Documenting Text Messages and Emails

“Do I need to copy and paste all emails from clients into their file?”

“How do I document or save text messages with clients?”

These are concerns that usually come up for mental health therapists after they start seeing clients, and after they’ve reviewed policies and procedures with them. It’s okay though, even if your client starts texting you out of the blue and you had no policy around this, you have plenty of options for documenting this conversation… easily and simply.

Let’s review some tips for documenting text messages and emails with your counseling clients:

1) Think of texts and emails like voicemail.

Remember when all you did was talk on the phone? Life was so much simpler then… in some ways.

The problem is that we often over-complicate things when they are new, and texting or emailing with clients is still relatively new in the world of mental health.

But when you think about it, texts and emails are commonly replacing communication that would have happened over the phone 20 years ago… so a good question to ask yourself is, “What would I do if this were a voicemail?”

You’d likely write a brief case note about the interaction. For example, you might write something like:

“Client left voicemail cancelling session due to being sick. I called her back and she will attend next session on xx/yy/zz.”

That’s it! Easy!!

Same thing with a text or email communicating the same type of information. Simply write a brief case note in the file so you remember what happened and it’s documented for good.

2) Summarize, summarize, summarize

I really don’t believe it’s necessary to copy and paste most emails or text messages with clients into a progress note. The key is to make sure you do have the communication documented in some way, and the easiest way to do this is to summarize in a brief case note, like the example above.

3) Don’t overwhelm yourself!

Tracking and copying all this information may be unrealistic but it doesn’t mean you’re being unethical or not able to document the important aspect of the communication.

And if you prefer to have ALL the back and forth communication with your clients, there are actually some cool apps available that will save this information for you. They offer a secure way to text with clients and the ability to print out or review any text messages.

The added benefit of email and text communication with your therapy clients is that, when needed, you actually can copy and paste the entire communication.

While I don’t recommend doing this every time, it can be very helpful when ethical dilemmas arise or when there is confusion about the communication.

So, in my opinion, these types of communication can actually be more useful than voicemails! It is unlikely you’d want to save a full voicemail from a client, but copying and pasting a long email into your case note takes about 30 seconds… and gives you a secure way to save potentially important communication.

Let us know in the comments below:

Do you save all your emails or text messages with clients? Do you use an app to communicate with clients and save all the data?

Remember, there’s no right or wrong answer here and we can all help one another by sharing.