Exam 12: Changing World, Changing Dilemmas

Mary has been working as a psychotherapist in the local mental health clinic for ten years.She decides it is time to leave and open her own private practice.Her clients are very disappointed and feel connected to Mary.Mary secretly gives her clients at the mental health clinic her new business card.

Define what client dumping is, how it occurs, and why it occurs.

Managed care is one major strategy developed in an attempt to control health and mental health costs by monitoring access to and the type of health care patients receive from health care practitioners or HMOs.

Which of the following groups is NOT pressuring social workers and human service organizations for evidence that they are accountable and their services are beneficial to those they are serving?

Have the class divide into two groups.Each group chooses a representative who is an agency administrator.Therapists in the agency have collected required outcome data on program effectiveness and found that the results are not positive (there is no evidence that the agency's services are effective).One group argues that it is ethically acceptable to not provide the funding source with that information while the other group argues that it is not ethical to withhold such data.

Social workers providing services to community groups may find that dual relationships are unavoidable.

Which of the following would be considered to be "dumping a client"?

Discuss what you believe is the ethical thing to do when a client can no longer pay the therapist's fee.

As a macro practitioner, to whom do your loyalties belong? (the agency, the community in general, the human service agencies within the community, the community's population, your friends)

Evidence-based practice is an approach to care wherein professionals use research to maximize opportunities to help clients and avoid harm.

Discuss with the class some important things that a social worker must think about before establishing a private practice. Class Exercises:

A number of factors have combined to escalate health care costs beyond the rate of inflation in the United States.Among these factors are:

Divide the class into 3 or 4 groups and provide the groups with one of the following four situations to discuss and share with the class.

Discuss the policy implications of managed care, how it effects practice, and relate it back to Chapter 7 where it is discussed that misdiagnosis is often intentional on the part of the practitioner.

Discuss the types of ethical dilemmas that are created by managed care organizations.

Social workers employed in governmental agencies can be assured that their electronic messages are safe from being publicly monitored.

According to the Code of Ethics, social workers have an ethical responsibility to address the lack of health care available to the poor in this country.

Managed care allows the social worker and patient complete autonomy.