HOW WE WORK AT ADAGIO’S
Adagio offers psychological assessment and treatment for children, adolescents, adults, elderly people and families. We provide ambulatory care, treatment takes place at our practice during working hours, from 09:00 – 17:00 hrs. We do not offer clinical (daily) inpatient care.
Within basic mental health care we provide short-term client-centred treatment. Within specialist mental health care we provide long-term psychotherapies. Adagio offers psychotherapy for a large variety of psychological and psychiatric problems. In psychotherapy these problems are treated by means of talking. The objective is to reduce the problems. Before or alongside the treatment we offer standardised psychological assessment to determine the clients’ mental health symptoms, personality, (neuropsychological) skills and/or (neurological) development. It is possible to just go through this diagnostic process without also having therapy. When indicated, we closely work together with the clients’ close family, friends and with the GP or other referrers and institutions involved. At Adagio’s we always work in a multidisciplinary team consisting of psychologists, remedial educationalists, psychiatrists and social workers.
REFERRAL
To qualify for insured psychological help, you need a referral. For adult care, the referral is provided by the GP or another authorized caregiver. Minors can also be referred by the GP. Another route for children and adolescents are the Parent Child Teams in the boroughs. For the health insurance company to cover the costs of the treatment, it is important that we receive a valid referral letter. The referral letter has to meet the following requirements:
- Name of the referred client
- Date of the referral no more than 3 months ago and before the first appointment
- Specification whether it concerns basic (BGGZ) or specialist (SGGZ) mental health care
- Client is referred because a DSM-5 disorder is suspected
- The AGB-code of the GP is mentioned
- The referral has to be signed or stamped by the GP
If you are in doubt about the validity of the referral letter, please contact our administration.
For more information for referrers please click HERE.
APPLICATION
You can apply by filling in our digital application form for adults or the one for children and adolescents. You also need to upload a photograph or a scan of the aforementioned referral letter onto the application form. We can only process your application if your referral letter and application form are as required. It is not possible to apply by telephone.
After receiving your application one of our psychologists from the application team will call you to make an appointment for a ‘screening’. During the screening, our psychologist will ask you questions about your background and the reason you applied, to be able to properly assess your request for help. With this information our application team will determine whether Adagio can offer you suitable care. The waiting period is activated from the moment your application file is completed. If Adagio cannot offer you suitable care, we will contact you to look for other possibilities.
Once we have received your completed application it can take up to 4 weeks before the screening is planned. The waiting period is activated from the moment your application file is completed.
Click HERE for an overview of our current waiting times.
INTAKE PROCEDURE
As soon as a suitable therapist is available, she/he will contact you to make an appointment for an intake session to assess the difficulties you experience. Based on the information given the therapist will then, together with you, draw up a treatment plan. This treatment plan will contain at least the following information.
- The request for help
- A descriptive diagnosis and the most important life events/circumstances of the client
- The official diagnosis
- The treatment goals (objectives)
- Type of treatment
- The agreements made between client and therapist about the process (i.e., frequency and duration of the sessions, financing, evaluations, additional care, etc.).
When you have reached an agreement, treatment can start. Sometimes it helps treatment to involve your family members or your partner in the therapy sessions. Sometimes extra psychodiagnostics are required.
TREATMENT PROCESS
The treatment proceeds as agreed upon. In the course of the treatment the process will be evaluated at preset dates. Does the treatment need adjusting? Have the goals been achieved? For this the results of the Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM) can be used also, in order to objectify the nature and seriousness of the problems presented.
If important for the therapeutic process and only with the explicit permission of the client others can be involved in the treatment process. This could be someone from the immediate environment, like a partner, a family member or a (girl)friend, but also other parties like a coach, a mentor or other caregiver.
In some cases, the practicing therapist is not (yet) authorised to act as leading therapist. A second therapist will then also be involved. This therapist always is a BIG-registered leading therapist, and she/he will have ultimate responsibility for the course of the treatment. You will meet the leading therapist during the intake phase, and she/he will be contacted (be in contact, will be present?) when the treatment is evaluated, adjusted or ended. Further contact will be with the practicing therapist. Also, regular consultation will take place between the practicing and leading therapist about the course of the treatment. This procedure complies with the criteria for reimbursement set by the health insurance companies.
Sometimes more caregivers are involved in the treatment process, for example when a psychiatric consultation is scheduled, or further diagnostics are planned. In that case one therapist acts as contact and is responsible for the coordination between different caregivers. This will be the case manager.
Cooperation and (mutual) reflection are very important to us. All our therapists take part in weekly multidisciplinary client consultations in which anonymised cases are discussed to ensure the most suitable care is given.
MEDICATION
Sometimes it can be necessary to prescribe additional medication during a part of the treatment, or to help the treatment get started. Medical treatment will be carefully monitored by our psychiatrists and doctors. Medication can also be prescribed by the GP. The medical staff offers weekly psychiatric consultations to clients of Adagio’s. They work closely together with Adagio’s therapists and GP’s. v
ONLINE THERAPY
Blended care
Since the Corona Pandemic online treatment, also called E-health, has firmly increased in mental health care. Adagio works together with the extra secured platform Therapieland, an online platform offering a broad range of therapies. The face-to-face treatment of children and adolescents, adults or parents can be supplemented with online modules focused on for instance, anxiety, depression, trauma or ADHD. Online therapy has the advantage that the treatment can be started quickly, and the client can start working on their problems at any given moment in a familiar and safe environment. By combining e-health with face-to-face treatment the client can work on their recovery at home. We call this blended care.
