It's Friday afternoon, you're behind on notes, and a new client with complex comorbid conditions is scheduled for Monday morning. You need to develop a comprehensive treatment plan that satisfies insurance requirements, provides clear clinical direction, and won't take hours to create.

We've all been there—caught between the desire to provide thoughtful, individualized care and the practical realities of documentation demands. This is precisely where Wiley Treatment Planners become invaluable tools in a therapist's arsenal.

Not as shortcuts that bypass clinical thinking, but as structured frameworks that streamline the treatment planning process while ensuring you spend less time on paperwork and more time delivering high-quality care to your clients.

What Are Wiley Treatment Planners?

Wiley Treatment Planners are clinical resources developed by Arthur E. Jongsma Jr., Timothy J. Bruce, and other mental health professionals. They provide pre-written, customizable treatment plans covering a wide range of mental health conditions and client populations, including specialized planners for different age groups, settings, and presenting problems.

Core features include:

• Pre-written treatment plans with customizable objectives and interventions

• Behavioral definitions for each presenting problem

• Long-term goals and short-term objectives

• Measurable objectives that satisfy insurance requirements and third-party payers

• Evidence-based interventions organized by therapeutic approach

• Suggested DSM-5 diagnoses and ICD-10 codes

Mental health professionals rely on these planners to address client needs while meeting documentation standards required by insurance companies and accreditation bodies.

Key Benefits for Clinical Practice

1. Time Efficiency Without Sacrificing Quality

Using Wiley Treatment Planners can help therapists spend less time on paperwork, reducing documentation time by up to 75% while maintaining or improving clinical quality through:

• Ready-made language that meets medical necessity requirements

• Comprehensive coverage of treatment domains that might otherwise be overlooked

• Structure that prevents common treatment planning errors

2. Insurance Compliance

The planners are specifically designed to satisfy third-party payers requirements by:

• Including language that addresses medical necessity criteria

• Using measurable, time-specific objectives

• Connecting interventions directly to objectives

• Providing documented rationales for treatment approaches

Documented treatment plans that meet insurance requirements are essential for reimbursement and continued authorization of services.

3. Clinical Comprehensiveness

The planners help ensure thorough clinical coverage by:

• Addressing multiple dimensions of each presenting problem

• Providing interventions from diverse theoretical orientations

• Encouraging consideration of cultural and individual factors

These features support therapists in delivering high-quality care that addresses all aspects of a client's presentation.

How to Effectively Implement Wiley Treatment Planners

Step 1: Select the Right Planner

Wiley offers specialized planners for different populations and conditions:

• The Complete Adult Psychotherapy Treatment Planner by Arthur E. Jongsma Jr., Mark Peterson, and Timothy J. Bruce

• The Child Psychotherapy Treatment Planner by Arthur E. Jongsma Jr., L. Mark Peterson, William P. McInnis, and Timothy J. Bruce

• The Adolescent Psychotherapy Treatment Planner by Arthur E. Jongsma Jr., L. Mark Peterson, William P. McInnis, and Timothy J. Bruce

• The Couples Therapy Treatment Planner by K. Daniel O'Leary, Richard E. Heyman, David J. Berghuis 

• The Family Therapy Treatment Planner by Frank M. Dattilio, David J. Berghuis, Sean D. Davis 

Plus condition-specific planners for issues like:

• Addictions

• PTSD

• Depression

• Anger management

• Anxiety

• Severe and persistent mental illness

Pro Tip: Start with the general planner for your primary population (adult, child, etc.) and add specialized planners as needed for your particular clinical focus.

Step 2: Master the Planner Structure

Each treatment planner follows a consistent structure:

1. Behavioral Definitions: Descriptions of the presenting problem

2. Long-Term Goals: Broad statements of desired treatment outcomes

3. Short-Term Objectives: Specific, measurable steps toward goals

4. Therapeutic Interventions: Concrete actions to achieve objectives

5. Diagnosis Suggestions: Relevant DSM-5 diagnoses

Implementation Strategy: Familiarize yourself with this consistent structure across presenting problems to quickly navigate any planner, even for unfamiliar clinical issues.

