Retired Psychologists

This page is meant to be of assistance those who are retired or considering retirement.

Appropriate Title / Descriptor

According to the Psychologist Regulations, a registrant on the Register of Psychologists may use the title “Psychologist”, or “Registered Psychologist”, and may abbreviate the title after their name to “R.Psych.”  However, a registrant who is retired and not practising psychology should further use a qualifier that clearly indicates their retired status.’

Resumption of Active Practice / Full Registration 

As per Board Policy, one can maintain registration in the Retired registration category and request a return to the full Active Register if they have not been on the Retired Register for a period not exceeding two years.  Generally, however, registrants in this category are not expected to return to practice. If they resume practice mid-year, they will be expected to pay the full registration fee.

After two years, registrants who request to resume active practice must submit a new application as a new applicant and meet current registration criteria, if they have not been practicing for a period greater than two years.  Here is the information on submitting a new application when one is on the inactive or retired register and the period exceeds two years:

https://www.nsbep.org/downloads/Retired_Status_to_Active_Status_Change_Policy.pdf 

Continuing Competence 

Participation in the Continuing Competence Program is not required if one is no longer fully registered, in a non-practicing category such as the Out-of-Province or Retired.  However, if returning to practice after 2 years, the registrant would need to be prepared to demonstrate how they would become current in practice again.

Liability Insurance 

As far as liability insurance, registrants in the Retired category are expected to hold at least the Extended Reporting Endorsement / Tail coverage, which is typically a one-time arrangement to cover claims that might arise for an action that occurred when the psychologist was actively practicing (and held full coverage).  However, psychologists should consult their insurance company to obtain information about the specifics of this coverage.

Guidelines for the Psychologist selecting a Custodian and the Custodian

One other document to consider for those in Private Practice is the guidelines for custodian, though these are not particular to retirement:

In terms of responsibilities/how to go about notifying past or current clients of the upcoming office closure, the guidelines are not specific to the method used to notify clients.

Notification of Retirement from Private Practice

For continuity of care and any potentially related issues, it would be important to provide a notice to past and present clients.  However the number/method/time sequence of notices would not be prescribed and thus left to the registrant’s discretion.

Often such notices are placed in the newspaper.  NSBEP is not suggesting one has to individually make contact with all past clients seen in the last 10 years.   Obviously, in keeping with standards of practice, any active clients should be notified so that arrangements can be made, if requested, so that they can be referred elsewhere.   If the practice has a website associated with it, then one could also place a notice of retirement there.  Additionally, this information could be provided to APNS since they often make referrals for psychological services and are happy to assist psychologists with various publications.

If you are a sole proprietor, there might be merit in keeping the website of the private practice (if applicable) up for a while to in order to mirror the information relating to the closure of the practice.  This helps if people are searching the internet to contact you.

The retired psychologist can continue to maintain their files.  The person agreeing to take on the files of the psychologist in the event of death or incapacity should be able to access the files and passwords, should the need arise.  The manner to convey this information to the custodian is not prescribed by NSBEP.  However, the principle though is that if the needs arises, the psychologist should be able to find and access the information they need in order to act as custodian.

Contact from Past Clients for Records

It would be important for NSBEP to have the retired Psychologist’s contact information, upon retirement, in the event that there are any requests for file information from past clients then NSBEP could provide this contact information to them.  In this regard, a good reference would be the Personal Health Information Act, which provides a schedule concerning fees that may be charged for copying files.  Here is a link to the specific chapter (though the full Act and other references are available on the Government’s website):

http://novascotia.ca/dhw/phia/documents/chapters/6-Access-to-and-Correction-of-Personal-Health-Information.pdf