The 2 Biggest Blocks to Writing Progress Notes

 Today I’m going to tell you a juicy secret.

What kind of secret? I’m going to share the two most common things I hear from therapists about what blocks them from writing their progress notes.

I know you’re thinking that if I hear it all the time, it’s not a secret, right? Well it’s a secret therapists keep from each other, and I’m here to air it out so we know we’re all dealing with the same issues.

Issue #1

FEAR

Yup, fear. Fear is a huge block. Lots of therapists become paralyzed when they sit down to write progress notes because they don’t know what to write.

They worry about who will read a note and what they might say about it. Even if a therapist has never had a progress note critiqued, never had a negative comment, never had a progress note read in court, so many are afraid that those things are lying in wait, just around the next corner.

People sit down to write their progress notes, or they think about writing progress notes, and this fear actually stops them from writing altogether.

Other things therapists are afraid of are audits or client record requests. The idea of a client reading progress notes, even if they’re written, can be terrifying. Embarrassment about the idea of progress notes making clients look bad or un-professional can also keep therapists from writing case notes or being as thorough as they should be.

Issue #2

PERFECTIONISM

This is huge for a lot of therapists, people who have Masters or Doctorate Degrees, so they are used to doing things well!

And when it comes to case notes, we don’t typically get a lot of training in writing case notes, and there isn’t a lot of information out there about how to write case notes, or even a general criteria therapists can refer to if they want to be sure they’re covering the right bases and writing really good progress notes.

That freaks a lot of people out.

So a lot of us think our case notes have to be perfect, and I know many therapists who spend 25-30 minutes on ONE note for ONE client!

If you see ten clients each week, that’s already FIVE hours a week of writing case notes, and you’re only getting paid for ten of the fifteen total hours of work. No one should be doing 50% more work than they’re getting paid for, right? But a lot of therapists agonize over every word in a progress note.

Usually that agony is really about a lack of knowledge about what needs to be in a progress note.

I’ve also seen people paralyzed with worry over writing the right thing. They’re so concerned that they don’t write the progress notes at all, which is actually super common if someone is behind in their progress notes. The idea of writing the wrong thing is so anxiety-provoking that they just don’t write the progress note at all.

Now we need a solution, though, right?

Here is the one thing that I’ve seen help therapists overcome both of those issues: Having a community and a push to get those progress notes done.

My challenge to you today is to find that community and that push.

Accountability and support are key to solving this problem.

Leave me a comment below about your biggest block to writing case notes. Take the leap of putting that out there into the world right here, where there’s no judgment, ever.