Designing Effective Mental Health Treatment Plans

Mental health treatment plans are essential tools for clinicians, clients, and insurance companies alike. 

At their most basic level, they function as a roadmap for progress, laying out concrete goals and steps designed to help the client get there. 

Learn about the core components of a mental health treatment plan needed to ensure measurable results and why tracking progress is essential.

‍

Table of Contents

• What Is a Treatment Plan in Mental Health?
• What Is the Purpose of a Mental Health Treatment Plan? 
• Why Are Mental Health Treatment Plans Important to Insurance Companies?
• How Do You Write a Mental Health Treatment Plan? 
• 4 Core Components of a Mental Health Treatment Plan
• Model of a Treatment Plan for Mental Health
• Why Tracking a Client’s Progress Through Their Mental Health Treatment Plan Is Important 
• Ritten: Simplified EMR Software for Managing Treatment Plans

‍

What Is a Treatment Plan in Mental Health?

A mental health treatment plan aims to help a person overcome and/or manage mental health challenges.

Mental health treatment plan goals and objectives typically include: 

• Defining the problem or issue a person is suffering with.
• Establishing clear treatment goals, noting important milestones and objectives.
• Identifying or developing strategies to help a client respond to triggers, etc.
• Describing the treatment prescribed by the health/mental health professional.
• Setting a general timeline for treatment progress. 

The treatment plan can be used by both therapists and clients to help facilitate communication and discussion, plus it acts as a reminder and motivational tool. Referencing the treatment plan is also a helpful way to check in and measure milestones during treatment. 

What Is the Purpose of a Mental Health Treatment Plan?

Treatment plans serve as a tool to ensure a client is set up for success — however “success” is defined for them. It also helps ensure treatment progress is actually being made. 

They establish, in writing, the necessary support clients can expect from each of the people responsible for mental health treatment, including:

• Psychologists 
• GPs
• Psychiatrists
• Psychiatric nurses
• Partial hospitalization programs 
• Intensive outpatient providers
• Other community care providers

The mental health treatment plan ensures that all parties listed above know who is responsible for what and when.

They also allow relevant clinicians to lay out and justify their reasoning for recommended treatment plan steps, modalities, and frequencies while giving clients the agency to measure their own progress.

It’s important to acknowledge that there’s no one way to create a treatment plan. Even though circumstances or experiences may be similar for two people, they will never be the same — simply because no two people are. 

Each plan will be unique to the client and their ultimate goal for treatment. 

‍

Why Are Mental Health Treatment Plans Important to Insurance Companies? 

Insurance companies want to avoid situations where clients aren’t allowed to or aren’t given the tools to measure their own mental health progress. 

For every session with a client, a clinician should be noting which element of the mental health treatment plan is being addressed and how progress is being made. 

Many insurance companies actually require a treatment plan to pay for certain treatment options. So as a client, treatment plans are essential unless you’re comfortable paying out of pocket. 

‍

When it comes to mental health, a single client can have multiple issues, diagnoses, and treatment plans, so detailed plans and frequent progress notes help insurance companies decide which treatments to approve or deny.

How Do You Write a Mental Health Treatment Plan?

Developing a plan requires working with those involved (including doctors, facilitators, therapists, etc.) to outline the following four core components of a basic treatment plan in relation to a client’s specific mental health struggles: 

1. Problem identification
2. Goal setting
3. Objectives
4. Interventions 

When a clinician is writing a mental health treatment plan, they’ll typically take into account: 

• A client’s personal history and demographics, including psychosocial history and any recorded past symptoms or treatments.
• Current and past assessment/diagnosis of mental health issues. 
• Documentation of the problems or symptoms that led the client to seek professional help.
• The official contract between the therapist and client where the desired treatment goals are outlined.
• A clear designation of the elements of treatment that the client will be responsible for versus the therapist. 
• Any related strengths or resources the client brings to treatment, including family support, marital support, etc.
• The specific, measurable treatment goals are customized to reach the client’s realistic desired outcome. 
• The smaller steps that lead up to the larger treatment goals, ie. how the client will reach each goal. 
• Which treatment modalities the client will be using and their respective session frequency.
• The estimated completion date for each goal. 
• The specific techniques, exercises, interventions, etc., that will be applied for each goal. 

Lastly, leaving space where clients and clinicians can track progress toward targeted objectives and goals is an essential part of a mental health treatment plan

4 Core Components of a Mental Health Treatment Plan

‍

#1: Problem Identification

Every problem will have designated and measurable goals associated with how to work through and overcome it. 

Any problems, current concerns, and/or mental health issues that led the individual to seek treatment should be laid out during this step so the clinician can include them in the writing of the mental health treatment plan.

