LACSW Officers:

President’s Column
by Terry Zenner LCSW (Laf)

     Ann Woodward, the temporary Executive Director of NASW, began our LACSW board meeting (18 in attendance) on February 6th with a short talk. Ann is a true ally to our organization, having been a founding member in 1970 of the Louisiana Society for Clinical Social Work, our historic root. She is retired from a career with the state mental health system. We look forward to working with her. Of interest while on a historical venture; also on that founding committee of LSCSW were Larry Gooch and Martha Forbes!

Our Treasurer, Charlene Spears, reports we have been operating slightly under our projected budget. See separate posting on page 6 in the newsletter.

The Education Committee is solidifying an LACSW workshop now scheduled for JUNE 18, 2004, in NEW ORLEANS. Topics to be included are Orientation to Enneagrams (9 personality types), Resolving Anger with Past Partners (learn how to lead such a group or class for income), and Ethics (for those needing to meet the July 1st CEU deadline). There will be further refinements on the format and place with a brochure in the mail by April 1st.

It would help our budget if all of you reading this could block off the date to get some of your CEU’s this way.

Membership Co-Chair, Maria Klette-Ketchum, has put in a lot of work to put together a membership directory. It will be sent to all current members with your renewal notice in late spring. Well done Maria! I went through each of your listings of your talents and specialties and gleaned at least another year’s worth of alternatives to managed care to use in the I Have A Dream column. Many of you list niches that could be used by some in other parts of the state. To model after is to complement. Do I hear shades of “mentoring”? We are venturing toward the latter with an ad hoc committee consisting of Judy Haspel, Carol Miles, Donna Lewis, and Anne Heard. Call Judy at 504-891-5807 for input you may have.

The board approved a $10 deduction from the fee of any workshop we sponsor, as a personal reward for any member guiding another social worker into LACSW membership. A form to document such is in the making. Pennsylvania invented that wheel.

The Managed Care Committee noted that Oschner is selling out to Humana and information beyond that is hard to find.

Be careful of submitting a 90847 CPT code on any Adjustment Disorder diagnosis. At least one variety of a Blue Cross policy paid such a claim, then later asked a Louisiana S.W. for a refund, saying they didn’t cover couple or family sessions for an individual diagnosis. It would be wise to confirm such coverage in writing ahead of time.

Larry Gooch brought up at the board meeting and has since solved this: Family Managed Care of Baton Rouge had a closed panel while contracted to serve EBR Parish and EBR Parish Schools’ employees. Larry said “my taxes go to support employees who can’t utilize my services? I don’t think so!” They have since welcomed any of the 582 BR area LCSW’s into their panel. Just call Ann Pulliam at 225-765-8500.

Laura Myers reported positive results from contacting APS (Am Psyc Sys) and the Louisiana Insurance Commissioners Office about APS. If you have problems with them, possible solutions may lie in contacting:

Robert Levine, LCSW
Manager of Complaints at APS
P.O. Box 10517
Rockville, MD 20849
1-800-305-3720 x3740 complaints@APShealthcare.com

Or

J. Robert Wooley
LA Insurance Commissioner
P.O. Box 94214
Baton Rouge, LA 70802
1-800-259-5300 or 1-800-259-5301

In preparation for our effort to eliminate the Consultation and Collaboration (C&C) clause in our Vendorship laws this legislative session, our lobbyist, Maxine Cormier, and Legislative Chair, Debbie Fernandez, urge that we each take our local legislator for lunch or breakfast prior to the session; this coming from how can we help you (as an advisor on mental health issues) and to just get mutually acquainted.

We want to eventually make the case that Blue Cross, the only company to ever apply the C&C clause, has already withdrawn it as a requirement to payment for those on their panel. It will neither increase the number of providers nor any expense. It will save the unnecessary expense of the C&C itself. It will not preclude S.W.’s or M.D.’s from consulting with each other when it would be appropriate. More on this as time unfolds.

For half-time entertainment as the board ate lunch, Stan Masinter played his bag pipes in full regalia. A good time was had by all and the FCC didn’t need to be called. The board will next meet at Synergy on April 23rd. Any member is welcome to join in attendance.

