General Information
Bingham Healthcare is a regional, multidisciplinary healthcare system headquartered in Blackfoot, Idaho, serving communities throughout Eastern Idaho. At the center of the organization is Bingham Memorial Hospital, a 25-bed Critical Access Hospital. The health system provides a broad range of medical and behavioral health services through physician practices, behavioral health clinics, surgery centers, advanced imaging, and outpatient clinical services, with locations in Idaho Falls, Ammon, Shelley, Blackfoot, Chubbuck, and Pocatello.
Bingham Healthcare’s behavioral health service line provides outpatient psychotherapy, psychological assessment, and consultation services to patients referred from throughout the health system and the broader community. The psychology service operates within a multidisciplinary healthcare environment, providing opportunities for collaboration with physicians, advanced practice providers, and other healthcare professionals across a variety of specialties.
Bingham Healthcare serves a broad geographic area that includes rural and underserved communities where clients may travel significant distances to access healthcare. This provides a unique training environment for psychologists interested in rural practice, interdisciplinary healthcare, and expanding access to behavioral health services.
Bingham Healthcare is also committed to clinical education and workforce development. The organization serves as a training environment for healthcare professionals across multiple disciplines and partners with local universities and colleges to provide clinical training experiences for over a dozen medical and behavioral health professions. Bingham Healthcare is committed to doctoral psychology training and supports the development and retention of psychologists prepared to serve the behavioral health needs of Idaho.
The Internship Experience
The Bingham Healthcare internship experience is designed to provide broad, generalist training in health service psychology within a rural healthcare system. Interns will provide outpatient psychological services to clients presenting with a range of behavioral health needs and will gain experience working with individuals whose psychological concerns frequently intersect with medical, social, family, and other health-related factors.
A significant component of the internship will involve outpatient psychotherapy. Interns will develop and implement evidence-based treatment plans, conduct diagnostic interviews, maintain an outpatient caseload, and work with clients presenting with a variety of psychological and behavioral concerns. Training will emphasize evidence-based practice, case conceptualization, clinical decision-making, treatment planning, documentation, and the development of increasing professional independence throughout the internship year.
Interns will also receive experience in psychological assessment. Training opportunities may include diagnostic clarification and psychological testing, including selection and administration of appropriate assessment instruments, interpretation of results, integration of clinical and assessment data, preparation of psychological reports, and communication of findings and recommendations to clients, families, referring providers, and other members of the healthcare team. The most frequent referral questions for assessment include evaluations for neurodevelopmental disorders, neurocognitive disorders, personality issues and psychiatric illnesses. The populations we work with range from school age children through older adults.
An important feature of the Bingham experience is the opportunity to practice psychology within a multidisciplinary healthcare system. Interns will have opportunities to collaborate and consult with physicians and other healthcare professionals, and participate in coordination of behavioral and medical care. This environment provides exposure to the operational, clinical, ethical, and professional considerations involved in delivering behavioral healthcare within a rural medical system.
Bingham Healthcare also maintains a psychology externship partnership with Idaho State University. When appropriate to the intern’s developmental level and training goals, may have opportunities to provide supplemental supervision to graduate-level psychology externs. These experiences would occur under the oversight and clinical responsibility of the program’s supervising licensed psychologist and would complement ID-PIC’s profession-wide competency in supervision.
Throughout the year, the intern will receive a minimum of two hours of individual supervision each week from a licensed psychologist at Bingham Healthcare and will participate in ID-PIC’s consortium-wide group supervision, didactics, professional development activities, and other required training experiences. The overall goal is to prepare the intern for entry-level independent practice while developing the clinical judgment, interdisciplinary skills, and professional identity necessary to practice effectively in rural and community healthcare settings.
Location
Bingham Healthcare is headquartered in Blackfoot, Idaho, a rural community located along the Interstate 15 corridor between Pocatello and Idaho Falls. Blackfoot serves as a healthcare hub for Bingham County and surrounding rural communities and provides interns with direct exposure to the opportunities and challenges associated with delivering behavioral healthcare in rural Eastern Idaho. A psychology intern at Bingham Healthcare should expect to hold clinic in both Blackfoot and Pocatello. However, with clinic sites throughout the region, consideration will be given as to the most appropriate location for clinic.
Eastern Idaho is known for exceptional access to outdoor recreation. Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, Jackson Hole, Grand Targhee, Sun Valley, and numerous national forests, rivers, lakes, and mountain recreation areas are within driving distance. Residents have ready access to hiking, kayaking, camping, mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding, snow-shoeing, fishing, swimming, hunting, boating, and other year-round recreational opportunities.
Intern Expectations and Site Requirements
While at Bingham Healthcare, interns will be expected to:
- Maintain an outpatient individual psychotherapy and assessment caseload appropriate to their level of training and maintain clinical documentation in a timely manner.
- Participate actively in individual supervision, ID-PIC group supervision, didactics, and other required training activities.
- Develop competency in evidence-based psychological intervention, assessment, consultation, and interdisciplinary practice.
- Collaborate professionally with physicians and other members of the healthcare team and participate in coordination of behavioral and medical care as appropriate.
- Participate in supervised teaching or supervision experiences with other psychology trainees when appropriate to the intern’s developmental level and training plan.
- Follow Bingham Healthcare, ID-PIC, APPIC, and APA policies and all applicable professional, ethical, and legal requirements.
- Successfully complete Bingham Healthcare’s required employment, credentialing, background-check, health-screening, and other onboarding requirements.
Contact Information
Site Director & Supervising Psychologist, Dr. Anne Stegenga, PsyD, astegenga@binghammemorial.org