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CAMHS Psychiatric Care

Welcome to CAMHS Psychiatric Care

Below is some practical information about meeting with a psychiatrist at CAMHS

Confidentiality:

  • Everything you discuss is confidential. Exceptions to this are: 
    • If you give written permission for your psychiatrist to communicate with someone about your care.
    • If your psychiatrist determines there is an imminent risk of safety to you or someone else, then your doctor may need to communicate with others.

Appointments: 

  • Initial appointments with a psychiatrist are one hour long and are done in person.
  • Follow up appointments are shorter visits that focus on medication treatment. (The frequency of these is based on what is appropriate to your condition.) 
  • It is important for you to arrive on time for all appointments. If you arrive late, then your appointment may need to be rescheduled for another time. 
  • We ask that you complete the BHM survey upon arrival. 
  • If it has been more than a year since you have been seen, then you will need to be scheduled for another one-hour intake appointment. 

Prescriptions:

  • Prescriptions are typically discussed and sent during appointments with refills to last until your next scheduled appointment. 
  • IF you think you don’t have any refills, then please call the pharmacy and speak with them directly and ask if there is a prescription available. (The automated refill system for the pharmacies often does not recognize that there is a prescription on hold and available for you.) 
  • If the pharmacy tells you that there are no refills available, please contact your psychiatrist using the secure messaging system through the portal as we do not respond to refill requests that come directly from pharmacies. Please include the following in your secure message (even if you think we already have this information):  
  1.  the name and address of the pharmacy and 
  2.  the medication name, the pill strength (dosage) & how often you take it. 
  • If your psychiatrist is away, call (617) 495-2042. The covering doctor may send an interim supply of medication. That clinician may need to check in with you by phone before refilling the medication. Please make sure you are ready to receive a phone call sometime that day, including calls from blocked numbers. 

Missed appointments and rescheduling: 

  • If you do not show for your scheduled appointment, then you will be charged the missed appointment fee.
  • If you need to cancel your scheduled visit, first call (617) 495-2042 and speak to front desk staff to get another appointment, and then please send your psychiatrist a secure message to let them know you had to cancel.  
  • It can take many weeks to get another appointment, so call as soon as possible to get back into your doctor’s schedule. 

Ways to communicate in between visits:

  • We use secure messaging via the HUHS portal to communicate in-between visits or to let you know if we need to change your appointment. 
  • If you need to communicate with your psychiatrist, then please use this secure messaging system, as we avoid email communication (since it is not HIPAA secure). 
  • Typically, psychiatrists check their secure messages only on the days they are in the office.
  • If your issue is urgent, do not rely on secure messaging, please see the section below.

Urgent issues in between scheduled visits: 

  • If you have an urgent issue during working hours, first contact CAMHS front desk and ask if your doctor is available that day. If not, front desk staff can direct you, as CAMHS urgent care appointments are available every business day.  
  • If you need to speak with a clinician by phone about an urgent mental health concern, you may call (617) 495-2042 (24/7) and select the option to talk with a CAMHS Cares Counselor. You will be connected directly with a mental health clinician. 
  • If your issue is an emergency, then you should call 911.

Documentation Requests:

  • There may be times when you need documentation from your psychiatrist. This would first need to be reviewed with your doctor, and you may need to schedule an appointment for the review. Please allow at least two weeks for your psychiatrist to complete any documentation. If we don’t have two weeks, then we may not be able to get the documentation done on time.