Addiction Psychiatric Assessment : Why Come Prepared?
Addiction Psychiatric Assessment
If you are wanting to find out about addiction, oxycontin treatment, or suboxone treatment, you should know the psychiatric assessment will require some information. When you visit your doctor (in this case a Psychiatrist) , your addiction psychiatric assessment should take between 60 and 120 minutes. The better you prepare before seeing your psychiatrist, the better the results you will see.
Be honest during the interview process. I certainly understand patients not being truthful to their doctor and I actually know it to happen from my own patients. The addiction psychiatric assessment covers particularly private information. The law has strict rules for confidentiality and medical record release of psychiatric records. There are severe financial penalties for lack of confidentiality and mental health staff know this. I ask patients to tell me if they don’t want to discuss a topic rather than lying to me. Not being honest can lead to an incorrect diagnosis, poor treatment, lost sessions, and more money from you.
Many doctors don’t ask all the questions during an addiction psychiatric assessment … Doctors are short for time seeing patients. Many times this means only the highlights of the addiction psychiatric assessment are covered. Many questions are just skipped. A complete addiction psychatric assessment could take a full morning. I’ve found that 90 minutes with an informed patient will work. Anything under an 60 minutes, and items are usually skipped. There is just too much information to cover with less time. You can help. By reviewing an addiction psychiatric assessment before seeing your physician, one can help avoid important questions from being skipped.
The Crucial Item of An Addiction Psychiatric Assessment
A good time line of your drug use and other symptoms is the most crucial item of an addiction psychiatric assessment . Some people call it a good historical account. The diagnosis becomes clear quickly with a good history. It is rare for most people to be able to give a good history without having thought about things prior to the assessment. What happens is the physician cuts short a patients answers to get to other points. This gets the patient becomes irritable and they begin to think the doctor doesn’t care about them. If the physician lets the patient ramble on, however, they will not get the information they need.
As a patient or family member, you can help by reviewing the history of the problems you have gone through in the past. Do this prior to going to the addiction psychiatric assessment . I ask the following questions to all my patients You would be surprised that many need to think hard to answer the questions. Many don’t know. They didn’t do any review before the interview Think about these questions before seeing your doctor:
- When the problem begin?
- When the last time you were doing well?
- What problems came first?
- What order did they happen?
- What made the problem better or worse?
Set Outcome Goals For Your Addiction Psychiatric Assessment
When people go to the doctor, many “want to get better.” Be specific and clear by what “getting better” means to you. It could be having a better mood. It could be being able to maintain work. Maybe getting good sleep? It is important to know exactly what you want to accomplish prior to seeing your physician.
If you decide on specific goals, you will be more likely to get better care and improved treatment. Many feel what their physician wants is not what they think is important in treatment. Talk with your doctor Be very specific with your goals of treatment. Tell your physician you want and review the progress of your goals every few weeks or months. You can always change you goals, so you are not committed to staying with them.
Avoid getting in the position after the initial addiction psychiatric assessment that your physician thinks you are doing better and that you do not agree. There should be little difference of opinion if you have agreed on a set of goals. Set a few goals and measure them. Here are some examples of addiction psychiatric assessment goals.
- I will sleep through the night at least 5 days per week for two weeks.
- I will not have suicidal thoughts for a period of three days
- I will call ___ every time I feel like crying during the next week.
- I will not use any marijuana for the next 2 weeks.
- I will maintain my current job for the next 8 months.
- When I feel the urge to use, I will call my sponsor and talk to them while I go outside for ten minutes and walk.
These can be easily measured by you and your doctor. It will be clear when they are accomplished. Setting goals gets easier with more practice. Not setting specific goals will cause treatment to be less successful.
In part 2 of Addiction Psychiatric Assessment and Suboxone Treatment , I will review more specific things your physician will ask. You to get more familiar with the questions before your assessment. Being prepared for your interview helps you use you time going over things important to you with your doctor: the things you want improved.
Addiction Psychiatric Assessment and Suboxone Treatment : More Information
Dr. Rich is a Board Certified Psychiatrist with licenses in Texas and Hawaii. He specializes in the treatment of opioid addiction with buprenorphine and runs a FREE locator service to find Oxycontin Addiction Treament including Suboxone treatment of oxycontin addiction. Find Suboxone Treatment in your area.
Dr. Rich has written more articles on the cost of oxycontin, buprenorphine (Suboxone) including frequently asked questions and a recent post : How Do I Find A Buprenorphine Doctor? Dr. Senyszyn can be found practicing psychiatry in Maui, Hawaii.
Here are more resources for addiction psychiatric assessment and oxycodone treatment :
- Psychiatric assessment – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – A psychiatric assessment, or psychological screening, is a process of way of gathering information about a person within a psychiatric (or mental health) service, with the purpose of making a diagnosis.
- Practice parameter for the psychiatric assessment and management of – DeMaso DR, Martini DR, Cahen LA, Bukstein O, Walter HJ, Benson S, Chrisman A, Farchione T, Hamilton
- The Psychiatric view of ME/CFS. What is it? – The psychiatric assessment should be systematic.
