Yesterday, I started a post on the evils of paperwork in my chosen profession. How worthless for describing the client’s change mentally and emotionally, and its only goal is to repeatedly force us to prove we can do our job daily (it doesn’t). But I shit-canned it.
This morning, the post came back with a vengeance.
Anyway, suffice it to say that the one thing I most hate about my profession is paperwork. Having had the opportunity to read my clinical chart from when I was in a halfway house, I realized they missed every meaningful event that led me to recovery and sobriety. In talking with others who also went through treatment before becoming an LADC or even an ADC-T (Alcohol, Drug Counselor-Trainee), I found they had similar experiences. Change and growth are subjective experiences that rarely get seen by professionals. We kid ourselves into believing that their treatment experience will cause that growth and change to occur in groups right in front of us.
Bullshit.
Most of my growth occurred outside of the treatment facility. It happened in my interactions with others in recovery at meetings, at sober activities, and in quiet, reflective moments long after I completed treatment. No amount of paperwork can ever capture that growth.
Don’t get me wrong. My time at the halfway house in 1985 was necessary for me to grow and develop a program of recovery. But it wasn’t the only place where it happened. It primed me. It gave me the tools and ability to be open to those moments in life where I gained insight, recognized patterns of thoughts and behaviors that were unhealthy, and overcame them to remain sober.
However, for clients I’ve worked with, I’ve seen what appeared to be insight and understanding by some, only to learn later that they relapsed and returned to active addiction and criminality. I’ve also experienced clients who were combative through the whole treatment process, only to discover years later they were still sober. In both cases, the paperwork required by the State and Insurance companies had almost nothing to do with capturing the client’s change and everything to do with forcing us repeatedly that we are qualified to do our job.
Oh, and for insurance companies to deny claims because we didn’t properly cross our i’s and dot our t’s.
Yes, you read that right.
It’s the trick of every conperson to overload their marks with excessive information and pressure. The insurance companies learned that the more paperwork they demand, the more arbitrary time limits they insist on setting, results in more mistakes and errors, and creates justification for the denial of services. They are running a legal con game. One that results in the early death of people they were supposedly tasked with helping to live healthy, productive lives. Instead, profit goes towards the shareholder who can buy the top-shelf caviar at the expense of their customer’s lives.
