Are therapists aware when you go the hospital?

Does the emergency room or hospital contact them? What has been your experience?

Mine was not contacted the two times I was sent inpatient. She was very concerned when I called and talked to her... and rather upset I had not called her earlier. Typically she was an ice queen.
Don’t see it happening with current Pdoc and T.

Depends on what network I was using. When I first started therapy it was at a teaching hospital and my T was part of that, so yes they contacted him. He came to visit me in ICU. At various times I've had Ts connected to hospitals at other times they were independent so they were not contacted.

possibly if I signed a consent form allowing them to

Only if you have signed consent and direction for them to be notified (and that might not occur right away but may be in a later report to them).

My therapist always knew when I was hospitalized because I made him directly aware of my intention to go to the hospital. He did not come to the hospital (and I would not have wanted him to). I did speak to him by phone calls that I initiated while in the hospital, usually just as an update to my status for discharge and arranging an appointment pretty promptly upon discharge.

I have a list of people that I contact before I go to the hospital, and my T is always on the list. I do it on a need to know basis; he needs to know that I probably won’t make my next appointment. Some treatment teams will contact the T with updates, and usually for discharge planning.

The only time my T was called from the ER to say I was being admitted was when I had a T call the cops on me because I refused to go willingly.

I’ve never had them call my T from the ER, but every time I’ve been hospitalized they always contact my T and psychiatrist’s office at the end of my stay to confirm I have future appointments set before discharge. They don’t talk to them about anything though, they just wanna confirm I’ll still be getting treatment.

From another perspective, I also hospitalize people for my job, and only once have I called a client’s therapist from the ER, and that was to gather more info about the client because I was on the fence of whether or not they needed to be hospitalized.

Looking back at it pretty sure the hospital/ that contacted my T and Pdocs was probably before Hippa laws.

HIPAA was enacted in 1996. However, that doesn't mean it was the wild west before that.

I have never been hospitalized but I work at an inpatient psychiatric hospital. Our practice is to reach out to outpatient providers (pdoc, pcp, therapist case manager, etc) if the client consents and doesn't discharge unexpectedly over the weekend. We try to arrange a follow up plan.

I think they are if they are part of a treatment team at the hospital. Otherwise no they wouldn't even know who your therapist was unless you told them and you have to sign a form for everybody they can speak to even if its a parent unless you are a minor.

I always sign am release for him to get d/c info so yes he’s in the know. He asks that I do that

He's always been aware of when I've been hospitalized. He facilitated it a lot of times and drove me there.

yes most times now therapists can go on a medical data base and see their clients history for mental and medical problems. everything is computerized now.

treatment providers now use two different kinds of computer website data bases.

the first is the inter agency computer system where all clients files are now kept. either the treatment provider or the agency pays for a dictation/ computer company to enter the file in the system. my own treatment provider does his own dictation and file updating after every session and periodically uses one of my sessions for updating the files treatment plans and assessment plans. at this session we have a set of questions on the computer system that I need to answer... do I feel this problem is still an issue, we have you listed as this and that disorders and heres why I think these stay on and these can now come off what do you think, in your own words describe why you are in therapy, in your own words describe whether you feel therapy is progressing or not progressing for you... what do you feel in the next so many months would be a good thing to focus on for your therapy sessions. he also goes through the disclaimers... you are aware that in the USA we do not have to have your permission to contact your other treatment providers, here are the reasons why this agency would do that... you are aware that due to privacy laws we can not tell anyone that may call here such as family or friends that you are a client here...

this inter agency computer system helps the client and therapist keep their sessions on track. many states now hold treatment providers accountable for what goes on in the sessions including things like whether treatment plans are being followed, progress is being made and so forth, this also helps the client because they are part of the process of developing and following the treatment plans. this helps too for when ones treatment provider is on vacation or out of the office or working from a different location. they can at a moments notice get one a computer go to the agencies website where they keep their data base. the therapist logs in and sees the files.

