Multi-state Telepsychiatry Office Uses Spruce With Patients, Other Practices, Contractors & Their VA
- Carrie Scott
- February 28, 2023
- October 25, 2023
Meet Dr. Allison Sikorsky, PMHNP, a board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and the founder of At Your Service Psychiatry. Allison is an alumni of the top psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner program in the nation, graduating from Rush University in Chicago, Illinois, in 2011. She is licensed in over twenty states to provide telepsychiatry services.
Allison has more than twenty years of experience in health care. During the last eleven years that she has been a psychiatric nurse practitioner, caring for patients with a wide variety of mental health conditions. Allison’s experience includes treating patients in community mental health settings, inpatient acute psychiatric units, providing psychiatric consultation-liaison services to various hospitals, and many others.
A bit about the business…
At Your Service Telepsychiatry is a multi-state, telepsychiatry group practice designed to deliver competent, patient-centered treatment to those struggling with ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression, and other mental health conditions. We brought together a group of smart, seasoned, compassionate psychiatric nurse practitioners and psychiatric prescribing clinicians to serve the wider community so no one has to suffer from a lapse in treatment.
How long have you been doing it?
I started this telepsychiatry practice in 2017, but have been practicing as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner since 2011.
What first brought you to Spruce?
When I set out to start my telepsychiatry practice, I wanted to give clients an opportunity to text us versus playing phone tag, which is one of the most frustrating parts of psychiatric practice. Before Covid, this wasn’t very standard practice, so I tested a dozen other secure SMS/phone options, but found that Spruce Health has been the best for a group practice and one that can be easily run off a phone.
How do you use Spruce at work?
We give clients our number to text in or send emails. If people prefer the double-encryption, they are instructed to download the Spruce Health app. With so many mental health practices using Spruce Health, we also use it to collaborate care with these other practices. For our contractors, we can keep an eye on their inboxes and support them as their back up on-call, help with refills, and records requests. I use the after-hours auto responders for emergencies and to direct patients where to call. My virtual assistant is from the Philippines, so she can work remotely with us using Spruce. The dot phrase feature helps to have consistent language to send out to patients, pharmacies, and over faxes.
What is your favorite Spruce feature?
I really like the scheduled message feature. If I am titrating up a patient’s dose of medication, I can send them a reminder in two weeks to double the dose. If I am concerned with a patient’s mental health status, I can schedule a check-in text to make sure they are starting to feel better on the medication in-between visits. I also use the star feature to notate anyone who has had a recent mental health crisis, so we can flag the staff to answer their messages rapidly.
My new favorite feature is the beta feature of integrating with other electronic health records, as I am building a telepsychiatry practice management, prescribing, and artificial intelligence application, and look forward to it working with Spruce.
What do you like to do most when you’re not working?
As the mom of three teenage boys, I am usually out watching wrestling matches and drifting events. Most of my free time is spent building my telepsychiatry app, and playing on TikTok, but you might catch me roller skating around when there’s no snow on the ground.
You can learn even more about At Your Service Telepsychiatry on Facebook at @yourservicepsychiatry.
New to Spruce? Try us out FREE for 14 days: https://l.sprucehealth.com/startspruce