Essential Guide To Group Practice In Mental Health: Clinical Legal and Financial Fundamentals(The Clinician's Toolbox)

Whether you are an experienced clinician or a newly graduated professional, today's changing economic environment can make the business of practice seem especially daunting. This indispensable manual is based on a simple idea: In a consolidating health care world, you cannot (and don't have to!) go it alone. Demonstrating that collaboration is the key to successful, quality-oriented private practice, the book provides the concrete information you need to affiliate with a group practice for the first time, expand an existing group practice, or conceive and build a practice venture from the ground up. With a wealth of hands-on exercises and extensive interviews with leaders in the field, Simon Budman and Brett Steenbarger help you to take greater control of your career and make crucial decisions for your professional future. This book will be of value to both practitioners and students in a full range of mental health fields.

Table of Contents:
Foreword, Zuckerman. Preface. Collaborative Practice: Key to the Future of Mental Health. Planning Your Ideal Practice. Legal Structures for Group Practices: Fitting Form to Function. Developing a Business Plan and Financing the Practice. Management by Information: Integrating Science and Practice in the Collaborative Practice. Designing Collaborative Clinical Services. Lessons from Successful Collaborations. Appendix: Resource List.

About the Author :
Simon H. Budman, PhD, a leader in the development of new models for behavioral health care, is the president and founder of Innovative Training Systems (ITS) in Newton, Massachusetts. ITS provides training, consulting and new product development services to managed care companies, group practices, hospitals, community mental health centers and HMOs around the country. A faculty member of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Budman is past Director of Mental Health Training and Mental Health Research at the Harvard Community Health Plan. He is coauthor (with Alan S. Gurman) of the widely acclaimed Theory and Practice of Brief Therapy. Brett N. Steenbarger, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of Student Counseling at the SUNY Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York. He has served as founding member and practice manager of PrimeCare of Central New York, Inc., an 80-member multidisciplinary behavioral health network, and has published numerous articles and book chapters on brief therapy and behavioral health care. He currently edits psycOH!, an online continuing education publication for behavioral health practitioners.

Review :
'The behavioral health field is rapidly moving toward group practices and integrated delivery systems, making it increasingly difficult for the lone practitioner to survive...This guide will serve readers as an invaluable tool and reference as they move into an uncertain future. I highly recommend the book for clinicians in all phases of their practice growth.' - Richard S. Edley, PhD, Executive Vice President, Managed Networks of America 'Budman and Steenbarger have conducted an intensive investigation of flourishing group practices, and have brilliantly dissected the components leading to their success. These elements are presented her in practical, doable steps. Stop - do not join or attempt to form a group practice until you have read this book! It may mean the difference between whether or not you are still in practice five years from now.' - Nicholas Cummings, PhD, ScD, President, Foundation for Behavioral Health