Description
Determining a diagnosis can be challenging. Not only do clients often need help reporting their symptoms, but it can also be difficult to sort through and distinguish between similar-appearing conditions. This Diagnostic Assessment Toolkit includes 4 forms to help you piece together the full diagnostic picture with clarity and precision. Designed to support every stage of your diagnostic process with fillable PDFs that work seamlessly in digital or print format.
Client Symptom Checklist
This streamlined 25-item symptom checklist helps your clients articulate their experiences in clinically meaningful ways. It transforms an often-overwhelming task of symptom reporting into an organized and manageable process. Thoughtfully structured around seven of the most prevalent diagnostic categories – depression, anxiety/mania, trauma, agoraphobia, obsessions and compulsions, substance use, and eating disorders – each question directly connects to established diagnostic criteria.
- Questions are strategically organized to reduce client overwhelm
- Criteria-based design helps bring laser focus to your diagnostic interview
You’ll spend less time fishing for symptoms and more time understanding your client’s unique presentation. While this tool won’t make diagnostic decisions for you (that’s your expertise at work), it creates the foundation for faster, more accurate assessments and clearer treatment planning from day one.
Differential Diagnosis Assessment
When your client’s presentation feels like a puzzle with too many pieces, this comprehensive 85-item diagnostic tool is your guide through complexity. Building upon our foundational Client Symptom Checklist that the client completes, this expanded resource empowers you to navigate overlapping and intersecting symptoms that point in multiple directions. The decision is still up to you, but rather than leaving you wondering “what am I missing?,” this systematic checklist walks you through a thorough differential process. Whether or not you agree with medicalizing* human experience, diagnosing** is still required to justify medical necessity.
* Medicalization is the process by which human conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as medical conditions
** Diagnosing is identifying the nature of (an illness or other problem) by examination of the symptoms
Mental Status Exam
Transform your mental status evaluation from lengthy interrogation to focused clinical observation with this streamlined MSE. It covers all essential domains while respecting both your clinical expertise and your time constraints. Whether you’re documenting baseline functioning, tracking treatment progress, or meeting insurance requirements, you’ll have what you need: professional documentation that meets standards and supports medical necessity.
What makes this MSE different is not only:
- Systematic coverage of all MSE domains without overwhelming detail
- Clear organization that flows naturally through your assessment
but also…
- Integrated prompts that help you consider how cultural background, language preferences, and social context may influence presentation and responses
- Gentle reminders to examine your own assumptions and consider alternative explanations for behaviors or responses that might initially seem unusual
- Built-in cues to assess whether perceived “deficits” might reflect cultural differences, language barriers, or unfamiliarity with testing conventions rather than pathology
Essential for: Initial evaluations, treatment planning, insurance documentation, and any time you need to capture a comprehensive snapshot of your client’s current mental state while ensuring your assessment reflects genuine clinical findings rather than cultural misunderstandings.
This isn’t just another MSE template—it’s your safeguard against documentation that inadvertently pathologizes normal cultural variations while ensuring you never miss clinically significant findings.
Standardized Assessment Library
No more hunting through countless websites to find the right assessment for your client’s specific needs. While no single collection could cover every measurement tool for every mental health issue, this library of over 60 assessments provides direct links to free, validated instruments across the overwhelming majority of clinical presentations you’ll see in practice, from childhood through adulthood.
Flexible access options: When available, we provide links to both downloadable PDFs for in-person use and online versions for remote administration giving you the flexibility to choose what works best for each client and situation.
Organized by diagnostic category for quick access, you’ll find:
- Quality of life and general functioning measures
- Anxiety, panic, and mood disorder assessments
- PTSD, trauma, and dissociation evaluation tools
- Specialized instruments for OCD, eating disorders, and substance use
- Attachment and relationship assessments
- Personality disorders screenings
- Risk evaluation tools including suicide screening
- Post-natal birth trauma evaluation
- Disability and functional capacity evaluations
- Adult Autism screenings
- ADD evaluations
- Gambling evaluations
- Sex Addiction assessment
- Tobacco screening tool
- Clinician wellness measures (because your wellbeing matters too)
- And much more
Why this matters for your practice: Insurance companies like objective, standardized measures to demonstrate medical necessity and treatment progress. Rather than scrambling to find appropriate tools when you need them, you’ll have instant access to professionally vetted assessments that strengthen your clinical documentation and support your treatment decisions.
This is the perfect complement to your Diagnostic Assessment Toolkit – bridging the gap between initial screening and ongoing outcome measurement with tools that insurance companies and clinicians trust and clients can complete with confidence.