Bay Area Childrens Association

You Can Help BACA!

ttarshis — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:20:49 +0000

Dear Friend of BACA,
If you love our work then tell the world! You have an exciting
opportunity to help make even more of a difference in our
community. GreatNonprofits – a site like Amazon reviews or
TripAdvisor – is conducting a campaign to identify the top-
rated health nonprofits in the country.
Won’t you help us participate in the campaign by posting a
review of your experience with us? All reviews will be visible
to potential donors and volunteers. It’s easy and only takes 3
minutes!
Go to:
www.greatnonprofits.org/reviews/bay-area-childrens-association
Be sure to choose “Health” from the drop down menu of
campaigns in the review template.
With your help, we can gain greater visibility in our
community.
Thank you,
Thomas Tarshis M.D., M.P.H.
Medical Director

Expansion moving forward

ttarshis — Wed, 05 May 2010 04:05:58 +0000

BACA has now procured two more offices, has hired our 4th Child Psychiatrist (to start this summer) and may have more Stanford Child Psychiatry Fellows practicing at our agency. In addition, we will begin to help train MFT interns (Master’s level therapists doing their internships) in the coming months. This will mean increased access to care for families in the Bay Area. In addition, some progress has been made with insurance acceptance, which will also help provide much needed in-network mental health care for children and families. Currently, our waiting list is still quite long, but we will have many openings beginning in June. As we work towards the goal of “curing” all of our patients, this allows us to keep taking new cases. We truly strive to have all patients cured in 6 months. Of course, this is not always the case, and people will never be “forced out” of treatment. Setting goals for therapy and mental health treatment, and sticking to the latest scientific evidence regarding treatment, helps to speed our patients along the path to recovery.

We are also happy to report that we received our first grant! We hope this is the first step in working towards procuring more funding to increase services for all members of our community.

More on Insurance….

ttarshis — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:48:47 +0000

Many times, families ask us what their co-pay will be for visits. This is a tricky question. Although we try to help people with this question, the reality is that we never know what your co-pay or deductible is until we submit the bill to the insurance company and get reimbursement. It is not uncommon that we ask an insurance what the co-pay is, only to find that we have been given erroneous information. For this reason, we send a detailed e-mail to all new patients, telling you to call your insurance company to ask these questions. Patients are responsible for payment as signed on the registration form. If we call the insurance company and they tell us the co-pay is $20 per visit but then when we submit the bill, they only cover 50% of the visit, you are still responsible for what the insurance company does not pay. It is impossible for a small non-profit agency to guarantee what the co-pay is before the visit occurs. We understand that this can be frustrating for some people and apologize for this, but try to make it clear that you need to confirm your co-pays and deductibles yourself before the visits occur. Unfortunately, mental health care is not always covered as well as medical care appointments.

The Great Insurance Debate

ttarshis — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:27:52 +0000

Many child psychiatrists do not take insurance. At BACA, as a non-profit agency, we have a mission to provide access to care to all individuals who need help. As such, we are working to accept all insurance plans. Unfortunately, there are many struggles associated with accepting insurance (which is the reason why so many mental health providers do not). To begin, we try to integrate care at our agency – this means that we provide both therapy and pharmacotherapy (prescribing medications) services at our agency. Mental health care is extremely fragmented in our society, which leads to worse outcomes and more difficulties for families. We hope to provide all services relevant for improving mental health functioning (psychotherapy, biological treatments including medications and exercise, occupational therapy, speech therapy and even tutoring!) at our agency one day. The problem, is that many services are not reimbursed at reasonable rates – especially for physicians who wish to deliver therapy services. Several insurance agencies will negotiate reasonable reimbursement rates, but others are less willing. In addition, although electronic billing and other technology has made reimbursement easier, there are continual “errors” by insurance companies that require administrative time to remedy, thus driving up costs. Currently, for out-of-network clients, we give a “superbill” which can be submitted for reimbursement. I am thinking about changing this, so that we actually will submit all billing (whether you are in-network or not) which would make it easier for our families, but more difficult for us. The best thing to do is complain to your insurance company if you have limited mental health treatment options. We sincerely wish to take every insurance available, and now do accept Medi-cal. I am hoping that the new law passed in California regarding being seen in reasonable time if you are an HMO member will help us to negotiate fair contracts.