For All Members

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I Have A Dream (The Demise of Managed Care) #6—
by Terry J. Zenner

Oh me of little faith: to follow up from the last “I Have A Dream”….my “managed EAP” client actually paid the $20 co-pay! Not only do I now have a little more faith, I also have more hope based on the following partial quote of an article in ACCESS(winter 2003), the newsletter of the CSWF. Shared here with permission of the author, John Chiaramonte, MSW:

“Managed mental health care has begun the reverse evolution of going back into the hole from which it crawled out some 13 years ago. Today Cigna Health Care has done away with its OTR mandate (ongoing treatment reviews), Oxford gives out ongoing treatment authorizations with minimal information gathering from therapists, most existing managed mental health care plans have reduced their micromanaging utilization review techniques and have laid off thousands of utilization review agents. In fact, these days most health maintenance organizations offer their constituents the option for a point of service plan. (POS)

Indeed, when you look at the trends across the country, it appears that many insurance companies are beginning to look more and more like the indemnity plans that these HMO’s replaced. Unfortunately, the same conditions that brought about the managed care solution are now appearing on the horizon in the form of increasingly untenable health care insurance costs.

I think that this reverse evolution has come about due to a grass roots effort by patients and therapists alike to expose to the public the faults of a program that rewards non-service, or at best, limited service to people in dire need of care. Certainly newspaper accounts of patients’ suffering under managed care helped to sensitize the nation and its legislators to an untenable situation (e.g. “is it managed or mangled care?”).

Unfortunately, it seems that as managed care has deteriorated, the costs of health care insurance have risen and with it, the concerns of politicians who are looking for new ways of controlling the burgeoning health care dollar.”

Here’s five more ways to say to MCO’s, “Take this contract and ……”

26. Get training to qualify to do custody evaluations

27. Qualify as a “SAP”(Substance Abuse Professional for Dept. of Transportation evaluations

28. Consider spiritual related specialties that are not doctrinaire: Enneagram, Jung

29. Specialize in treating a specific age group’s “problems in living”

30. Focus on talks on mental health, gaining reputation for paid talks

Welcome to new LACSW members who joined since 12-01-03:

If any LACSW member would like to post a short clinical article on our website (no charge) crediting yourself and with a link to your website if you have one, contact Charlene Spears at 337-237-9150

Fire! What the 1st Amendment Does NOT Allow Us To Say In A Movie Theatre...

...But it’s OK if to alert you to “licensure creep.” What is THAT?! It’s the diluting of Social Work territory by LPC’s, BCSAC’s, LMFT’s, would be CEAP’s and other acronymious (Webster-Zenner dictionary) “providers” of mental health. In fairness I would have to assume that psychologists and psychiatrists sometimes refer to us similarly. To borrow a perfectly used line by candidate John Edwards addressed to John Kerry after the Wisconsin primary: “Objects behind you are closer than they appear.”

Each of these professions had their unique origins and constituents that juiced them toward licensure. Likewise, more generic social workers within NASW might look askance at Clinical Social Workers with concern for our having sought an organization to distinguish our specialty. Bottom line, for the future of our niche to survive and thrive, each of us need not only lookover our shoulder, but into the horizon. If we want the latter to be a sunrise rather than a sunset, it’s time we each get a lot more FIRE in the belly. It is past time that we stoke the cooling ambers of clinical training within graduate schools. The school’s reasons for not tending to this is “that’s not where the money is.” That’s actually hard to argue with. The answer then becomes “how do we get that money there again?” It has a lot to do with who we vote into political office. This being the season for that, I would hope that “ya’ll” (as a native Minnesotan I can spell ya’ll, I just can't pronounce it with authenticity) GET INVESTED in politics; local, state and federal.

Another way we can have the effect of reviving clinical education is to get united among ourselves. Some of you may not know this but a multitude of social workers’ calls and letters salvaged the grad school at LSU from being made subservient to another department a couple of years ago.

Minimally it makes horse sense to me, that if today’s rookie Louisiana LCSW wants to complete a career as a reimbursed clinical social worker, he or she each should be paid members and actively involved in LACSW. Let me repeat my horse sense: every social worker practicing in clinical mental health in this state owes their career the annual investment of membership in LACSW. If you’re saying, “but that’s not where the money is”, you’re right. If you’re saying, “that’s where too much of my money is,” I don’t think so. For the bulk of my 30 years practicing in this state I have paid for both NASW and LACSW (or its historical equivalents). That’s been a sacrifice I’ve been willing to prioritize. I also know neither organization has money to throw away. Frame it as a collective payment toward our own practice continuance; and let’s not shortchange ourselves.

Though the gratification may be delayed, truly it is a prime form of “taking care of ourselves.”

We know that there are 180+ B.C.D’s in Louisiana and 303+ Louisiana members of NASW who joined their mental health special interest group. Though I’m a B.C.D., I don’t see either of these constituencies having a local impact.

My high school mentor wrote in my year book, “Aim high and persevere.” That stuck in my mind for a life-time. I hereby wish to imprint in the reader’s head the same lofty goal. Louisiana has been a leader nationally with early licensing and vendorship. As I write, LACSW has 81 paid members. If we still want Huey’s “chicken in every pot” of clinical social workers, then I say we shoot for “300 PAID MEMBERS OF LACSW!!! AND PERSEVERE!!!

