In the subject line, put: “Last name, First name (Week 3).” As an example, your subject line should look like: Paul, Patrice (Week 3).

Initial Post (minimum of 5 meaningful sentences per prompt; cite something from the assigned reading(s) with page number/section heading in one of the prompts):

1. Discuss something new you learned after reading the section on managed care.
2. Discuss something that surprised you after reading the section on managed care.
3. How does working in a managed care environment impact your vision of clinical practice?

Response Post #1 (minimum of 5 meaningful sentences): Respond to a classmate’s post.

+ respond to classmate

1. I learned that managed care is a very important part of counseling, since it can be described as it reads in the book: “the administration of healthcare services by a party other than the client or practitioner” (Gladding & Newsome, 2017, p. 390). I also learned that managed care, in my opinion, controls the quality of care with the control of the amount and type of service, monitoring service, and changing the nature of service offered (Gladding & Newsome, 2017, p. 390). Because of this clinicians have to find a diagnosis for the client’s issues and show how those issues will be addressed. Also, since most mental health professionals have some degree of involvement with managed care, we need to be familiar with the terms and procedures associated with managed care environments (Gladding & Newsome, 2017, p. 391). It is very discouraging to learn that sometimes we are faced with ethical dilemmas, particularly in regard to client welfare.

2. I have to admit that I was not aware of how many companies operate managed care. I was surprised to learn that “services that do not constitute a medical necessity will not be reimbursed” (Gladding & Newsome, 2017, p. 394). I was also surprised to learn that until the 1980’s, managed care was not much involved in the therapy process. I was surprised to learn that because of managed care, clinicians are unable to protect the confidentiality of the clients. Once a client’s private information is in the hands of companies, it is unknown what is accessible and to whom. Lastly, I was surprised to learn that because of MCO’s, counselors have to be trained to practice brief therapy (Gladding & Newsome, 2017, p. 396).

3. Working in managed care will greatly impact my vision of clinical practice. I already indicated many things that I did not know, and that surprised me regarding the managed care, and all of this will impact my vision of clinical practice. As I mentioned before, because of managed care, companies sometimes order brief therapy when the client’s quality of care may be in danger. Ethical implications are great in working with managed care. I believe that working in the managed care environment will influence the degree of care for the patients. These companies will certainly try to lower the cost of treatments. Also, I believe that every counselor should tell clients about the issue of confidentiality because of managed care influence. I do not like that we have to label clients in order to justify the expense. Particularly, I enjoy the show “Billions”, and one of the main characters is a psychologist who is actually mainly working with people on their self-improvement. The bottom line is that not all clients who come for therapy are mentally ill but sometimes need encouragement and understanding.