I work as mental health counselor at an agency and the burnout is real. I’ve been working at the same agency for about three years and started as an intern. I recently started to make the shift to outpatient counseling (just talk therapy) and assessments as I’m working towards my license. But I still have clients I see for in home counseling. For those clients I go to their homes for 2-3 hours at a time, about 3 times a week.
My client base has grown rapidly and now I have 3 days in the office doing outpatient and 3 doing in home counseling. The paperwork has been overwhelming. It’s dictated by insurance provider that notes be in within 24 hours of the session and my company has been cracking down on any type of late note. It’s been three weeks in a row where I have been on an email with several others pointing out we had notes processed past the deadline. We are supposed to complete our notes in session but I work mostly with kids and I can’t make it work. I typically work until 9 pm on days I see clients in their home and I have to be in the office at 9 the next morning to see my outpatient clients. Completing all my notes can take up to two hours and I can’t seem to find a time to complete them all as throughly as I need to and will get them sent back if they are not up to standards. Any note sent back is automatically considered late. Our CEO told us that this is a discipline problem for the staff and that we need to be able to do this. I’m worried I’ll loose my job if this keeps up.