Problem statements are often related to, or stem from, one of the following six categories:

• Medical status
• Employment and support
• Drug/alcohol use
• Legal status
• Family/social status
• Psychiatric status

‍

Examples of Problems in a Treatment Plan for Mental Health

Mental health problems that can be addressed with a mental health treatment plan might include:

• I’m having trouble feeling confident in social situations. 
• I’m struggling to keep up a good relationship with my parents.
• My husband and I are disagreeing about how to parent our young child. 
• I’m feeling overwhelmed as a single parent and am experiencing symptoms of depression. 

Additional symptoms and recorded medical history related to the problems shared will also be included in the treatment plan. 

These details can help set the stage for a medical team and the client to create realistic goals and stepping stones to get there. 

#2: Goal-Setting

Given that each person is unique, goals and objectives will vary vastly from each client to the next — especially given how different the situations that prompted treatment in the first place can be. 

Each problem identified should have an end goal that should be driven and defined only by the client. 

For example, “I want to talk to my family without getting angry.”

Why is goal setting so important? Think of goals in a mental health treatment plan as the building blocks. 

Designed to be specific, realistic, and unique to the client’s needs, the goals should outline concrete outcomes the client hopes to achieve with the help of mental health treatment. 

How each goal is phrased is of the utmost importance and should come directly from the client. This helps determine how the goal is approached and measured along with which objectives and initiatives should be incorporated into the language of the goal. 

‍

Examples of Goals in a Treatment Plan for Mental Health

A patient may have a number of goals they’ve turned to mental health treatment to try and achieve, including:

• Being able to express anger in a healthy manner. 
• Maintaining patience when triggered to respond with excess emotion. 
• Processing thoughts and feelings before acting. 

‍

#3: Objectives

Objectives are essentially goals broken into smaller measurable, quantifiable pieces.

Think of them as something that can realistically be met. Eventually, each objective will add up to meeting the goal.

As with many things in life, it’s much more approachable to tackle smaller tasks than larger ones. Objectives help clients take concrete, measurable steps toward their mental health goals.

‍

Examples of Objectives in a Treatment Plan for Mental Health

An objective for a mental health plan might be:

• I want to say yes to two social functions this month.
• I want to talk to my family three times a week without having an outburst.
• I want to enforce consequences for my children when they misbehave. 

‍

#4: Interventions

Think of interventions as, “What are we going to do to help achieve your objectives and goals?”

This component of a mental health treatment plan details the types of therapies, modalities, and education that will be employed.

‍

Examples of Interventions in a Treatment Plan for Mental Health

Mental health plan interventions may look like this:

• Going to therapy three times a week. 
• Starting an antidepressant.
• Providing education on positive parenting and aiding in the development of a concrete parenting plan.
• Taking an unplanned trip to the grocery store.

Model of a Treatment Plan for Mental Health

A mental health treatment plan might look like this: 

Problem: I’m having trouble managing my emotions and caring for my children throughout the day and am experiencing symptoms of depression.

Goal: I want to become more patient, present, and connected with my kids. 

Objective #1: Document the history of depression or mental health issues and any previous treatment attempts, strategies, and medications.

Date established: Targeted completion: Date completed:

Objective #2: Identify and list triggers that lead to feelings of stress and depression. 

Date established: Targeted completion: Date completed:

Objective #3: Write out a mental health treatment plan.      

Date established: Targeted completion: Date completed:

Interventions: The clinician will help the client identify factors that have led to feelings of depression and stress in the past. This process will include situations and triggers that may lead to similar emotions in the future. The clinician will recommend antidepressants and weekly therapy. Interventions are to be observed during the client’s individual therapy sessions.

Frequency: 60 minutes per week

Duration: Six months

‍

Why Tracking a Client’s Progress Through Their Mental Health Treatment Plan Is Important

Tracking progress is a huge component of treatment plans, so choosing an EMR system that can help execute and keep track of these details is crucial. With every session, you want to be able to mark what part of the treatment plan you’re working on. 

Ritten’s Progress Note template, one of its behavioral health tools, will pull in the client’s treatment plan and allow clinicians to select which problem, goal, objective, or intervention is the focus of that day’s session.

Tracking a client’s progress is essential for organization and demonstrates that there is structure and reasoning behind each approach. 

A Progress Note might resemble this: Today we worked on Objective #2 and identified that Sarah’s husband’s job is very demanding, which puts a lot of the household and parenting tasks onto her, leading to increased stress.

‍

Ritten: Simplified EMR Software for Managing Treatment Plans

With Ritten, keeping track of and following a mental health treatment plan is easier than ever. 

Our software ​​allows mental health professionals to easily create and modify unique documentation for each mental health treatment plan within our software’s intuitive form builder.

Plus, all members of a treatment team can customize notes and assessments to suit your practice — and match documentation requirements to specific service types for more seamless workflows. 

Book a demo today.