Shortage Of Psychiatrists Hurts Patients As Demand For Services Rises
State officials are taking steps to address the gap as lower pay, reimbursement difficulties and paperwork requirements discourage more medical students from going into the specialty. In other mental health news, doctors are encouraged to screen teenagers for depression and hospitals are detaining more patients.
The Associated Press:
Pay, Paperwork Feed Psychiatrist Shortage In U.S.
It is an irony that troubles health care providers and policymakers nationwide: Even as public awareness of mental illness increases, a shortage of psychiatrists worsens. In vast swaths of America, patients face lengthy drives to reach the nearest psychiatrist, if they can even find one willing to see them. Some states are promoting wider use of long-distance telepsychiatry to fill the gaps in care. In Texas, lawmakers recently voted to pay the student loans of psychiatrists willing to work in underserved areas. A bill in Congress would forgive student loans for child psychiatrists. (Crary, 9/7)
USA Today:
Doctors Urged To Screen Teens For Major Depression
Doctors should screen teenagers for major depression, a federal advisory group said Monday, but only if their young patients have access to mental health professionals who can diagnose them, provide treatment and monitor their progress. That’s a big “if.” Mental health services are in short supply for anyone, but especially teens, said Jeffrey Lieberman, a professor and chairman of psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. (Szabo, 9/7)
The Associated Press:
Hospital Detentions Of Mentally Ill Increasing
More than a year ago, a state Supreme Court ruling spurred a full-court press by state government to find space for patients with mental illness. Detentions outside the psychiatric units intended to treat those patients became more rare. Now such detentions are back on the rise and happening as frequently as they did just before the court decision. (Schrader, 9/5)
In regional news, a Brooklyn sister tries to track down her brother diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Maryland sees an uptick in gambling addiction and Austin, Texas expands mental health services for students -
The New York Times:
On The Trail Of A Mentally Ill Brother, Lost In Brooklyn
Ever since they were children, Aukejshia Boyce-Gaskins made sure to look out for her younger half brother, Birshon Daley. Their mother, addicted to crack cocaine, dumped them with their great-grandmother when Ms. Boyce-Gaskins was 10 and her brother was 2. Ms. Boyce-Gaskins helped raise Mr. Daley in a small town in Georgia, even taking him in after she graduated from high school. Eventually, she sent him to live with his father in Brooklyn. But then came his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. His father died. Almost three years ago, he disappeared. (Barker, 9/5)
The Washington Post:
In Maryland, Gambling Addiction Is Growing, But Treatment Options Are Not
Michael Rosen listens to the wreckage that the $1 billion gambling industry has wrought in Maryland.
He listens to the man, $400,000 in debt, whose wife threw him out of the house and told him he couldn’t see his kids again unless he gave up gambling. He listens to the gambler who went on a three-day blackjack binge without sleeping and rarely eating. ... Rosen, who helps manage the state’s increasingly busy 1-800-GAMBLER help line, commiserates with the desperate and directs many to Gamblers Anonymous meetings. But he can’t suggest any free treatment programs because Maryland, one of the country’s most concentrated casino markets, doesn’t offer any. (Heim, 9/7)
The Austin-American Statesman:
Austin District Expands Campus-Based Mental Health Services
From the outside, it looks like any other classroom. But just beyond the yellow door at Crockett High School is a counseling center with a licensed psychologist that offers therapy and mental health services beyond what administrators and high school guidance counselors are usually able to provide. (Taboada, 9/6)