Absurd? Historically the most we’ve ever had was 109 members in 1986. As a percentage of practitioners then, that was probably not far away from proposing we now get 300. The years are passing as we’ve been sleeping. Many birthdays are better than the alternative. The same goes for our profession. Let’s live, not die. If I’ve been preaching to the chair, and you’ve already done your advocacy, please pass the FIRE!

You ask why? Or why now? This writing was inspired by a call from our President-Elect, Judy Haspel. She used the term “we’re sleeping” in response to an article in the NASW News about social workers in Maryland fighting to not have to get extra training to supervise substance abuse counselors. I at first dismissed her concerns, saying LACSW has always fought to protect our profession, and in spite of that, competition has surfaced. Could we have done/do anymore in the future? In response I jump-started in the form of “FIRE”, saying we’re not sleeping on my watch. So thanks Judy. It’s good to know our future president feels the same.

Forgive me, if I’m expressing a little out of character mania, but I identify with the TV anchor in the old movie “Network”, who asked everybody to go to their window and shout, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

“It” being managed care and its ilk and the demise of clinical training. I joined the Guild naively thinking it could literally strike against managed care. Well, by definition a guild can’t do that. Nor do I propose we unionize. What I’m thinking is that if we could just get the vast majority of clinical social workers to join LACSW, then we could take strong advocacy positions as a group. It may then not have the teeth of a strike, but we could have a felt impact, especially in the legislature We would be pro-active in “Healthy United Behavior” (nice twist, eh?) in our own behalf. HUBa HUBa HUBa !!

If someone were to ask me the miracle question, who would be doing what if I awoke from a dream to discover the world of social work as I would like it, my answer would be each member of LACSW renewing their membership annually and personally successfully enlisting ONLY 3 more to join; this slowly, persistently over a year, coming from “ease and excitement.” Wiz Bang! By Sept ‘05 80 members become 320! Hard work? Yes, but I’m fresh out of the movie Miracle; a must see inspiration movie. Forgive my drooling.

Terry Zenner

Cajun Joke

Ovide, Jacque and Boudreaux were having a drink at the bar. The bartender noticed that they were getting a little philosophical in their discussions about death. He said, “Would you mind if I asked you, Ovide, what you’d like people to say about you as they pass by your coffin?” Ovide said, “I’d like them to say I was a responsible citizen who always voted and paid my taxes willingly.” The bartender said, “How about you Jacque?” Jacque said," I'd like them to say I was a good husband, good father, and I always took my family responsibilities seriously.” Then the bartender asked, “Boudreaux, how bout you? What would you like people to say as they look at you in the coffin?” Boudreaux said, “Hmm me? I’d like them to say “Look, he moved!”

Treasurer’s Report
 Charlene Spears, LCSW (Laf)

Upcoming Workshops

LACSW
P.O. Box 14153
Baton Rouge, LA 70808
Phone: 225-761-1668
Fax: 337-989-8458
Email: LACSW2@hotmail.com

Our Corporate Sponsor, Synergy, Offers Regional Services

Synergy Healthcare Group offers Inpatinet Psychiatric Services in Baton Rouge and Lutcher, as well as Community Mental Health Centers in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Slidell.

Transitional Living services are offered in Baton Rouge and new Orleans, and Home Healthcare Services are located in Baton Rouge, Hammond, Alexandria, Lafayette, and Kenner.

Referral Lines:

Transitional Living:

Synergy Home Health:

Moving? Missed an Issue?

Please contact us at:

LACSW P.O. Box 14153 Baton Rouge, LA 70808
or
lacsw2@hotmail.com

To Contact Your Licensing Board:

Send $5.00 to the board for a copy of “The Rules, Standards, and Procedures of the Louisiana Social Work Practice Act– amended Oct.24, 2003.

Contact Information:

LACSW Officers:

President–Terry Zenner 337-989-9350

President Elect—Judith Haspel 504-891-5807

Secretary—Leesa Sitter 318-226-8753

Treasurer—Charlene Spears 337-237-9150

Regional Board—

Baton Rouge—Anita Evans, Deborah Fernandez, Judy Holland, Maureen Powell, Justin Schleis, Larry Gooch

New Orleans– Anne Heard, Mimi Jalenak, Donna Lewis, Marisa Miller, George Morlier, Laura Myers

Slidell— Maria Klette-Ketchum

Covington— Carol Miles

Shreveport— Beth Porter,  Peggy Salley