The second computer data base is nation wide where certain information not all of it just the basics are entered into the second data base... name, address, SS number, diagnosis's, allergies, hospitalizations you know the basic information that you as a client have to update every time you go to a doctor. they hand you a paper that says your basic information and ask you to review it to see if anything has changed. or they hand you IPAD and ask you to go through a series of questions to make sure your file is up to date. then that basic information that you your self have approved off goes into a central data base. this is so that say you live in california and you are visiting someone in nebraska and you have a problem. the treatment providers in nebraska can type in your name and ss number and see you have an allergy to such and such or you have PTSD and can treat the problems accordingly. basic continuity of care stuff.

with covid 19 and treatment providers having to work form their homes or remote locations due to shut downs so forth most clients now know that their treatment providers can use their home computers to access their office files and scheduling systems.

more and more treatment providers because of the covid 19 shut downs and so forth are joining nation wide data bases also, which leads me back to the original posters question..

do treatment providers know you have been hospitalized.

IF they take the time to check both systems the answer is yes
IF the hospital has updated the files on you, the answer is yes
IF at any point in your time with your therapist you have mentioned past hospitalizations then yes then know that present hospitalizations are a possibiliy.

my suggestion is check with your therapist to see if they and the agency they are with keep paper files in some room or if they are part of a computer system / data base. ask them if they get information from your other treatment providers in crisis events, that will answer your question directly related to you.

No, my therapist didn't know until I called her office and told her after I had been discharged. My pdoc only knew because my parents had contacted him while I was hospitalized.

Are we talking about psychiatric hospital? Or any hospital? I am not sure how and why they would inform your therapist unless you ask them to call your therapist? Personally no one even knows if l have a therapist and who she is. I don’t see how it’s anyone’s business unless you want them to know

they dont .....call........a therapist.

you know how DMV in any state can type in your drivers license or state ID number and it will give the DMV a report on you, whether you have tickets and so on.... same with social security they have a system nation wide where all they need to do is type in your name and social security number and see your "history"

Well treatment providers (physicians, therapists, psychiatrists, specialists ...) they have a central data base system too. where one doctor or any other treatment provider can if they want to, type in your name and date of birth or your name and social security number and see your "history" with physical and mental health problems, allergies and so forth.

next time you go to a pharmacy to have your meds refilled notice whether they ask you name, date of birth and get on their computers, next time you go to the hospital ask them if they keep their files in some room or whether they use a medical data base, ask your therapist whether they have a central data base that is just for the agency or if its an online central data base so that if you travel to another state and need to see someone they can have access to your records. those questions will tell you whether your area is set up in this way or not.

A lot of what you said about central data base is incorrect. Perhaps it’s correct for your area only.

Central data applies only to a specific hospital network only. My gyn and my GP belong to different networks, for example.

When I take a test in my gyn office, my GP has no access to it unless I give a permission for my results to be faxed to him. My husband has surgery coming up. His surgeon and our GP are not on the same network. They have no access to his information unless we ask for results to be faxed to a surgeon. Surgeon can’t see nothing on any central data base, such data base doesn’t exist.

My husband was referred to a cardiologist to check his heart before surgery, cardiologist could see GP’s notes because he is in the same network. But surgeon can’t see none of it. Different network. For example, GP is on Beaumont network and gyn is on Ascension Providence network. No central data base. You have to give a permission for it to be faxed, no access to data base (Examples of my specific area).

In addition therapy is entirely different story. Many people see private therapist and pay out of pocket or whoever they see isn’t part of any kind of hospital system. So no there is no central data base disclosing to random strangers that I talk to a therapist once a month. So no hospitals will be calling anyone without my permission and in addition no hospitals have any knowledge of me seeing a therapist

This “big brother watching” fear of everything being on a central data base is only true to an extent. It’s not universally true at all

Well, people might be on a Medicare or Medicaid database. But even those are state-oriented. Doctors are only licensed in states they GET licensed in - its not a federal license. Thats why prescriptions dont easily travel to other states.

Remember, a lot of this came up when trump realized how complicated health care was. We dont have national health care. Obamacare is national ACCESS to (state) health care.

I noticed that people from countries with national health care and also countries with no federal government system, do not understand how things work here or assume they work exactly the same way they work in their countries. It’s simply not the case here whatsoever