Why do we require both parents at intake appointments?

ttarshis — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:29:18 +0000

A common question we get at BACA is regarding our policy of requiring both parents to be present for the initial appointment and the wrap-up session (usually 4th appointment). Many times people will tell us that their work schedule precludes one parent from making it to the appointments. Although we recognize that certain jobs may make it difficult for both parents to be present, because of our philosophy of treating all factors that can affect the mental health of children, it is vital to speak with both caregivers. If one parent is resistant to coming in for an appointment, or feels like they cannot contribute much information, it is important for them to realize that this is never the case. The roles of all caregivers are one of the most significant factors affecting children. If one parent is unwilling/unable to participate in the evaluation and treatment process, it lowers our chance for a successful outcome. We are flexible in our hours, staying late once or twice per week, and also are willing to work during lunch hours and occasional Saturdays. Please trust that the best chance for helping your child requires the input and efforts of both parents.

Parent Ed Meeting

ttarshis — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:53:29 +0000

The parent education talk for Palo Alto and Gunn high school went well. Here’s a link to the student newspaper review.

Long Overdue Update

ttarshis — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:29:29 +0000

It has been many months since I updated this blog, and I apologize for that. The Bay Area Children’s Association has been going through many changes, and we are looking forward to moving to our third location in the coming month. We are moving back near the first office, in the Cupertino town center which is conveniently located near Highway 280 And Hwy 85. It is also walking distance to the great Cupertino Library, and many restaurants and shops. The new location will be double the size of our current location which is important because the agency is getting more crowded. This is good news, as we have hired several new staff members, whose profiles are listed on the webpage. We are continuing to work to expand our insurance contracts, so more people have access to care.

As many people in this area are aware, there have been many recent teen suicides, and I have joined the coalition of mental health agencies to address this issue. It is formally called the HEARD coalition. Beginning September 1 I was granted adjunctive clinical faculty status through Stanford University’s Department of psychiatry. I will be teaching classes to Stanford trainees, and enjoy staying involved in the education of child psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. Tonight, I am speaking at Palo Alto high school with a group of other professionals to provide education for parents and the community dealing with the recent suicides.

In April, my book for teenagers on peer pressure will be released. It is already listed on several websites. I will try to get a link for direct ordering through the website up soon.

As always, I try to answer questions for anyone in the community in a timely manner. With our new staff members, we are able to get people in quickly for evaluations. The one problem is if you have anthem insurance, we have an extensive wait list. However, if you have a PPO, we can still get you in quickly, and help you with that out of network reimbursement process.

Best wishes for you and your family for the upcoming holiday season!!! Cheers, Tom

New Provider

ttarshis — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:51:41 +0000

We are pleased to announce that Virginie Goldstein-Morali, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist has joined the agency. Virginie has extensive training in both Europe and the United States and is a welcome addition to the staff. Virginie will provide evidence-based therapy treatments for children, couples and families at BACA.

Transitions

ttarshis — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:10:41 +0000

It has been several months since the last update. I will try to resolve to be better at updates, aiming for the goal of at least one per month. Kalpa will be leaving BACA to start a great new research job. I have been pleased to have her for the past year. Our new office manager is Ruth Lichtenberger, a recent graduate of UC Santa Cruz. Ruth brings outstanding credentials and energy to BACA and we are excited to have her join the agency.

We are also in the process of hiring new providers. Two new child psychiatrists and one new MFT are set to start in the coming months. This has been a learning process for me, especially with respect to continued interactions with insurance companies. Unfortunately, one of the insurance companies we work with is not willing to negotiate rates for the new employees, which makes it difficult to decide what to do regarding our expansion.

We continue to work on grants and look forward to continued growth. Please send your comments along with any comments or suggestions. Cheers, Tom

2009 Update

ttarshis — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:16:18 +0000

Hello All,
It has been a busy few months, but several tasks have been completed. I passed my oral board exams, so now I am Board Certified in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. I just completed the first draft of a book called “Living with Peer Pressure and Bullying” and am hopeful that it will be ready for publication in the near future. My focus is now turning to hiring new providers for the agency, and beginning work on grants and other research projects. We hope to have new providers in place sometime this summer. Our wait-list still is quite long, but we are beginning to make some headway in getting people seen.
Cheers, Tom