How bad did I screw up tracking internship hours

[LucidMind]

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Hi all!

I am halfway through my second year in a clinical psych PhD program. I have been keeping track of all my face to face hours (with clients, supervision, etc). However, I recently found out that I need to be tracking other things too (scoring assessments, writing reports, etc). Is there anywhere online where I can see exactly what type of hours I need to keep track of?

 

[Ollie123]

I'd just look at the APPIC website - the actual instructions should be available.

That said, I absolutely wouldn't worry about this too much, if at all. Face to face and supervision actually mean something and matter. I and pretty much everyone else I know just did a really gross estimate for support hours (e.g. Z therapy sessions x 10 minutes per progress note). Don't flat out make something up, but this is the last thing you need to worry about when it comes to internship apps. I've yet to hear of a site that even looks at it.

Its enough of a pain tracking hours, its a total waste of time to track every little minutia of support hours (especially since it all gets lumped into one category anyways). You'll drive yourself crazy and use up time that should be spent on meaningful aspects of training (publishing, etc.).

 

[LucidMind]

I'd just look at the APPIC website - the actual instructions should be available.

That said, I absolutely wouldn't worry about this too much, if at all. Face to face and supervision actually mean something and matter. I and pretty much everyone else I know just did a really gross estimate for support hours (e.g. Z therapy sessions x 10 minutes per progress note). Don't flat out make something up, but this is the last thing you need to worry about when it comes to internship apps. I've yet to hear of a site that even looks at it.

Its enough of a pain tracking hours, its a total waste of time to track every little minutia of support hours (especially since it all gets lumped into one category anyways). You'll drive yourself crazy and use up time that should be spent on meaningful aspects of training (publishing, etc.).

Thanks for the reply Ollie, that does make me feel better. So, this might be a weird question, but do a lot of people look back and "average out" their support hours? For example, if somebody spends about 5 minutes on progress notes per client, would they just do 5 multiplied by however many clients they have seen? Is that a common thing to do?

 

[futureapppsy2]

Thanks for the reply Ollie, that does make me feel better. So, this might be a weird question, but do a lot of people look back and "average out" their support hours? For example, if somebody spends about 5 minutes on progress notes per client, would they just do 5 multiplied by however many clients they have seen? Is that a common thing to do?

Like Ollie said, I have honestly yet to hear of a site that cared about support hours beyond that your number was reasonable given your reported assessment and intervention hours, so I think averaging would be fine. In the future, though, I'd just immediately track both your F2F and support hours whenever you meet with clients in order to reduce the stress of doing it retroactively.

(Also, do people really finish a progress note for an hour long session in 5 minutes? If so, I know feel slow when it comes to note writing! 😉 )

 

[LucidMind]

Like Ollie said, I have honestly yet to hear of a site that cared about support hours beyond that your number was reasonable given your reported assessment and intervention hours, so I think averaging would be fine. In the future, though, I'd just immediately track both your F2F and support hours whenever you meet with clients in order to reduce the stress of doing it retroactively.

(Also, do people really finish a progress note for an hour long session in 5 minutes? If so, I know feel slow when it comes to note writing! 😉 )

That sounds like a great plan futureapppsy, much appreciated! I can use as much stress reduction as possible these days . As far as progress notes go, they do usually take me longer (10 min for a productive session), but one of my externship sites expects us to be very, very, very efficient.

 

[Ollie123]

I certainly averaged mine out - that really was how I did mine. Figured about 10 minutes per note, about 3 hours per clinic intake report, 5-10 for really extensive assessment reports (I forget exactly), etc. and just did the math. I honestly didn't think it was worthwhile to put more effort into it.

I can easily bang out a progress note in 5-10 minutes if properly focused. I typically use a narrative format (vs. DAP/SOAP) and strive for brevity barring some specific need for more extensive documentation like a risk assessment. I'm not convinced my notes are all that great, but haven't heard any complaints from supervisors.

 

[LucidMind]

I certainly averaged mine out - that really was how I did mine. Figured about 10 minutes per note, about 3 hours per clinic intake report, 5-10 for really extensive assessment reports (I forget exactly), etc. and just did the math. I honestly didn't think it was worthwhile to put more effort into it.

I can easily bang out a progress note in 5-10 minutes if properly focused. I typically use a narrative format (vs. DAP/SOAP) and strive for brevity barring some specific need for more extensive documentation like a risk assessment. I'm not convinced my notes are all that great, but haven't heard any complaints from supervisors.

That is really helpful info, thanks Ollie! My report writing hours seem to be similar to yours

 

[futureapppsy2]

I certainly averaged mine out - that really was how I did mine. Figured about 10 minutes per note, about 3 hours per clinic intake report, 5-10 for really extensive assessment reports (I forget exactly), etc. and just did the math. I honestly didn't think it was worthwhile to put more effort into it.

I can easily bang out a progress note in 5-10 minutes if properly focused. I typically use a narrative format (vs. DAP/SOAP) and strive for brevity barring some specific need for more extensive documentation like a risk assessment. I'm not convinced my notes are all that great, but haven't heard any complaints from supervisors.

Ah, that makes sense. I work in a high risk (in terms of lawsuit potential) area and/or with high risk populations (suicide/NSSI), so we're focused on fairly extensive, CYA-type documentation.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

I certainly averaged mine out - that really was how I did mine. Figured about 10 minutes per note, about 3 hours per clinic intake report, 5-10 for really extensive assessment reports (I forget exactly), etc. and just did the math. I honestly didn't think it was worthwhile to put more effort into it.

I can easily bang out a progress note in 5-10 minutes if properly focused. I typically use a narrative format (vs. DAP/SOAP) and strive for brevity barring some specific need for more extensive documentation like a risk assessment. I'm not convinced my notes are all that great, but haven't heard any complaints from supervisors.

I did the same, in no small part because I didn't end up tracking any of my hours until the very end of grad school. So I ballparked it with similar numbers to those above (although I think I might've set it at 2 hours per report as a way of being uber-conservative).

 

[Ollie123]

(although I think I might've set it at 2 hours per report as a way of being uber-conservative).

I actually think this clearly illustrates why no one cares about that section (or should care). If I take a long time to write reports that isn't exactly a "positive" for my application! 😉

 

[racek]

I recommend looking at APPIC requirements as others have mentioned. Time2Track is a good application that can help you efficiently document, but you'll need to be familiar with what APPIC needs documented as well.