Dr. Eric Bender

Can you do a medication consultation?

Can you meet the patient?

Now, in that case...

The consultation is not as long as necessarily three or four meetings.

It's often maybe one hour, two hours.

It depends on how people practice.

But then you would meet that person for follow-ups that are, say, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes.

Your therapist is still the primary person you see.

But there should be a good collaboration between the two.

And psychiatrists are notorious for not calling back therapists.

I was always taught, call back the therapist.

So as soon as I finished with a patient back in residency, when I was treating them for meds only, I'd call the therapist and say, just saw so-and-so, they look okay.

Let me know if you have any questions.

And you'd be shocked how many people would be like, you're the only person that called me about this.

I actually really like that when I am working with other providers because I like collaboration.

This person sees this aspect of the patient.

And sometimes I'll even say to a patient, can I have consent to talk to your doctor?

And I'll say, you know, how would you feel about me meeting your partner?

Because maybe that would help.

It sounds like there's a lot of stuff going on between the two of you.