5 Reasons You Need to Change Your Plan of Care: The Patient’s Goals Need to Be Discontinued

Addressing your goals in therapy is crucial for the progression and success of the patient. If you find yourself not being able to do so, it’s definitely time to change your plan of care. In our 5 Reasons You Need to Change Your Plan of Care series, reason number two why you may not be meeting all your therapeutic goals could be that the goals are inappropriate for the child’s ability and they need to be discontinued. Again, it’s to reevaluate the child and establish new, more applicable goals.

Think about it— when you first encountered your patient for an initial evaluation, you had a certain amount of time with the child to make a goal plan. You wrote goals based on the information you had at the time of the initial evaluation and you determined what the child could achieve over a six-month period. Over the course of a few sessions after the evaluation is when you may find that these goals were too lofty or too advanced. In these instances, you may need to write new goals that are more simplified. You may also determine over the course of a few sessions that the goals are too easy for the child and you need to write more difficult goals. In both scenarios, a reevaluation will provide you with more information to change the goal plan. Your goals are not written in stone; you can change them! All you need is a justification and the corresponding documentation.

Also, when these situation arise, think about the main thing that the child needs to improve upon. What are the major issues that need to be addressed before you move on to the next thing? Other goals cannot be reached if the underlying impairment isn’t worked on first. So reevaluate and rewrite those goals to make the best use of your time in therapy!