Can you contact your therapist/pdoc after hours?

If you have an urgent matter that is not to crisis level and not worthy of calling 911 or going to the E.R., what do you do?

Are you allowed to call your therapist or pdoc after hours or on weekends? Do they give you someone else you can call, like an answering service?

Do you call a crisis line?

What if it's a specific question related to your medications?

A question related to medications should be asked of your doctor. If it's not an emergency, I'd call during office hours and/or leave a message asking for a call-back. There are some "nurses" call centers; I would check your online health insurance site too, see if they have a call center or ideas.

I'm speaking in general terms because I want to know what everyone else does and if I'm expecting too much.

I had an issue that occured Friday night at Midnight and my psychiatrist doesn't return phone calls until after he's seen all his clients at 6:00 PM Monday evening. He has no answering service, no backup, nothing.

Even when I asked him about this he really had no suggestions other than to scold me for messing up on my medications. I didn't do it on purpose! And it's not my fault my husband and I had a huge fight right after! Well, maybe it's my fault.

But rather than telling me "well you should have done X" I really need to know what to do if this happens again. Because honestly, it's not the first time.

I ended up calling my prior provider but I'm not her patient anymore so I really shouldn't have called her.

I can call and leave a message with my pdoc (who is my t as well). He will usually have his secretary call me back with an answer or to find out what I want. Rarely will he actually call me back, even if he says he will call me.

If I end up having a problem with my meds, I usually quit taking them until my next visit, which are a month apart. Obviously not an ideal situation, but it's what I have to work with.

My T doesn't allow contact between visits unless it's for something like rescheduling appointments. I have occassionally e-mailed her (like less than 12 times in 11 years of seeing) her when I have big news such as losing my job or the possibility of going IP.

My pdoc - no after hours contact, I can call him during office hours if I'm in crisis and he usually gets back to me the same day. He says if I'm in crisis I'm supposed to go to the psych hospital's ER, which I'm really hesitant to do. I see him every week so if I have a meds question it can usually wait, or if it's something that's really bothering me, I'll ask my pharmacist. I don't have my pdoc's e-mail.

--splitimage

i can t call a therapist on weekends,but i can leave a message to him when it is really urgent

I only have a few clients whom can contact me after hours via my personal cell phone number.

I am a client myself, and my therapist has asked me to utilize her availability of phone contact (evenings, nights, weekends, etc) between sessions due to having DID. This is foreign to me

I can leave a voice mail or send an e-mail to my T after hours/on weekends. I'm pretty sure he has NEVER called me back on a weeknight, even if I needed a call back. He will call back the next day. He has called me back on the weekend the two times I asked for a call - one was because a friend had died unexpectedly, and I can't remember the reason for the other one, but it must have been pretty serious for me to ask for a call on the weekend.

My T is SUPER busy and is often out of town, so he is really hard to reach if it's not office hours. When he's out of town, he has a back up therapist I can call, and he also leaves the number of a local psych hospital on his message for emergencies.

I'm in an HMO - if I had a medication problem I'd need to visit urgent care to see an MD or an ER when it is after hours. There is an emergency number to call to get instructions or if you are in immediate danger of harm, but again it's a central HMO number not tied to my pDoc.

For therapist after hours? Leave a VM or email. Get answer during business hours.
So, I've used my other lifelines - forums, friends, family, etc.

It's good to know what the choices are, and sometimes you will have to choose something that is not ideal (such as going to the ER for a "medication problem". it may seem like overkill?) in order to get appropriate care.
But the most important thing is to take care of yourself, even if it's not ideal.

It is odd that your pdoc doesn't have back-up at all. Anyway, one other option would be to call a 24 hour pharmacy for a med question. A pharmacist could answer basic, general questions about a med if there was a problem or side effect you are wondering about. Mind you, their advice might very well be call your doctor, but they would at least let you know if this was an emergent situation or something that could wait.

My pdoc is in a large practice and I can always get hold of some pdoc (not always necessarily my own) in an emergency, but they don't consider med questions emergencies and probably wouldn't forward that kind of message.

