Welcome to Farrar and Associates. Understanding your role in treatment is important in order for us to offer you the best possible care and to support your therapeutic treatment goals. Failure to follow the patient expectations below may result in discharge from mental health care. 

 

Attendance of Appointments: Missing appointments prevents you from receiving high quality treatment. You may be discharged from care if you have two or more late cancellations and/or two or more no shows, or if you fail to follow-up at the appointment frequency determined by your clinician. 

 

You need to arrive on time for your appointment, allowing enough time for the check-in process so you are ready at the scheduled time. If you are late and there is not enough time remaining to provide you with proper care, your clinician may ask you to reschedule. We respect your time and we will make every effort to stay on schedule. Please understand that clinical emergencies may occasionally delay the start of your appointment. Help us stay on schedule by respecting the time limitations of your appointment. If you would like to have a family session or if you require paperwork to be completed, please arrange this ahead of time so additional appointment time can be scheduled if needed. 

 

Behavior: We strive to always treat you with dignity and respect. We, in turn, expect you to treat your clinician and all office staff at Farrar and Associates with respect and not disrupt the care of other patients. You will be discharged from services if you behave inappropriately to any staff person or fellow patient.  

 

Cancellations: Please give more than 24 hours notice when canceling an appointment. Except in the case of an emergency, failure to give at least 24 hours notice or missing your appointment will result in a missed appointment/late cancellation fee. This will be charged to you directly and will not be covered by insurance. We understand that emergencies arise and we will occasionally make exceptions on a case by case basis. In cases of severe weather when travel is dangerous and local schools have been closed, Farrar and Associates will waive late cancellation fees if you call prior to your appointment.

 

Following the Treatment Plan: Following your clinician’s treatment recommendations is very important. This not only applies to medication management but also non-medication treatment recommendations, such as regular engagement in therapy, lifestyle recommendations, and engaging in a higher level of care. 
 

Medications: If you do not feel that your medications are working as intended, please call psychiatric services during regular business hours and schedule an earlier appointment to discuss these concerns with your prescriber. Do not make medication changes on your own, including: stopping medications, changing the dose of a medication, restarting a discontinued medication, or taking a medication not prescribed to you. Doing so is potentially dangerous. If you are seeing one of our psychiatric prescribers, psychiatric medication prescriptions may only be obtained from your psychiatric prescriber at Farrar and Associates (for example, do not also seek psychiatric medication prescriptions from your primary care provider.) If a refill is needed between appointments, please call during regular business hours and allow at least one business day for processing. After hours refill requests will be addressed during the next business day. 

 

Controlled Substances: Your prescriber retains the right to not prescribe controlled substances based on a patient’s past drug and alcohol abuse, clinical contraindications, or the prescriber’s professional judgment. If a controlled substance is prescribed, a controlled substance agreement will be signed and enforced. 

 

Safety: Your clinician’s priority is maintaining safety. You must share that same priority to maintain a productive treatment relationship. If you feel you are at risk of harming yourself or others, you need to inform your clinician immediately. You may do this by calling Farrar and Associates during regular business hours, by implementing the safety plan established with your clinician, or by going directly to the emergency department of your local hospital. If you are unable to maintain your safety and hospitalization is recommended, you need to follow that recommendation. 

 

After Hours: A psychiatric prescriber is available on call after regular business hours to assist with urgent medication issues only. Examples of appropriate use of this service include medication reactions and mental status changes. You must go directly to the hospital for treatment if you are feeling suicidal or homicidal. Prescribers are not able to arrange hospitalizations and do not have hospital admitting privileges. Medication refill requests are not an emergency and must be taken care of during regular business hours. Inappropriate use of urgent after hours services may result in termination of care. 

 

Communications: Calling us during business hours is best if you need assistance between appointments. We want to speak with you directly if there is an urgent or complex situation, or if there are any safety concerns. You can also communicate with us through the patient portal about non-urgent straight-forward issues such as refill requests. Please understand that we cannot ensure the security and confidentiality of healthcare communications through email, so we ask that you only communicate about clinical issues with us by phone or the patient portal. Farrar and Associates may use email to communicate with you about appointment times, billing, cancellations, and general policies and procedures.

 

Please refrain from using your phone during appointments unless necessary for your care. Use of recording devices is not permitted anywhere within the clinic premises or during telehealth sessions. 

 

Our staff maintains professional boundaries on social media and will not respond to client requests on personal social media accounts.

 

I have read the above patient expectations and understand my role in my mental health treatment. I understand that failure to follow any of these policies may result in termination from mental health care at Farrar and Associates.