EBTC Psychosexual & Couples – Appointment & Cancellation Policy
Please read the information below as it relates to how your appointments are arranged and managed.
As you know there is a very significant demand for our psychosexual and couples therapy appointments at EBTC and many people are waiting to see a therapist. We endeavour to see people as quickly as possible and one of the ways we minimise waiting times is by reducing the number of unused appointments. In addition, the research evidence tells us that positive therapeutic outcomes are associated with regular and consistent attendance for the duration of therapy.
The following policies are designed with this in mind.
ARRANGING YOUR APPOINTMENTS
Following your assessment appointment, the assessment team meets to determine which therapist is most suited to your clinical need. You will receive an email with your allocated therapists name after this meeting on the Thursday after your assessment appointment. As explained when you called to book your assessment, there will be a wait for treatment after your assessment. The waiting time for treatment depends on which therapist you have been allocated to and your flexibility and varies from a couple of weeks to a few months. It is not possible to specify exactly when a suitable time slot will be available as this depends on a number of factors, but please be assured that we do endeavour to make the wait as short as possible. Please keep us updated if your availability changes and/or you become more flexible as we may be able to offer you an appointment sooner. If your problem is urgent and/or you are unable to wait for a regular treatment slot, please let us know immediately and we can refund your assessment fee.
Once you have been assessed and allocated, we place you on our waiting list. As soon as your allocated therapist has a slot that suits you, we will contact you to offer you the appointment. If the appointment offered does not suit, we will leave you on the waiting list and offer you the next suitable slot. Please note that if you refuse three therapy appointments or do not respond to two attempts to offer you an appointment, we will remove you from the waiting list. This enables us to maintain an up to date waiting list and prioritise clients who are able to attend for therapy.
At EBTC, we value your time and understand that you may have many other commitments in addition to attending therapy. In order to make things as simple as possible, we offer therapy slots at the same time each week. As you will be given a protected time slot, it means your therapist will not offer this appointment time to anyone else. Therefore we ask you to keep your therapist informed of any upcoming holidays or other commitments so that your appointment time can be allocated appropriately. If your circumstances change and you can no longer attend your agreed therapy time, please discuss this with your therapist and a suitable alternative can be arranged for you.
PAYMENT FOR YOUR APPOINTMENTS
Assessment appointments and your first treatment session are paid for at the time of booking. Subsequent therapy appointments are to be paid at the end of each appointment. If you are having online appointments, a payment link will be sent to you on the day of your appointment. Please note payment must be received within 24 hours of receiving your invoice in order to secure your next appointment.
CANCELLATION POLICY
In order to offer consistent, effective therapy, therapists at EBTC hold weekly therapy slots for the people they work with. This means that once you are in therapy this time is protected and cannot be offered out to anybody else. Our cancellation policy reflects this commitment.
In the event that you have to cancel your regular appointment please give us as much notice as possible. If you give us more than 24 hours notice, will be no charge. If you have paid in advance this payment will be transferred to your subsequent appointment.
Please note If you cancel two consecutive appointments you will be required to pay for your next appointment in advance in order to secure your slot. This payment secures your ongoing slot and is non-refundable. As you will appreciate, we cannot continue to offer appointments that are not being used, so if you are regularly cancelling your allocated appointment, we will discuss this with you and your therapy may be placed on hold until you can commit to regular therapy sessions.
If you cancel with less than 24 hours notice or do not give us notice that you will not be attending your appointment, you will be required to pay for the missed slot or your advanced payment will be kept. There are no exceptions to this. This is because without adequate notice, your therapist is unable to re-allocate the appointment time.
Please note this policy is regularly reviewed and subject to change. Please check our website for more information.
CONFIDENTIALITY AND NOTE KEEPING
We provide a completely confidential service to our clients. We will not speak to anyone about any aspect of your care without having your informed consent to do so. There are two exceptions to this. The first is if we believe you to be at risk of causing immediate harm to yourself or others. In this instance, we would discuss our concerns and plan of action with you before speaking to a third party. The second is a situation where there is information that a child is at risk of, or an adult was as a child subjected to, harm/neglect/abuse. Recent legislation now makes it mandatory for therapists to share information about historic child abuse to Túsla Child and Family Agency. Your therapist will discuss this to you in more detail should this occur.
A record is kept of every session you have with your therapist and these notes are stored on Cliniko, a safe, secure encrypted server which is accessible only by the team at EBTC.
COUPLE CONFIDENTIALITY
Confidentiality is between the couple. Any individual sessions are treated as a part of the couple work. All session notes will be stored under a shared file, which is in both partners names. Both partners have access to this couple file.
ONLINE SESSIONS
All online appointments will take place via Cliniko Telehealth, our online platform. This is an encrypted, safe and effective system for online appointments, but we have found that it works best when both parties are in the same location. On rare occasions, a couple may have their online appointment in separate locations. When this happens, we have found Skype to be more appropriate. Please note that Skype is not encrypted and by signing the below you are agreeing to the use of this for occasional online sessions due to being in separate locations. If you are not happy with this, please do not sign below and we will continue with our usual Telehealth system on these occasions.
CLAIMING ON INSURANCE POLICIES
Our therapists are all members of a range of professional bodies, all of which are detailed on our website www.ebtc.ie. As you know, there are a number of insurance providers in Ireland offering different policies covering various services. Therefore, if you want to claim from your provider for sessions at EBTC, we recommend that you check your therapist’s details online and contact your individual provider to ensure that you are covered. EBTC is not responsible for ensuring you are covered by your policy so please check this before commencing therapy. If your allocated therapist is not covered by your health insurer, please contact our practice manager Maria Burke, and she will arrange for you to be re-allocated to another therapist.
Please be aware that you are entitled to claim tax back on healthcare appointments. Further information and forms are available at your local tax office or on www.revenue.ie.
MEDICO-LEGAL REPORTS
As a therapeutic service, EBTC does not get involved in legal processes. We do not write reports for solicitors or the courts. This is something that needs to be completed by an independent clinician who has been trained in medico-legal reporting.
CONTACT WITH THERAPISTS
If you need to contact your therapist for any reason in between sessions, you can contact the admin team and they will be able to assist you. In most cases, issues can be dealt with by the admin team and if not, they can seek advice from your therapist. Please note that we are not an emergency service and if you need immediate assistance, you can call your GP or medical team.
FEEDBACK/COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE
If you are unhappy with any aspect of your care from initial contact to the end of your therapy experience, please let us know as soon as possible. Our aim is to offer compassionate, effective healthcare and we are continually looking for ways to improve. If you do experience a problem, please contact our practice manager Maria Burke, and she will assist you. Alternatively, if you feel comfortable to share what is going on with your therapist, you can discuss it with them and together make a plan of how best to move forward.