Neither my T nor my psychiatrist take after-hours calls. They both have messages on their VM referring clients to 911/ER in case of an emergency.

I have left after-hours messages for T and they get returned mid-day the following day.

Perhaps you can work with your provider to set up some sort of decision tree for yourself, so you know what to do. The tree would contain a list of certain really important symptoms, and underneath each symptom, what to do on the weekend if you can't reach pdoc for advice. For example, one symptom might be "really bad depression." Underneath it would be possible actions: take additional 10 mg of Med X, increase anxiety med, discontinue Med Y immediately, no alcohol, sleep 8 hours, etc. (I am just giving that as an example and making up what to do. You would have to work out the "tree" for each symptom with your pdoc.) Hopefully, he could help you with this so that you could last the weekend. You shouldn't be left wondering if you can increase or decrease/stop a med, etc. If he is not available for medical advice for 3 days each weekend, he either needs to give you the phone of an alternative on-call provider or give you a tool to make a decision in his absence. I hope next time you see him you will tell him your dilemma and ask what he recommends doing when he can't be reached.

I have never called my PNP after hours, but I did call her once with a med question during business hours between sessions. She called back within a couple of hours.

In general I don't contact my T between sessions, unless it is to cancel or reschedule, and I can either email or phone him for this purpose. He doesn't provide phone therapy services between sessions or after hours. If I call his number after hours, he has a recording that gives the number for the local crisis line.

My former T would answer my phone calls in the evening and on week-ends. She worked out of her home so she saw clients at night and would sometimes call me back after her last client.

I can email my current T anytime, and she emails me back at her convenience, but usually the same day or the next one. She doesn't want me to call her unless it's urgent, though.

I agree with sunrise: there should be some kind of plan for when you need a question answered about your medications and it's after hours.

depends on the therapist and the organization they work for. generally if they do not accept calls after hours, it is expected that you will go to the hospital if it is a true crisis. if it is not a true crisis, you are expected to sit with the feelings and wait for a call back. I'm not sure what the policy is for the therapists who do no contact outside of sessions at all. I personally don't believe in that. But generally therapist's are understanding enough that they know therapy sometimes spills into real life and you need some extra support. Again, it is up to the therapist how/when/how often contact is made.

I have a cell number for my T if I have an emergency, and my pdoc has an emergency phone number on her business card.

I can email T who is very good at responding, but I do try to limit it between sessions - don't always email, and very seldom more than once. On the other hand, despite having given out their email address, my pdoc sent me away with a flea in my ear yesterday - not necessarily what was said but the way it was said, so I think I will look for someone new.

My t does not return phone calls or emails except during business hours. She doesn't work on Fridays either, so by COB on Thursday, I know I won't have any contact until she returns to work the following Monday morning. HOWEVER, she has told me if i get into a true CRISIS, i can call her after hours on my cell phone. (I've done that 2-3 times in 10+years.)

I can call T whenever and leave a message because she has a dedicated cell for her clients. I have only used it twice in 2 and a half years. Also, I can e-mail her if I need to...done that twice.

My T does not accept phone calls ever, not even when she is in the office. I can ask to move up my appt if there is an opening or go to the ED.

My Pdoc is always available by email. I have sent him email at midnight before and he responded quickly. He has also responded to my email when he was on vacation.

the way things are set up for mental health around here all the mental health agencies have to have someone on call 24/7. there is a beeper that the on call person carries around with them. they carry the beeper for a week then its handed over to the next one on call. After hours the calls are "call forwarded" to the beeper number. during working hours if someone calls in and their therapist is busy they are asked if they want to leave a message or talk to the on call person while waiting for their therapist to become available. if they cant hold on until their therapist can call them back that call is forwarded to the beeper phone number.

we also do have a hot line number and the ER that people can use any time.

there have been occasions when I have had to call and be forwarded to the on call person with the beeper. Sometimes its just to ask about a medication reaction, sometimes its just to hear my therapists or the therapists on call voice because of panic or other serious problems, quite a few times it was because I could not remember my appointment day and time.