Assessment and Consulting

[yeti2213]

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For a little while I was obsessed over how to get into a PhD program, now I'm obsessing over how one makes a living as a Psychologist. I think this is progress 🙂 Glad to have this forum btw, so much information that is freaking me out but ultimately helping me make a really informed decision.

I have read in a quite a few threads that assessments and consulting can be financially rewarding. But its not clear what those terms really mean, and I'm not seeing a lot online about it. So wondering if anyone can elaborate.

Here is my understanding so far:

Assessments are "tests" designed to measure specific things like intelligence, personality traits, learning styles, blah blah so on and so forth. These can be be administer by having people answer questions or observing reactions to certain tasks. Stating this just to make sure there isn't a major hole in a my basic understanding for what is being talked about.

That being said, I'm curious what populations are the main consumers of assessments. And who pays for the testing in those cases.

It seemed the school/education world where the people being tested are kids and the tests are related to ability to learn etc is one major grouping. But I can't figure out what other groups exists. And what sorts of people one assesses in those groups. Nor can I sort out what sorts of settings (private practice, in full time employment with a school or company) one has the opportunities to conduct assessments in.

Your answers are appreciated, and if there is a good book or online resource you can point me to that details this stuff, that would be awesome.

The consulting bit has me flummoxed. What sorts of organizations are clinical psychologists consulting with? What sort of questions are they being asked to bring their expertise to? What sorts of products are they delivering as an end goal of these consulting services?

 

[2012PhD]

Assessments are not my area of expertise, but i can chime in based on people i've worked with who do this kind of work. There are so many different assessment measures out there and you can work with any type of population from infants to older adults.

cognitive assessments: IQ testing/ADHD testing/LD assessments are a big area with children and adolescents. Parents will most likely pay out of pocket for these services because they want their kids to get accomodations or get placed into certain schools.

neuropsychological evaluations: the population here is varied, but you most likely need fellowship training after the PhD to do this well since its a pretty specialized area. Some of the referrals can come from physicians/other providers. Insurance/employers may pay for these tests. They are pretty expensive to pay for out of pocket.

Forensic testing: These can include child custody evaluations, expert witness, evaluating criminal defendents, fitness for duty. The clients usually pay for these. You can also get referrals through lawyers and court system. Insurance won't cover these i believe.

There are many more areas of testing that i'm probably forgetting right now. In graduate school, you would need to take cognitive and personality testing. This should be part of the curriculum. I would also recommend doing at least a 1 year placement that focuses on testing in a hospital, clinic, prison if you would like to pursue this later etc.

Consulting: I know some clinical psychologists who consult to organizations, similar to what I/O psychologists do. They may have taken some classes while in graduate school or a certificate program after. Our training can generalize to system level interventions. These psychologists do a wide range of consulting: including organizational restructuring, executive coaching, employee relations consulting, intelligence/personality testing for high level executive positions. This field is very lucrative, but probably takes some time to build these connections.

 

[2012PhD]

Landing a faculty position and doing assessments and consulting on the side would probably give you a lot more credibility than a sole practitioner.

 

[FadedC]

Consulting is a big part of school psychology as well, in addition to assessments of course. Teachers often need assistance in how to manage children in their classroom, either for behavioral reasons or to address possible educational problems. In my program we have to do one practicum which is just consultation.

Technically a test isn't an assessment. The assessment is the whole process of evaluating and making a decision about the person you are working with. It can involve tests, interviews, observations, etc.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

One of the biggest challenges to clinical consultation is billing. How do you bill it? There are all sorts of quirky billing options/issues. I'm in-patient, and even though a % of my time is "paid" for by general dept funds to cover the non-billable time, it still doesn't cover all of the time. Out-patient is a different animal, typically hourly work. Some people do a flat-fee, but that seems like it'd be asking for trouble from a patient/parent/other.