Step 3: Personalize the Template

The planners are designed as starting points, not finished products. To effectively create personalized treatment plans:

1. Select relevant objectives from the multiple options provided

   • Choose 3-5 objectives that best match your client's needs

   • Modify timeframes based on client's anticipated progress rate

2. Customize language to reflect the individual client's specific situation

   • Replace generic terms with specifics (e.g., "partner" becomes "husband")

   • Adjust terminology to match client's cultural background and preferences

   • Incorporate client's own language for symptoms and goals

3. Select and adapt interventions to match your therapeutic approach

   • Choose interventions aligned with your primary theoretical orientation

   • Add your own specialized techniques or approaches

   • Modify intervention language to match your actual clinical practice

Example Personalization:

Original objective:

"Decrease frequency of panic attacks from 3 times per week to no more than 1 time per week within 3 months."

Personalized objective:

"Decrease frequency of panic attacks experienced while driving on highways from 3 times per week to no more than 1 time per week within 2 months."

Step 4: Integrate Multiple Presenting Problems

Many clients present with multiple concerns. To integrate effectively:

1. Prioritize presenting problems based on:

   • Safety concerns and risk factors

   • Client's stated priorities

   • Logical treatment sequence (e.g., stabilize mood before addressing trauma)

2. Avoid redundancy by:

   • Selecting complementary rather than overlapping objectives

   • Creating clear connections between related objectives across problems

   • Ensuring interventions build upon rather than duplicate each other

3. Create a cohesive narrative that:

   • Explains the relationships between presenting problems

   • Clarifies treatment sequence and rationale

   • Provides a clear roadmap for treatment progression

Integration Example: For a client with both Anxiety and Substance Use Disorder:

• Select anxiety management objectives that specifically address anxiety without substance use

• Include substance use objectives that acknowledge anxiety as a trigger

• Create a treatment sequence that addresses immediate safety (e.g., withdrawal risks) first, followed by stabilization and longer-term recovery goals

Step 5: Use as Progress Monitoring Tools

Treatment planners can serve as ongoing clinical tools, not just initial documentation:

1. Review progress toward objectives at regular intervals

   • Schedule specific review dates in your treatment plan

   • Document progress as percentage completion toward objectives

2. Update and revise based on clinical progress

   • Adjust timeframes if progress is faster or slower than anticipated

   • Add new treatment goals as initial ones are achieved

   • Modify interventions based on what's working or not working

3. Use for clinical supervision and consultation

   • Highlight challenging objectives for supervisory focus

   • Track patterns of intervention effectiveness across clients

   • Identify areas where additional professional development might be beneficial

Documentation Strategy: Create a simple progress tracking system using a spreadsheet or your EHR system that lists each objective with columns for review dates and percentage completion.

Integrating Wiley Planners with Different Therapeutic Approaches

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

The planners align well with CBT's structured approach:

• Use behavioral definitions to identify cognitive distortions and behavioral patterns

• Select objectives that target specific cognitions and behaviors

• Choose interventions explicitly labeled as cognitive or behavioral

• Add homework assignments to corresponding interventions

Psychodynamic Approaches

Adapt the planners to psychodynamic work by:

• Selecting objectives related to insight and relationship patterns

• Choosing interventions focused on exploration rather than direct change

• Adding process-oriented language to behavioral objectives

• Using the narrative sections to incorporate psychodynamic formulations

Person-Centered and Humanistic Approaches

Modify planners to align with humanistic values by:

• Emphasizing client-generated language in all sections

• Selecting objectives that focus on self-awareness and congruence

• Choosing interventions that emphasize the therapeutic relationship

• Adding reflective components to behavioral interventions

Family Systems Approaches

Adapt for systems work through:

• Selecting objectives that address relationship patterns

• Choosing interventions that involve multiple family members

• Adding circular and relational elements to linear objectives

• Integrating content from the Family Therapy Treatment Planner by Arthur E. Jongsma Jr.

