When a car accident claim, a disability application, or a custody case sits waiting for a report that no one is willing to write, the cost is measured in more than dollars — though the dollars add up quickly too.
Most people never think about psychological assessment until they need one. Then, suddenly, it matters enormously.
A worker injured on the job needs a psychologist to document the impact of a traumatic event before WorksafeBC will approve wage loss benefits and will not be able to access treatment for psychological difficulties until a diagnosis has been made. A driver hurt in a car accident needs a comprehensive evaluation before ICBC — or the court — will settle a claim fairly. A family going through a difficult separation may need a custody assessment so that a judge has expert guidance on what is truly in a child’s best interests. A person applying for disability support may need cognitive or other psychological testing to prove that their limitations are real, not imagined. A parole board, a lawyer, or a court may need a forensic risk assessment before a decision is made that affects public safety.
Psychologists are, in many of these situations, the only professionals qualified and available to do this work. It is highly specialized, time-consuming, and — as I will explain — increasingly risky for the people who provide it.
Why Assessment Work Is Different From Therapy
Therapy is, for the most part, a collaborative relationship. Client and psychologist are usually working toward the same goal.
Assessment work is different. In a civil case, a disability claim, a risk to reoffend assessment, or a custody battle, someone is very likely to be unhappy with the outcome. Someone may lose a case, lose parental custody or access, or be found not to meet a threshold they hoped to meet. That person may, understandably, be upset. An upset person is far more likely to file a complaint against the psychologist whose report they believe cost them the outcome they wanted. This may not even be the person making the claim but could also be an employer whose insurance rates will go up, a treating professional, or another driver in a motor vehicle accident case.
This is not a hypothetical. It is the nature of the work. Forensic and custody evaluations, in particular, are conducted in exactly the kind of high-conflict circumstances most likely to generate a complaint, regardless of whether the assessment itself was sound.
A Complaint Is Not the Same as a Finding
Here is where the concern about the Health Professions and Occupations Act (HPOA) becomes directly relevant to assessment availability.
Under the HPOA, a psychologist’s practice can be restricted or suspended before a hearing takes place and before the evidence has been fully reviewed (HPOA s. 259, 260). The public may also be notified that a practice has been restricted or suspended before any finding of misconduct has been made (HPOA s. 256(2)(a)). A complaint, in other words, may carry severe and public consequences before it has been investigated.
The Act also expands what can be treated as misconduct, including vague concepts such as “conduct unbecoming,” bringing the profession into “disrepute” (HPOA s. 11(2)), or making “misleading” statements to a client or the public (HPOA s. 514.(2)(b)), and registrants may be required to comply with expectations that are not written down anywhere at all (CHCPBC Bylaws s. 9(3)(b)). Panels that decide these matters are only required to include two psychologists out of 21 members (CHCPBC Bylaws s. 3(5)), and decisions are made by majority vote — meaning the two psychologists on a panel can be outvoted by 16 members from unrelated professions and 3 non-professional public members. Psychologists facing discipline cannot appeal these decisions to an outside court; the only recourse is to ask the same regulator’s director of discipline to reconsider (HPOA s. 512(3)). The penalties involved are significant — fines of up to $200,000 for an individual, and up to two years in prison (HPOA s. 518), in addition to public disclosure of a proven or unproven accusation that could be ruinous to one’s career.
I want to be careful here. None of this means the College intends to misuse these powers, and I am not suggesting that it will. But the structure exists, and a psychologist weighing whether to accept a difficult custody assessment or a contested disability claim has to weigh it too. When the person conducting a report knows that an unhappy party’s complaint could become public before it is ever investigated, that a majority of the deciding panel may have no training in psychology, and that there is no appeal to a court if the process gets it wrong, it would not be surprising if some psychologists decided that this kind of work is simply no longer worth the risk.
Why This May Cost More Than It Saves
If experienced psychologists step back from civil, disability, neuropsychological, forensic, and custody assessment work — and there is good reason to believe some already have — the practical effect is delay. Fewer psychologists willing to do this work means longer waits for the people who need a report before their claim, case, or entitlement to benefits can move forward.
Delay is rarely free.
An injured worker who cannot get a timely assessment may stay out of work longer than necessary, drawing on WorksafeBC benefits for a longer period while their treatment and return to work are pushed back. An ICBC or civil claimant who cannot get an evaluation may see their case stall in the legal system, adding cost for the courts, the insurer, and often the public purse. A child waiting for a custody assessment may remain in an unresolved or unsafe living situation for months longer than necessary. A person waiting for a disability determination may go without income support they are entitled to, sometimes turning to other public systems in the meantime.
If the government of British Columbia is concerned about its deficit, it may be worth asking whether making psychological assessments harder to access is actually a cost-saving measure, or whether it simply shifts the cost elsewhere — into longer benefit periods, slower claims resolution, and a legal and disability system that takes longer, and likely costs more, to reach the same outcome it would have reached anyway.
This Concern Is Not Ours Alone
The British Columbia Psychological Association has raised similar concerns about the shift from professional self-regulation to a government-appointed model, noting that it may lead to a lack of professional expertise in governance decisions. Doctors of BC has separately raised concerns about changes to disciplinary processes, the disclosure of minor disciplinary actions, and the removal of appeal rights under the HPOA. These are not concerns unique to psychology; they are shared across the health professions the HPOA now regulates.
What I Am Asking
I am not asking the public to take my word for any of this. I am asking people to look at the sections of the Act I have referenced, to read the CHCPBC’s own bylaws, and to draw their own conclusions about whether a psychologist facing a contested custody case or a disputed disability claim might reasonably think twice before accepting it.
If that happens even in a small number of cases, the people affected will not be psychologists. They will be the injured worker, the accident victim, the child in a custody dispute, and the person applying for the disability support they need. They will also, quite possibly, be the taxpayer, footing the bill for the delay.
I encourage you to read the HPOA (https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/bills/billsprevious/3rd42nd:gov36-3#section34) and the CHCPBC’s bylaws (https://chcpbc.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/CHCPBC-Bylaws.pdf) for yourself, to review the detailed summary of concerns available on this site, and to consider what access to timely, qualified psychological assessment is worth to you, your family, or someone you know who may need one.
To learn more, review the source documents referenced here, explore other posts in this series, and find ways to take action, visit www.hpoa-psychologists.com.
It sounds like a double-edged sword. We definitely need accountability so bad actors can’t keep practicing while an investigation takes years. But if the law is written so vaguely that good psychologists are terrified to do their jobs, then the system is broken. There has to be a middle ground between public safety and due process.
This is a massive red flag for government spending. If the courts and WorkSafeBC get bogged down because they can’t find qualified specialists to write reports, the backlog will skyrocket. The government thinks they are protecting the public, but they are just creating a massive, expensive bottleneck that the taxpayers will end up funding.
As someone who went through a brutal custody battle, the independent psychological report was the only thing that kept my kids safe. It took six months to get it back then. If psychologists start refusing this work because they are scared of vindictive exes filing fake complaints, families are going to be trapped in legal limbo forever. This is terrifying.
Thank you for speaking out on this. Doctors of BC voiced the exact same concerns regarding the loss of a fair appeal process. When the only mechanism for appeal is asking the same regulator to change its mind, the system loses all checks and balances. This legislation treats highly trained specialists like liability hazards.
Spot on. Many of us are quietly discussing this. The risk-to-reward ratio for doing custody and forensic assessments was already skewed due to high conflict, but the HPOA completely tips the scales. If a single unverified complaint can result in a public suspension before a proper investigation is even launched, it is simply safer to stick strictly to therapy. The public has no idea how fast this workforce is going to shrink.