Course: Ethical Billing and Note Taking in Private Practice: Best Practices for Individual, Family, and Couples Therapy
Continuing Education: 3 Ethics CEs Approved by the Alaska Board of Marital and Family Therapy, 3 Ethics CEs Approved by the Alaska Board of Social Work.
Date: June 13, 2025
Time: 9 am – 12 pm
Location: Live (online via Zoom/teleconference)
Fee: $110
Instructor: Carolina Hernandez Powers, LCSW, LPC-S
Carolina brings a deep passion for ethics, compliance, and documentation that has been cultivated throughout her professional career. Her work has been utilized for agency-wide trainings and has informed preparation for state audits and accreditation inspections. Her interest continued to grow when she opened her private practice. With limited guidance in pre-Covid times, she immersed herself in books, articles, and compliance guidelines. She realized how easy it can be for well-meaning clinicians to unintentionally commit billing errors and compliance violations, and sought further training and consultation in hopes to support her practice and others in private practice. She hopes to support you in gaining clarity and approach billing and documentation with more ease.
Target audience: This training is open to mental health professionals (i.e. Psychologists, SocialWorkers, Marriage and Family Therapists, Professional Counselors) working in private practice settings with individuals, couples, and families.
Learning Purpose: This training is designed to enhance the professional competency of mental health professionals by deepening their understanding of ethical billing and documentation practices. The content directly relates to the skills and knowledge required to implement principles and methods, particularly in the areas of counseling and psychotherapy, service provision, assessment, and ethical record keeping in private practice settings.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this training, participants will be able to:
1. Identify key ethical and legal standards related to billing and documentation in private practice (e.g., APA/ACA/AMFT/NASW codes, HIPAA, insurance regulations).
2. Differentiate between ethical billing practices for individual versus family/couplesessions, including when and how to use proper CPT codes and designate the correctclient of record.
3. Recognize common ethical pitfalls in billing and note taking, including issues aroundboundaries, dual relationships, billing for non-clinical services, and time discrepancies.
4. Implement best practices for ethical clinical documentation that is accurate, defensible, and compliant, including medical necessity and risk documentation.
5. Navigate complex clinical scenarios/ethical dilemmas involving multi-client systems(e.g., confidentiality, split billing, parental access to notes, third-party requests).
6. Identify practical strategies for ethical note taking, handling insurance audits, paymentdisputes, and record requests while protecting client privacy and clinician liability.
Policies
Refunds: A $50 administrative fee will be charged for all refunds. Refunds for course fees(minus the $50.00 administrative fee) will be issued for requests made up to 14 calendar days prior to the start date of the course. Refunds are not available for requests made within 13 days of the training. Thank you for your understanding.
Attendance: You are required to attend the workshop in full in order to receive credit toward continuing education or to receive a certificate of attendance. CE credit will not be issued toattendees who miss/are not present for 15 or more minutes of instruction. To be consideredpresent your camera will need to be on and you are visible in real time during instruction time.
Contact: Carolina Hernandez Powers, carolina@tmhc-ak.com, 907-390-0542
Accessibility: To request reasonable accommodations for this training, please contact Carolina at carolina@tmhc-ak.com or 907-390-0542. Advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility needs. Requests must be submitted by June 6, 2025.