assists students and interns in meeting performance standards.

• Provides peer review of all documentation on a concurrent and retrospective basis using the Department of Mental Health and PHP standards.

• Provides education for identified needs of staff, and mentors individuals to achieve performance standards.

• Seeks professional growth experiences to gain knowledge, skills, abilities, as well as, shares what is learned with other team members.

• Attends workshops and continuing education programs to update knowledge, skills and abilities.

• Provides formal and informal mechanisms for sharing information with other staff to improve the knowledge, skills and practice of other team members.

Qualifications

Qualifications:

Minimum Education

• B.A. or B.S. in Psychology or Human Services or related field required, Master's Degree preferred.

• AHA CPR required or obtained within 90 days of hire

Minimum Work Experience

• Minimum 1 years of experience working with psychiatric populations.

• Experience working with substance use/addiction population preferred.

Required Skills

• Possess a full working knowledge of Managed Care and public funded insurances including Medicare and Medicaid.

• Evidence of good personal interactions with a wide range of patients and care givers.

Physical Requirements:

Exerts up to 20 pounds of force occasionally, and/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently, and/or greater than a negligible amount of force constantly to move objects. Frequently reaches (extending hands and arms in any direction), and handles (seizing, holding, grasping, turning, or working with hands).