Category: News

  • Telehealth & Support

    Telehealth & Support

    Dear Friends, Colleagues, Mental Health Professionals,

    In this time of upheaval and uncertainty, most of us have experienced significant changes to how we go about our jobs. We have the great fortune of working with amazing people and we want to share some of that fortune with you. We would like to host a video conference about implementing mental health via telemedicine along with 1 or 2 experienced psychiatrists on our team. Just an open discussion of the process, what works, and how to prepare. We would like to gauge interest before we set a date. Please share and let us know if you are interested. This would be free, but invite-only.

    Separately, some on our team have offered to talk with practitioners in need of support during these difficult times. Message us, and we’ll get you connected.

    – Nancy & Jeff
    3/30/2020

  • We Are Open

    We Are Open

    March 24, 2020

    Dear Members of the Mental Health Services Community,

    We remain open and operational during the “Safer at Home” response to the COVID19 outbreak. We are, like many of you, conducting meetings via video and phone. The demand for psychiatric services has not diminished among those in need, and we are doing everything we can to help you meet it. Whether it’s finding part time or full time psychiatric coverage, implementing telemedicine, or navigating the challenges of billing and administrative hurdles – we have experience that may be of use to you and your patients.

    Thank you for all that you do.

    Jeff & Nancy

  • 2020 Wishes

    2020 Wishes


    Happy New Year from Sites Professionals! May you find happiness and fulfillment as you help others in the new year.

  • Career Fair December 2019

    Career Fair December 2019


    We had a wonderful time last Saturday at the Southern California Psychiatric Society Career Fair. Nancy and I enjoyed meeting everyone!

    -Jeff

  • Onboarding Worksheet Available (Video)

    Onboarding Worksheet Available (Video)

    New from Sites Professionals, get our Onboarding Worksheet for Psychiatrists entering positions in community mental health.

  • New Video and New Positions Available

    New Video and New Positions Available

    We posted a new video about our processes on the Agencies Page, check it out and let us know what you think.

    We’ve also updated our Positions Available with the latest job openings for psychiatrists. Don’t see what you’re looking for? Please call us for the latest available positions!

    Cheers!

  • Matching Psychiatrists with Community Mental Health Agencies

    Matching Psychiatrists with Community Mental Health Agencies

    We posted a new video starring Jeff. At Sites Professionals, our driving passion is to help you give your clients the quality of care they deserve. We do this by matching psychiatrists with agencies doing excellent work in the field of mental health. For psychiatrists wanting to have an impact in community mental health, Sites Professionals can find you a placement anywhere from 4 to 40 hours per week and we take care of credentialing, malpractice insurance, tech support and more. For agencies, we can help you build or grow your psychiatry services with in-person, telepsychiatry, and hybrid arrangements. We work with you to find long term placements matched to your team and clients

    Call us today to find out more: 818-802-6782

  • In the Helping Field: Reset Your Mindset Against Scarcity

    In the Helping Field: Reset Your Mindset Against Scarcity

    Scarcity has been in the news lately. It is something with which most in the field of mental health are entirely familiar.

    Our community faces a variety of serious challenges to the health and well-being of its citizens. Last week we learned that the homeless population in Los Angeles County grew by 12%, despite the spending of voter-approved hundreds of millions of dollars in 2018. In the same week LAUSD’s measure EE failed at the ballot. The measure would have provided desperately needed funding to local schools, but may have exacerbated the county’s housing-affordability and homelessness crisis by taxing living space. In other words, two crisis pitted against one another in competition for resources.

    Like access to healthcare, access to secure housing and a quality education directly impact the mental health of our fellow citizens – our friends, family, and neighbors. These issues are so fundamental and essential that it can be maddening that they are left scrounging for resources as if they were of second-tier importance. It would be hard to imagine a EE or HHH-style ballot initiative required to fund trash pick-up, or a PTA-style bake sale to support new stop signs. By some measures we are as a society more clear-eyed on the significance of things than we are of people.

    If it makes you want to scream, I suggest going ahead and letting one out. It will feel good and may even be productive. But then – and forgive me for the expression – it will be time to roll up our sleeves and continue to get back to work.

    Those of us in the field of mental health are experienced in operating in an environment of scarcity. It is the stark reality of our industry that there are rarely enough resources available to be able to supply our clients with all we believe they deserve. Where funds are short we fill the gaps with effort, “elbow grease”. We end up getting the job done at the cost to ourselves and our teams. It is unfair, but frequently it seems the case that those who are most passionate about their professional calling are the ones left to fight the hardest for the means to do the job they love. It is as though the intangible benefits have been factored into the ledger by the powers that be.

    If scarcity in mental health were a soup, it would have three main ingredients: A willful myopia for the impact of bad outcomes long-term; an impression that the workforce is replaceable by a new crop of college graduates every couple of years; and a knowledge that even employees in the throes of burnout will continue to attempt to do their best by the clients they are so passionate to serve.

    We are all familiar with scarcity, but we have given it more power over us than it deserves. When it starts sneaking into meetings to which it wasn’t invited; when it slips into company conversations as if part of a well-rehearsed mission statement; when it becomes the reason that great employees get stuck in backwater positions servicing a mission that hasn’t been assessed by leaders in years; when it keeps you from exposing your team to cutting-edge training on the business of mental health: that is when scarcity has metastasized from ‘fact of life’ to a destructive force.

    Scarcity is truth but it is not the whole truth. Scarcity should never disrupt client care when there are dozens of treatment models and configurations available, as well as peer agencies, allies, and philanthropists to help fill in the gaps. Scarcity should not be the cause of high turnover, moral injury and inefficiency in teams when there are reams of data available about ways to motivate and incentivize people beyond salary alone. Do not let employees languish and be miserable just because they keep doing the work… until they don’t.

