Community Grievance Decision Digest
TREATMENT - TERMINATION OF OUTPATIENT TREATMENT
THE LAW:
“Patients
have the right to be free from having arbitrary
decisions made about them. To
be non-arbitrary, a decision
about a client must be rationally
based upon a legitimate treatment, management or security
interest.”
HFS
94.24(3)(h), Wis. Admin. Code [Emphasis added.]
[Note:
See also the “Treatment –
Prompt & Adequate” section of this digest.]
DECISIONS:
- A client felt
her termination from outpatient
therapy constituted “abandonment”
which left her without mental health services and without options for
a smooth transition into other services. Both she and her therapist
agreed that the attainment of
measurable objectives was not being met and that she was no
longer making progress in treatment. The personalities involved
were not meshing together in a productive fashion and the kind of
therapeutic work and progress that the client really wanted was not
getting done. This could have led to voluntary discharge, rather than
termination, by encouraging joint decision making and agreement by
both the client and the therapist. The
termination of a client’s
outpatient therapy did not rise
to the level of a violation based on the rights and rules that are
currently in place. However,
the best practice would be
to achieve consensus that
treatment goals were not being met and to mutually
agree to discontinue
therapy. (Level
III Grievance Decision in Case No. 05-SGE-12 on 5/16/06)
Last Updated: November 13, 2006 |
