What's your moral framework? That can heavily influence your clinical and ethical decision-making -- but it might not line up well with the approach you're being tested on. This episode is especially true to our title: In deciding right and wrong, to Think Like the Test means to think from a much more rule-based approach than how many clinicians actually work.

This question comes from prior edition of our book Preparing for the 2023 California Clinical Social Work Law & Ethics Exam.

Your client has health insurance, but the insurance carrier is refusing to cover the client’s therapy because she is seeing you for couple therapy and does not, in your assessment, qualify for a diagnosis of mental illness. You should:

1. Assess the client’s ability to advocate on her own behalf with the insurance company.


2. Offer to include an “insurance diagnosis” on the client’s paperwork to facilitate coverage.


3. Work with the client to develop an alternative plan for payment.


4. Discontinue therapy. 

Ben Caldwell's license exam prep programs are available here. 

Intro/outro music: "Swampy Lands" by Adam Saban, licensed via Soundstripe.