Common Challenges and Solutions

Challenge 1: Template-Sounding Language

Solution: Customize language in these key ways:

• Incorporate the client's exact wording for their symptoms and experiences

• Add specific examples relevant to the client's life

• Include cultural and contextual factors unique to the client

• Read the plan aloud—if it doesn't sound like your voice, revise it

Challenge 2: Insurance Rejection Despite Using Planners

Solution: Enhance the language around medical necessity:

• Clearly connect each objective to functional impairment

• Add specific language about how symptoms impact daily functioning

• Include references to previous treatment attempts when relevant

• Document specific risks if treatment is not provided

Also consider AI tools like Supanote.ai that understand principles of medical necessity, and can take the context of your sessions and turn them into insurance-ready treatment plans

Challenge 3: Balancing Standardization and Personalization

Solution: Create a two-tier approach:

• Meet documentation standards with standardized elements

• Include a personalized treatment narrative section

• Add case conceptualization that goes beyond the template structure

• Create client-friendly versions of the plan in more personalized language

Challenge 4: Clients with Needs Not Covered by Planners

Solution: Learn to adapt and combine planner elements:

• Extract relevant components from multiple presenting problems

• Use the "Other" or "Additional" sections provided in most planners

• Create your own templates for specialized populations or problems

• Share adaptations with colleagues working with similar populations

The flexibility of the Wiley Treatment Planner allows clinicians to address even uncommon or complex client needs while maintaining documentation clarity.

Using AI to Write Your Treatment Plans

Now AI tools like Supanote.ai can directly write your Treatment plan for you, using the Wiley treatment planner method.

Many therapists save themselves hours of documentation time each week by using these tools.

How do they work?

Supanote.ai directly listens to your session, understands the context of the client, and creates the treatment plan. It is also trained with existing Wiley Treatment Plan templates and automatically uses similar principles of writing. It:

• Generate treatment plans based on what happened in the session (you can edit these)

• Suggest goals and interventions aligned with specific diagnoses

• Provide evidence-based intervention recommendations

Because Supanote.ai is already trained on Wiley methods, you can just select Wiley Treatment plan as your template, and Supanote takes the context from your session, applies it to the relevant Wiley template, and creates your plan!

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Integration with Electronic Health Records

Many modern EHR systems offer some level of integration with Wiley Treatment Planners:

• TherapyNotes, SimplePractice, and Valant have built-in treatment planning modules

• Some systems allow for importing custom templates based on Wiley formats

• Even without direct integration, you can create custom templates in most EHR systems

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Are Wiley Treatment Planners available in digital format?

A: Yes, Wiley offers both print and digital versions.

Q: Do Wiley Treatment Planners align with evidence-based practices?

A: Yes, but with caveats. The planners include many evidence-based interventions, particularly those from cognitive-behavioral approaches. However, they also include some interventions with less robust evidence bases. Therapists should still use clinical judgment to select interventions with appropriate evidence for each individual client's situation.

Q: How do I justify the cost of purchasing the planners?

A: Typically the main objective is time savings of 30-60 minutes per treatment plan translates to billable hours or reduced paperwork time, combined with reduced claim rejections due to insufficient documentation.

Today instead you can use one of the AI therapy note tools like Supanote.ai that will automatically create your treatment plans, along with your intake plans and progress notes.

Q: How do I avoid ethical concerns about using pre-written content?

A: Maintain ethical practice by:

• Always customizing plans to reflect individual client needs

• Using planners as decision support tools, not replacements for clinical thinking

• Reviewing and personally approving all content before finalizing

• Being transparent with clients that you use structured tools to support treatment planning

The ethical standard is not whether you used a template, but whether the resulting plan is appropriate, individualized, and clinically sound.

Q: How often should treatment plans be updated?

A: Best practices include:

• Formal review at intervals required by your practice setting (typically 90 days)

• Updates whenever there's a significant change in clinical presentation

• Revision when a client achieves several objectives or treatment focus changes

• Adjustment when new information emerges that affects treatment approach

Many therapists find it helpful to briefly review the plan at monthly intervals, making minor adjustments as needed, with more comprehensive reviews quarterly.

Q: Can treatment planners be used in group practice settings with multiple providers?

A: Yes, they're particularly valuable in group settings for:

• Creating consistency across providers

• Supporting clinical training for new therapists

• Facilitating supervision discussions

• Ensuring compliance with practice standards

Many group practices create customized versions of Wiley templates that incorporate practice-specific language, preferred approaches, and common referral issues.

Q: How can state licensing boards view the use of treatment planning tools?

A: Most state licensing boards focus on whether documentation meets professional standards, not on the tools used to create it. Key considerations include:

• Documentation must reflect actual services provided

• Treatment plans should demonstrate clinical reasoning and individualization

• Documentation should support medical necessity

• Regular review and updates should be evident

When used properly, Wiley Treatment Planners help clinicians meet or exceed these standards while streamlining the treatment planning process.

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