To be able to use Therapieland you will need:
- A computer, tablet or smartphone
- An internet connection
- • An account, created with Therapieland by submitting an email address and password.
With Therapieland it is possible to:
- Work through modules with matching assignments and explications
- Look up specific information in the mediatheque (using text, films, website, apps)
- Be in touch with your therapist in a secured environment
- Read and reread a part of your online file
- Share information on your treatment/on your therapy with your close one(s)
> Click here for more information on Therapieland
It could also be that your therapist sends you extra online assignments through Embloom. This is also an extra secured online platform through which questionnaires, diaries and registration assignments can be sent.
Pre-treatment module: E-Volve
Adagio has also developed the intervention E-volve to help clients that are (going to be) on the waiting list for a long time. E-volve is a blended intervention which takes place partly online and partly face-to-face. During treatment you yourself will take the first steps to recovery through the platform Therapieland. You will be coached by a trained therapist with whom you will have regular (online) sessions. The complete treatment process takes about 8 to 10 weeks. Afterwards you will assess, together with the therapist, whether your symptoms have sufficiently been reduced to either finish treatment altogether or whether follow up treatment is required.
Virtual Reality (VR)
Finally at Adagio’s we also make use of Virtual Reality (VR). For this we use the programme Amelia. We offer this therapy in English, Portuguese and Spanish. With this E-health intervention you wear VR-goggles, and you can then engage in different exercises, i.e., relaxation exercises and therapeutic techniques such as exposure.
Together with the therapist it is decided whether E-health will be used. Financially, the same rules apply for online care as for face-to-face care which means it will usually be covered by the health insurance company. As with regular treatment part of the costs can still fall within the ‘own risk – regulation’.
> For more information on costs and covered costs click here
INVOLVING FAMILY AND CLOSE FRIENDS
Psychological disorders not only affect the client, but also those nearest to them: partners, parents, (grown up) children, brothers, sisters and close friends. For that reason, we find it very important to involve them in the treatment. When treating young children, it is our guiding principle to involve parents and important others in the direct environment of the child, in the treatment. When treating children from the age of 16 and when treating adults, we do so only after mutual consultation. Caring for and supporting the young children of our clients is a priority.
OUR PRACTICE: PRACTICALITIES
General information:
Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 9 to 17.00 hrs.
You can reach us by phone from 9 to 12.00 hrs and from 13 – 17.00 hrs.
You can reach us by e-mail at: info@adagioamsterdam.nl.
In case of an emergency please contact your own GP.
Cancelling or rescheduling appointments:
If you need to cancel your appointment, please inform us at least 48 hrs in advance. If you do not inform us on time, we will charge you for the missed appointment and send you a ‘no-show invoice’. The costs are:
- No-show charge within 48 hrs: 55 Euro.
- No-show charge within 24 hrs: 77 Euro.
Your medical insurance does not cover these charges. We are closed at the weekends. If you have an appointment on a Monday or Tuesday, you will have to reschedule before the weekend.
CHANGING THERAPIST
One of the preconditions for a successful treatment is the quality of the contact between you and your therapist. If you do not feel comfortable with your therapist, for whatever reason, we will try to find you a better match within Adagio’s.
QUALITY STATUTES
In our quality statute you will find information on the quality of our care. Please click here for more information.
ROUTINE OUTCOME MONITORING (ROM)
To measure the result and the quality of our treatment we use Routine Outcome Monitoring (ROM). At preset moments, before, during and after treatment you can be invited to fill in a questionnaire. Firstly, you will discuss the outcome with your therapist. It will give an indication of whether the treatment is working for you. Also, we use the anonymised outcomes of the questionnaires to improve our quality of care. You are not obliged to fill in these questionnaires, and you will be asked, before the start of the treatment, for your permission to process your ROM-data. The data are processed in such a way that they cannot be traced back to you personally. This way your privacy is protected at all times.
ADDITIONAL REGULATIONS
- Sessions have a duration of 50 minutes, unless agreed differently.
- If you are late for your appointment, that time will be taken from your session.
- Your psychologist is bound by their professional conduct code and answers to the disciplinary law of the BIG-register ( Home | BIG-register (bigregister.nl) ).
- After you’ve ended your treatment cycle, we would like to know how you experienced your treatment. We use this information to improve our quality of care. For this you will be invited to fill in a questionnaire.
- You are always entitled to a second opinion.
- • For examining and treating clients younger than 12 years old we need written permission of both legal parents, also when they are divorced. We also prefer to have written permission from both parents for clients aged 12 – 16 years. Written permission from adolescents and one parent is only acceptable when a substantiated reason is given for not involving the other parent. We would, in that case, like to know how we can inform the other parent about the treatment of their child.