What should I do if my notes get subpoenaed?
Generally
The first thing a clinician should do when they receive a subpoena is to contact a lawyer in their jurisdiction, ideally one who is familiar with mental and behavioral health law. If you happen to be in a larger practice there may be an individual on staff who is trained to deal with subpoenas for the whole practice. If you do not know anyone, most many counties have a lawyer referral service run by the local county bar association (or sometimes the state bar association) where anyone can call in to get a referral to an qualified attorney with appropriate skills for your situation.
Getting Copies Of The Records For The Court
TherapyCharts provides a print feature that allows a clinician to print the whole patient's record or individual notes within it. These can be used if you need to produce the records for examination by the court or if you want to print them to refresh your memory while you might be given testimony on an issue before a count. Once generated they download to your local machine as a PDF file which can then be printed.
Print the records for one patient to a single document
In addition to printing a single clinical document, the system allows for the clinical records for a given patient to generate into one single document. To do so:
- Login
- Goto Patient List
- Choose the Patient you want from the Patient List
- Click the Patient Info tab
- Click the General Sub-Tab (if not there already)
- Choose Print -> All Clinical Records
The system will prompt you to download the document containing all that patient's clinical records.
