PsychCoverage – Company Background
Monday, October 1st, 2012
PsychCoverage was started in 1995 by Jack and Jill Coughlin, 2 Psychiatric Registered Nurses in San Diego, CA. Jack and Jill began providing weekend coverage to 7 Psychiatrists from Psycare, then a small but growing outpatient Psychiatry Group Practice in San Diego. PsyCare is now one of the largest outpatient practices in San Diego County, and PsychCoverage continues to provide weekend and vacation coverage and triage services to 18 of the Psychiatrists in the practice, including 6 of the 7 original MD’s. We now provide after hours and Mon-Fri coverage for triage, prescription refills and clinical call backs for a growing number of Psychiatrists throughout the state of California.
Bringing a unique psychiatric nursing-based approach to managing after-hours urgent and emergent calls that we refer to as “Brief Care Management”, the RNs of PsychCoverage provide support, crisis management, education and follow up to private practice patients in distress during times when their Psychiatrist is unavailable.
PsychCoverage has evolved into a full time operation that has recently completed the development of Searchlight, the first of its kind web-based platform designed to provide continuity of care through documentation of after-hours psychiatric emergencies and electronic, HIPPA compliant notification to providers. Using 18 years of experience as a guide, PsychCoverage has developed policies and procedures which are designed to improve access and to establish standards of care for six distinct call categories that encompass the majority of after hours calls. They include Urgent Prescription Refill requests, assessment of symptoms and side effects, patient/family education, referral to Medical ER, Emergency Psych hospitalizations and activation of first responders for life threatening emergencies. The dual mission of PsychCoverage is to substantially improve the quality of after hours patient care and to provide a trusted, reliable and affordable service to Psychiatrists wanting a break from providing 24/7 on call access to their patients.