    Scarcity should not keep you from running a business or being a part of a great team. It is no more than an entry in the ledger, one that must often be offset by creative means. To let scarcity claim too much credit for all that is wrong is to poison the means to make things right.

    The work to fight against scarcity looks mundane at first. It involves processes like defining success for your clients in simple measurable terms, and then doing the same for members of your team. Look at things like disengagement, turnover and the rates of accidents and errors. Analyze operational and overhead expenses against industry benchmarks and use the data to identify areas where there is opportunity to become more efficient with the resources you have. Invest in people presenting long-term solutions. Conduct postmortems with your team on both successes and failures, then distill them into actionable lessons that can be included in trainings. This is what great companies do. During Steve Jobs’ waning years, Apple commissioned case studies on business decisions during his time in order to prepare future generations of leadership with the skills and decision-making processes that lead to Apple’s spectacular success. Devise and safeguard the means for employees to be heard and to hold managers accountable. Build a culture of trust and good faith to keep problems from festering in silence.

    The problems of scarcity (real and imagined) can be conquered with stoic incremental improvement. You must not let scarcity keep you from what drove you to the helping-field in the first place: Hope.

  • Mechanics of Being Client-First in Community Mental Health

    Mechanics of Being Client-First in Community Mental Health

    Being client-first in community mental health means prioritizing the needs and quality of treatment of clients above all else. This much is self-explanatory, but incorporating a client-first mindset in a community mental health setting can be complicated. In practice it goes well beyond the points of contact – scheduling, direct care, follow-up, etc – to program design, staffing, administration, IT and operations.

    The intake process alone involves not just screening and identifying appropriate clients but a knowledge of your reimbursement contracts, the caseloads and training of practitioners, the composition and readiness of your support team.

    The further you move from direct care, the easier it is to lose sight of what it means to be client-first. Consider some common issues related to IT. Does your team have reliable access to your electronic systems for communication and reporting? Do you have network redundancies in place for mission-critical applications like telepsychiatry and EHR access? Do you utilize E-prescribing for consistency and accuracy? These are just a few of the questions every organization should ask itself. Answering ‘no’ is the first step to discovering new opportunities to improve.

    For those that think they can’t improve, scarcity is often identified as the reason. Budgets are thin and resources are scarce. However, many of the actions that appear to be expensive will save you money in the long run by reducing inefficiency and preventing costly mistakes and downtime.

    As you look for new ways to better serve your clients, consider that some changes to your supporting processes may be a cost effective move toward being client-first.

  • New Positions Available – May 2019

    New Positions Available – May 2019

    Psychiatrists: Sites Professionals has several new positions available, ranging from 3 days per week to twice a month. Not only do we match you with a position that meets your interests and availability, we will help you navigate documentation and technology with trainings and tech support. We also provide occurrence-based malpractice insurance and take care of credentialing. More information on our “Jobs” tab.

  • Telepsychiatry Setup – Agency Case Study

    Telepsychiatry Setup – Agency Case Study

    There are many benefits to adding telepsychiatry to your community mental health service offerings. We have had the opportunity to help a few agencies build these capabilities recently. It is something we are happy to do, and thought it is worth sharing the basic steps to getting started.

    • Getting buy-in from your team is the first essential step. The best way to do this is to discuss the benefits of using telepsychiatry for clients and coverage. When the psychiatrist you want on your team is not available to travel to your location, telepsychiatry makes it possible. It gives agencies more options, especially those in regions where few psychiatrists live. It also provides more options for part-time and flexible coverage. Make it part of your interview process to involve your team in video conferencing with prospective psychiatrists. When you find the right fit, and you can introduce your team to someone with the experience and skills you need, we believe you’ll find it easier to get buy-in.
    • The next step is to review (and amend if necessary) your agency certifications, policies and procedures, and contracts to ensure that you can bill for services provided via telepsychiatry. This process takes a little patience but it is something Sites Professionals can assist you with. Having it as an option will open the door to new opportunities and ways to grow your services.
    • Prepare your team. This includes having a designated staff as the telepsychiatry champion who will be the key person to help with the implementation of telepsychiatry, making it a smooth process. You will also need to identify team members at the client-site who can be present with clients, take vitals as needed, and call on additional support for issues that arise including behavioral concerns and technical support.
    • The setup is the easy part. You will need a room, a computer with a large screen, quality microphone and speakers. There are several easy-to-use HIPPA-compliant video conferencing services available, and we are happy to offer recommendations. Most EHR’s have web or VPN access options. You will also want to have an e-prescribing service (these are great for in-person psychiatrists too!).

    Sites Professionals takes care of the rest. We can handle setup and training on the psychiatrist’s side, and assist your agency as well. The best part is that Sites Professionals does not charge for these services. It is part of our mission to help your agency increase your psychiatric capacity to provide the best possible care to your clients.

    Call us to learn more about what we can do for you.

  • Picking up a day or two with Sites Professionals

    Picking up a day or two with Sites Professionals

    For psychiatrists, working in community mental health is a convenient and meaningful experience. Sites Professionals makes it easy. The need for qualified psychiatric coverage in community mental health is great. Their clients are deserving and in need, yet are dramatically underserved due to social and economic factors.

    For practitioners, the benefits of providing psychiatric care to this population include a longer duration of care than is found in private and hospital settings; and a support team to help with clinical and administrative tasks. Additionally, Sites Professionals can locate placements for as little as 4 hours a week up to full time, making it possible to fit into any schedule. We provide occurrence-based malpractice insurance, many placements can be conducted via telepsychiatry or include travel reimbursement. Sites Professionals will do what it takes to find the best match for your interests, qualifications, and availability.

    Let us help you provide the clients in California community mental health system with the best available care.